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A few months ago I took
Newsweek magazine to task for printing the findings of one “Christoph
Luxenberg,” a name assumed by the author of a book supposedly
debunking Islam. I didn’t challenge his conclusions; what oinked me
off was the fact that Newsweek would lend its credibility to an
anonymous assault. Readers had no way to tell if Luxenberg was the
esteemed academic the magazine claimed he was, whether he has any
particular qualifications, or if the magazine was merely printing
another of its stock-in-trade knee jerk rants on religion, albeit
with a new target.
My column drew a response
from a reader who thought me too quick to pooh-pooh the risks of
criticizing Islam and gave examples to prove it, including the
observations of an author who had written on both the Mafia and
Islam and found it easier to get people to rat on the Mob. I wrote
back that Newsweek ought to hold its articles to at least the same
standards as a letter to the editor. Besides, I wrote, the best
weapon against bullies is courage.
So it is, and so I would
advise Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin. Boykin, the deputy
undersecretary of defense for intelligence, drew heat for comments
some believe cast the war on terror and the wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq as religious conflicts, which, if you ask the people who kicked
off the whole mess on September 11, they are.
The comments were made to Christian groups while the
general was off-duty, though reportedly in uniform on at least one
occasion. Associated Press quotes Boykin as calling the war on
terrorism a dust-up between Christianity and “a guy named Satan,”
and saying of a battle with a Muslim Somali warlord, “I knew my god
was bigger than his. I knew that my god was a real god and his was
an idol.” There was more, but that’s the gist of it.
Muslim groups were understandably annoyed and said so.
They have not, as far as I’ve heard, harmed the general or
threatened him in any way.
That’s been left to American politicians. Sen. John
Kerry of Massachusetts and Rep. John Conyers of Michigan have been
widely quoted, but perhaps the most puzzling comments came from Sen.
Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, whom I have always considered
rational.
Lieberman told Associated Press that comments like
Boykin’s could contribute to a “global theological conflict,” having
apparently missed the one we’ve been in since at least the Iranian
revolution of the 1970s. Lieberman, an orthodox Jew who was
excommunicated by a New York rabbinical court in 2000, also found
the general’s views “wrong theologically.” Exactly where he gets
the standing to support that conclusion was not noted.
A casual observer of the Boykin ruckus would not guess
the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and religion, nor that
providing a military is one of few duties the Constitution gives our
federal government. Otherwise, one might think a military man could
speak freely of his religious beliefs.
One would be mistaken. There have been demands for
Boykin to be disciplined, dismissed, or both; the Pentagon says the
general has violated no rules and it has no plan to do either. In
other words, he’s doomed.
There is, ironically, a legitimate basis for action
against the general. Military personnel surrender certain rights as
a condition of enlistment, and the administration has been clear it
does not view the war on terror as a religious matter despite what
the other side thinks. Boykin could rightly be disciplined for
publicly contradicting his superiors.
Yet no one has suggested that; General Boykin has been
attacked solely for questioning Islam. The critic of my last column
on Islam might have predicted that – except who is firing the shots.
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