CAIR Wins One At West Point

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has released an announcement bragging that they have successfully prevented retired Lieutenant General William G. “Jerry” Boykin from speaking at an upcoming prayer breakfast at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

“We welcome Mr. Boykin’s withdrawal from this event and hope that the speaker who replaces him will offer cadets a spiritual message that promotes tolerance and mutual understanding,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad in a statement.

I love hearing about 'tolerance and mutual understanding' from a man who is on record saying he supports Hamas and was on the verge on being indicted and tried in the second phase of the Holy Land Foundation Trial..until the Obama Department of Justice filed declinations to prosecute on Awad and a slew of others and allowed them to avoid prosecution. Yes, they're getting bold indeed.

So who is General Boykin, and why was CAIR so anxious to stop him from speaking at West Point?

Lt. General William 'Jerry' Boykin has a long and distinguished career specializing in intelligence and Special forces Warfare. Among his decorations are the Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal (with 3 Oak Leaf Clusters), Legion of Merit (with Oak Leaf Cluster), Bronze Star, Air Medal and the Purple Heart (with Oak Leaf Cluster. He also attended the Armed Forces Staff College, Army War College, and received a masters from Shippensburg University.

Boykin started out in armor with the Army's 2nd Armored division and later moved over to the Screaming Eagles, where he got his jump badge as a paratrooper. He later volunteered for the Army's elite Delta Force,and participated in a number of Army operations, serving in Grenada, Somalia, Panama and Iraq.

Boykin then served with the CIA Agency as Deputy Director of Special Activities, and ended up promoted to the rank of Brigadier General.

After that,he served as the Commanding General for the U.S. Army Special Forces Command (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and went from there to being the the Commanding General in charge of the US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center. He finished his career as Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence during the Bush Administration and retired in 2007.

So why would there be a problem with an experienced, intelligent soldier like this with a lifetime of service to his country addressing the West Point cadets at a prayer breakfast?

Oh, wait, I forgot one thing. He's a committed and devout Christian with a rather jaundiced view of Islam, sharia and jihad.

For instance, back 2003 when he was hunting down terrorist Osman Atto in Mogadishu he remarked: "He went on CNN and he laughed at us, and he said, 'They'll never get me because Allah will protect me. Allah will protect me.' Well, you know what? I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."

Those remarks were taped clandestinely and whipped into a firestorm by William Arkin, an anti-military far Leftwing writer then working for NBC, who reported them in the worst possible light. Boykin attempted to clarify his remarks, saying that he was implying that Atto's true "god" was money, but that was enough to set CAIR, the dinosaur media, and all of the politically correct politicians in DC at Boykin's heels.The only one who seriously defended him was SecDef Don Rumsfeld ( likely after giving him a decent chewing out for not being more careful). Rummy referred to Boykin as "an officer that has an outstanding record in the United States armed forces" an dmentioned a few things about freedom of speech.

Since he's been retired,Boykin has been a lot more outspoken, warning that there is a stealth jihad occurring here in America and that a large percentage of the mosques have already been radicalized.He also has made remarks to the effect that as a Christian, he feels there is n ongoing spiritual war that is continuous as articulated in the Bible...and that it's not confined to the war of terrorism.In other words, he takes literally what G-d told the Jews about Amalek.

I especially liked these remarks of General Boykins, spoken in 2008 at a conference in Israel and received with a standing ovation:

We as believers have been promised that we will spend an eternity with God. Last Saturday I was doing a men's conference in Fredricksburg, Virginia and I was praying during the worship service and something dawned on me and it was the Holy Spirit speaking to me.

And the Holy Spirit said, "this is what I want you to share with My men today", and I'm going to share it with you and this is what it is: One day, we're going to stand before the gates of Heaven. Some of us want to be able to walk up there in a white robe and we want to sing Abba Father and Amazing Grace and we want to say to the Lord, "I worshiped You."

But I want you to think about this: Here's the way I want to enter the gates of Heaven. I want to come skidding in there on all fours. I want to be slipping and sliding and I want to hit the gates of heaven with a bang. And when I stand up and I stand before Christ, I want there to be blood on my knees and my elbows. I want to be covered with mud. And I want to be standing there with a ragged breast plate of righteousness. And a spear in my hand. And I want to say, "Look at me, Jesus. I've been in the battle. I've been fighting for you." Ladies and gentlemen, put your armor on and get into battle.

God bless you.

No wonder CAIR didn't want this man anywhere near the cadets.

Originally, West Point stood by its commitment to have General Boykin speak at the breakfast, saying he was aware that it was an interfaith event and wasn't going to say anything untoward. But the pressure was intense,including,if my sources are correct, directly from Washington. And in the end, General Boykin, depending on whom you believe was either disinvited or chose not to subject the Academy to any more controversy and opted out.

So CAIR and their allies won this particular battle. But General Boykin continues to write and speak and is finding a great many listeners in other quarters, so a temporary setback of this kind
is likely to just get him to intensify his efforts. I'm sure this particular warrior is going going to keep right on going until he wins.