When congressional leaders asked the State Department to tailor American assistance to Nigeria in a way that would protect Christians from religious persecution at the hands of Boko Haram, an extremist group that kidnapped hundreds of Christian girls last month, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's team dismissed the idea on the theory that the organization was not motivated by religion.
Caitlin Poling, a former aide to Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., said she couldn't believe the State Department's implication that Boko Haram was analogous to a religious minority in the United States.
"We don't have daily assaults by extremist Muslims on churches in the U.S.," Poling, who is now the director of government relations at the Foreign Policy Initiative, told the Washington Examiner. "Could you imagine if a group like Boko Haram was perpetrating such attacks in the United States? I don't think it would be that same type of line from anyone in the administration."
Poling explained that Boko Haram carried out attacks against Christians in order to provoke Christian counterattacks, which Boko Haram then used as a means of radicalizing moderate Muslims.
Congressional leaders such as Pompeo and Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., wanted State to help secure religious communities against such attacks.
"The State Department should acknowledge the religiously-motivated nature of this violence and conduct an assessment of Boko Haram in that context," a bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote to Clinton in July 2012, only to receive Adams' contrary response. "It will then be possible to appropriately tailor State Department and USAID initiatives in Nigeria to include a strong emphasis on ensuring the security of Christians and moderate Muslims."
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