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U.S. Army via Getty Images
Retired Lt. General William G. Boykin is seen in front of a flag. He has been criticized for anti-Muslim remarks.
Updated at 9 p.m. ET
West Point issued a brief statement late Monday saying that retired Lt. Gen. William Boykin has decided to withdraw from speaking at the Feb. 8 prayer breakfast and another speaker would be lined up in his place.
Earlier
The Army is drawing protests from veterans’ and Islamic groups for inviting a retired general who many have called anti-Muslim to speak at a West Point prayer breakfast.
Lt. Gen William G. Boykin has been criticized for speeches at evangelical Christian churches in which he made disparaging remarks about Islam. Boykin has said that Muslims are trying to implement Shariah Law in the United States and that Islam is the greatest threat America faces.
According to The Associated Press, Boykin has also said that America's enemy was Satan, that God had put President George W. Bush in the White House and that one Muslim Somali warlord was an idol-worshipper.
Groups such as VoteVets.org, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, as well as Forum on Military Chaplaincy all petitioned the Pentagon to stop Boykin from speaking at the Feb. 8 breakfast, Stars and Stripes reported.
VoteVets.org told Army Gen. Raymond Odierno in a letter that allowing retired Boykin to speak at the Feb. 3 National Prayer Breakfast Service would be contrary to Army values and disrespectful to Muslim cadets.
'Incompatible with Army values'
"These remarks are incompatible with the Army values, and a person who is incompatible with Army values should not address the cadets of the United States Military Academy," VoteVets chairman Jon Soltz said in the letter, according to The Associated Press.
Army public affairs didn't immediately comment, though West Point's Lt. Col. Sherri Reed said cadets are "purposefully exposed to different perspectives and cultures" during their four years at the academy.
"The National Prayer Breakfast Service will be pluralistic with Christians, Jewish, and Muslim cadets participating," Reed said in a prepared statement. "We are comfortable and confident that what retired Lt. Gen. Boykin will share about prayer, soldier care and selfless service, will be in keeping with the broad range of ideas normally considered by our cadets."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is also asking officials to retract the invitation.
“Having a guy like that speak at a respected institution like the U.S. Military Academy gives credibility to his extremist views of hatred toward Muslims,” Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for Council on American Islamic Relations, told msnbc.com. “We are strong defenders of the First Amendment. What we are saying is that he not be allowed to spread views at West Point. He can go shout his hatred on the streets if he wants to.”
Hooper calls the argument that Boykin represents an alternative viewpoint “ridiculous,” and equates it with inviting a racist white leader to speak at West Point since some of the cadets are African American.
“I doubt that they would invite a KKK speaker and claim that they want to expose the students to a variety of opinions," CAIR’s national executive director, Nihad Awad, told the Associated Press, referring to the hate group the Ku Klux Klan.
Just last week, CAIR and People for the American Way had asked officials in Maryland to rescind an invitation for Boykin to speak at a prayer breakfast. Boykin attended and spoke about his faith and did not mention Islam.
Before his retirement in 2002, Boykin was chastised by military commanders for comparing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to a holy war. Boykin later issued a written statement apologizing and said he didn't mean to insult Islam.
Pentagon investigation concluded that Boykin violated regulations by failing to make clear he was not speaking in an official capacity when he made nearly two dozen church speeches beginning in January 2002. It also found that Boykin, who made most speeches wearing his uniform, didn't get prior clearance for the remarks.
Boykin couldn't immediately be reached by msnbc.com for comment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News
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And so the downfall of America continues. Our military has been completely compromised. Anyone who defends Islam either has never been around a Muslim community, or is Muslim themselves.
Having a psychotic running around spouting sectarian-oriented giberish and attacking religious faiths at one of our service academies weakens our military and confuses its identity and mission. Our services are staffed by Americans from all walks of life and all religious backgrounds, who come together as a cohesive unit for the purpose of defending the country, with us taxpayers picking up the tab. Boykins' ravings make it sound like the United States Armed Services are some sectarian religious group, like the Knights Templar or the "Army of God" (both Christian and Muslim branches), who are out to fight some sort of "holy war" out of the Middle Ages. Our armed forces are simply not religious entities. They are public entities. It scares me to think what this Boykin did while he was on active duty.
Well said. Good post.
Patty in M land, You maam, sound like you're jus a lil psychotic yurself tho.
Hmmm, ... yesss yu do.
debko: I don't run around telling people that "the enemy of America" is an evil god that some people postulate exists and is called "Satan" or that the entire Islamic faith is evil, or that "God" appoints a person to the Presidency of the United States, and then doesn't appoint another one. I have been well aware, working in DC and Northern Virginia in Pentagon row, and around the Capitol, that for the last decade or two, there have been a cadre of phony Christians, like "the Family" on C St., S.W., and "the Christian Embassy" in Arlington, VA., who have been trying to insinuate themselves into our great national institutions, which belong to everyone, in a way to poison them into serving the sick desires of the Fascist-Fundy "Christians", with their psychotic beliefs in "666," the "end times", "Satan," "Muslims are evil," and every aspect of life in this nation must be "biblical" according to the interpretation of some of white, male used-car salesmen foolish enough to believe that their "bible" is somehow the foolproof writing of their creator. This is the United States of America, and our national institutions like the armed services serve the nation, not some religious cult.
