Donald Trump National Security Adviser Mike Flynn Has Called Islam 'a Cancer'
“I've been at war with Islam, or a component of Islam, for the last decade."
ABC News
— – The man whom President-elect Donald Trump picked as his national security adviser has said he doesn’t believe that all cultures are “morally equivalent” and once described Islam as "a cancer," comments that have many in the Muslim community worried about what his new job might mean for them.
Retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn served as an adviser to Trump on national security and foreign policy throughout the presidential campaign. Flynn has said he agreed with Trump's initial proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States, but told Al Jazeera earlier this year it likely "wouldn't work," and that he supports the vetting of Muslims coming from Syria and places where terrorism is a major threat.
He also accompanied Trump to his first top-secret national security briefing in August this year, and he was vetted as a potential running mate before Vice President-elect Mike Pence was eventually announced, two senior level sources with direct knowledge told ABC News earlier this year.
“I am pleased that Lieutenant General Michael Flynn will be by my side as we work to defeat radical Islamic terrorism, navigate geopolitical challenges and keep Americans safe at home and abroad,” Trump said in a statement today. “General Flynn is one of the country’s foremost experts on military and intelligence matters and he will be an invaluable asset to me and my administration.”
The position of National Security Adviser does not require U.S. Senate approval.
Here are some of his controversial comments:
Flynn on ‘Radical Islam’
Flynn, a registered Democrat who had a decades-long military career, served under the Obama administration until reportedly being forced to retire early as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014. The early retirement resulted from "the stand I took on radical Islam,” he wrote in an op-ed for the New York Post.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby reportedly said at the time that the retirement had “been planned for some time” and that then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel “appreciates [his] service."
For Flynn’s part, he told Fox News in April 2015, “I've been at war with Islam, or a component of Islam, for the last decade.”
Flynn earlier this year released a book "The Field of Fight: How We Can Win The Global War Against Radical Islam And Its Allies” that he co-wrote sharing his views on what he called the “global war against radical Islam,” calling for the United States to develop a deeper understanding of radical ideology.
Flynn wrote, “we’re in a world war against a messianic mass movement of evil people, most of them inspired by a totalitarian ideology: Radical Islam.”
He also said in the book, “I don’t believe all cultures are morally equivalent, and I think the West, and especially America, is far more civilized, far more ethical and moral, than the system our main enemies want to impose on us."
“And we’ve got to stop feeling the slightest bit guilty about calling them by name and identifying them as fanatical killers acting on behalf of a failed civilization.”
Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn delivers a speech on the first day of the Republican Na…
Brooks Kraft/Getty Images
Flynn, who’s chairman and CEO of Flynn Intel Group, is also a board member of ACT for America, which the Southern Poverty Law Center calls “far and away the largest grassroots anti-Muslim group in America.”
The organization bills itself as “the nation’s largest non-profit, non-partisan, grassroots national security organization” that’s “committed to recruiting, training, and mobilizing citizens community by community to help protect and preserve American culture and to keep this nation safe,” according to its website.
ACT for America did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment
“Mr. Flynn's past Islamophobic statements, and his association with the nation's most venomous anti-Muslim hate group, should disqualify him from serving in any public office,” Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told ABC News before Flynn’s official selection.
In this tweet from February, Flynn said the fear of Muslims is a rational one:
Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL: please forward this to others: the truth fears no questions … “ he tweeted, referring to an anti-Muslim video from a third party.
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