How well DID Boykin serve with his Muslim colleagues, or his Jewish colleagues, or his Methodist colleagues, or his Lutheran colleagues, or his Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan, and Atheist colleagues when he was on active duty? I seem to remember that he was one of the people who made anti-other-faiths, pro-Fundamentalist Christian speechs and videotapes while in his Army uniform, using his Army rank as an advertising gimmick, in clear violation of the regulations governing the conduct of our armed forces. Was he one of the yahoos who insisted that our soldiers either attend these silly hands-in-the-air "concerts" by religious-cult bands, held on military bases, or stay and clean the barracks? There is a lot of explaining to do. The Army I pay for is a defensive force. It's not a force to go fighting for Robertson's or Hagee's or any other mentally retarded folks's @!$%#faced "religious" ideas.
So pattie, when is the last time we "defended" "our" country? I think it was WWII. Since then these forays have been expeditionary forces bent on Imperialism. That being said, we are only countering Moslem imperialistic forces since the end of Viet Nam....
The last time we actually "defended" anything was WWII. The other stuff was just glop, as is the current fighting with, stupidly, something that the most stupid and ignorant among us define as an entire faith, to wit: Islam. If we are fighting for access to oil, be honest. If we are fighting for Isreal, be honest. If we are fighting for Saudi Arabia (the darling of the Bush Family), be honest. If we are fighting in the Middle East so that the PRIVATE oil companies can have free access to oil, and then charge US an arm and a leg for it, after we, ourselves, paid for the military minuevers, be honest. But we stray from topic. Boykin is a raving lunatic who, instead of being proud of the Army in which he served, wants to manipulate it into an army commanded by their Majesties Pat Robertson and Richard Land, the gutter sluts of "Christianity."
Rubbish and nonsense. Ignorant alarmist. Chicken Little silly.
Your are mistaken. Indeed, you are very much in error. And your spelling and English is not very much better, either.
False premise. Straw man. Ignorant and malicious statement. Perhaps plain stupidity.
False premise. Faulty logic. Non-Sequitur - does NOT follow.
Listening, but you are not talking sense or facts; malicious incoherent unsubstantiated absurdities carry no argument. Sorry.
An out of context quote is at best meaningless - and non representative of the Scripture which is a coherent rational whole - at worse ignorant and malicious.
There is NO reason too. The Noble Koran is rational and coherent when read in full...and when quoted in context it is wise, logical and reasonable. And profoundly so.
The Noble Koran is emancipatory for women. In it Allah gives women unalienable rights, individuality, and freedoms...in the 7th Century, that have yet to be given to western civilization in the 21st Century.
Why then are you commenting from ignorance? How then can you expect your comments have value except as a comment on yourself...
READ THE BOOK before you engage in commenting on it.
Hamzsque
If this is so would you care to name an Islamic country that affords all it's people the same level of rights and freedoms that the average Western country does.
Read the book. Bunch of hocus-pocus trash. Only thing close is the bible....
Ibrahimm Hooper, You are wrong sir, >>> unless you have served your country in time of war, or in battle, just be quiet because YOU do NOT speak for ME. Furthermore, I have no problem listening to ANY American General, (RET or not) giving a speech. HE HAS EARNED HIS RIGHT to some FREE Speech lattitude.
Any religion that dictates killing needs to be resisted. And before you call me a Christian, don't. I am not one. That being said, Mohammedism needs to be eradicated from the face of the Earth. And it needs to be done with impunity and with no relation to any other -isms or -anities...... Even atheists recognize it as being a scourge on civilised humanity! I read that piece of crap book The Qu'ran that I received from the terrorist group CAIR! I was so disgusted I burnt the damn thing. That religion is so exclusionary that it states that unless you are a native-born speaker of Arabic you cannot understand the nuances of the 99 names of al-Ilah. What a bunch of B.S. So even if you convert as a Western English speaker you are still not accorded the same status as a "born in the desert" camel rustler!
Why cant the left stand the truth?
God is on OUR side!
"Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime" . . . ~Lord Acton
Hypocrisy is a universal evil that by its very nature is not recognized by those under it's spell. Any religion not rooted in the belief of an indivisible Human Family feeds hypocrisy. This is also true of our secular religions of greed, empire and American exceptionalism.
Humanity is our common inheritance, America but a sub-set. Americans are no more and no less Human than other nations in the world. Like people, all nations perceive themselves to be special. The only special people are the ones that believe that All people are special, all Life is sacred and planet Earth our common home, not some arbitrary imaginary lines in the sand created by conquest, plunder and injustice. If there is a God, G_d is on OUR side, not our side. WE are one Human Family, all else is a distraction.
Tillman died in Afghanistan.
Boykin is retired. He should never again speak in uniform. Private religious views which clash with the govt policy cannot be permitted on the grounds of property paid for by all the taxpayers. We cannot risk offending muslims anymore because they'll blow up more bldgs requiring more cadets to go fight and die in a war against agents of the Religion of Peace.
Ignorance is Strength!!
Boykin is no hero. He was the commanding officer responsible for the disaster in Mogadishu ("Black Hawk Down") and was originally identified as psychologically unfit for Delta Force when he applied. He remains the same kind of guy -- shoots from the lip, as it were. Insists that everyone has to believe the WAY he does. Believes he's protected by God, and anyone who opposes him works for the Devil.
He is, indeed, an extremist.
Cooper is right, he's free to go out into the streets and preach hate, but if he in any way even appears to represent an official U.S. Army position against any religion, he's doing everyone a disservice and must be stopped. Some have commented that radical Islam is a threat and you are right, but if you ONLY speak against radical Islam as a person in authority and not radicalism in general, you A) give the appearance of bias and B) give the appearance of representing institutional bias, neither of which is acceptable under the circumstances. The only exception would be at some sort of specifically defined symposium in which someone were to speak as an expert. Even then, those may have strong political or sectarinan bent and should be scrutinized very carefully.
Gay Pride makes me ARMY Strong.