Onward Christian Soldier

Politics and religion
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Remember General Boykin?

In a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., recommended Lt. Gen. William G. (Jerry) Boykin, currently the Pentagon’s deputy undersecretary for intelligence, for the post at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla.

The current commander, Army Gen. Bryan “Doug” Brown, is retiring, and the Pentagon has not filled the job.

“I am told, and I believe it to be true, that no special operations officer currently on active duty is more highly respected or admired by his superiors, peers or subordinates alike, than Jerry Boykin,” Allen wrote in the letter dated March 31 and obtained by The Associated Press.

Allen, a first-term Virginia senator and potential 2008 presidential candidate, does not serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is in charge of approving Pentagon nominations. A spokesman for the senator said Boykin is one of Allen’s constituents and that many people approached the senator and recommended the general.

Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), the Republican chairman of that committee and Virginia’s senior senator, does not agree with Allen’s suggestion.

“Senator Allen is entitled to his views. He did not consult with me on this matter, but this officer would not be among those whom I would recommend for this position,” Warner said in a statement to the AP.

In 2003, Boykin gave speeches at evangelical Christian churches in which he painted the war on terror as a Christian fight against Satan and suggested that Muslims worship idols. Boykin later apologized for his characterizations as conservatives rushed to defend him.

A Pentagon investigation the following year found that Boykin violated regulations by failing to make clear he was not speaking in an official capacity when he made the speeches, sometimes wearing his Army uniform. The probe also found Boykin violated Pentagon rules by failing to obtain advance clearance for his remarks.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060404/ap_on_go_co/general_special_ops

Allen’s an idiot. At least Sen. Warner rolled up a newspaper and bopped him on the nose.

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The stupidity just never ends…

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What’s scary is that Allen seems to be a viable candidate for 2008. I mean, Christ, has a lack of brain cells become a requirement for political office? I understand that we elect morons in VA (well, about half the time – the other half of the time we do okay), but seriously, how could the Republican party look at this guy and say “yeah, he might be a decent president.”

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Gen. Boykin’s friends in the Senate

Say this for Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin – he knows how to get ahead in this administration.

In the summer of 2003, Boykin donned military dress and appeared before an evangelical audience to talk about Christianity and the war on terror. It was one of at least 23 such talks he delivered to religious audiences, almost always in uniform. Islamists, he told his listeners, hate America “because we’re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian … and the enemy is a guy named Satan.”

He meant that literally – Boykin apparently believes that Satan’s supernatural soldiers participate in the military operations of America’s enemies, and that said soldiers can be captured on film. At several of his talks, he showed photos from the capital of Somalia, where he had commanded Delta Forces during the 1993 battle there. In the pictures, there were black streaks in the sky, photographic evidence, he said, of a “demonic spirit over the city of Mogadishu.”

To some, this kind of delusion might suggest that Boykin is not well and should be relieved of his duties. Instead, George W. Bush chose to promote him to deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, where he was put in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In his new position, Boykin served as military assistant to Stephen Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, and he helped his boss bring the kind of torture and degradation that went on at Guantánamo Bay to Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. As Reuters reported in May 2004:

"The U.S. Army general under investigation for anti-Islamic remarks has been linked by U.S. officials to the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal, which experts warned could touch off new outrage overseas.

"A Senate hearing into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners was told on Tuesday that Lt. Gen. William Boykin, an evangelical Christian under review for saying his God was superior to that of the Muslims, briefed a top Pentagon civilian official last summer on recommendations on ways military interrogators could gain more intelligence from Iraqi prisoners.

“Critics have suggested those recommendations amounted to a senior-level go-ahead for the sexual and physical abuse of prisoners, possibly to ‘soften up’ detainees before interrogation – a charge the Pentagon denies.”

None of this hurt Boykin’s career, of course. Instead, Virginia Sen. George Allen – a likely GOP presidential candidate in 2008 – is now recommending Boykin to lead the U.S. Special Operations Command. According to the Associated Press, Allen sent a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urging him to nominate Boykin, saying he has the support of “many of my colleagues here in the Senate.”

It will be interesting to see if John McCain is one of those colleagues. He has been a staunch opponent of torture (to write that is to wistfully remember when that went without saying for almost everyone in public life), but he’s also desperate to score points with the religious right in preparation for his own presidential campaign.

As War Room noted on Monday, in 2000, McCain tried to separate himself from the dominant block within his party, denouncing Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as “agents of intolerance.” He told Tim Russert, “Governor Bush swung far to the right and sought out the base support of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. That’s – those aren’t the ideas that I think are good for the Republican Party.” That kind of independence didn’t work out too well for him, so this year McCain is embracing the forces he once disdained, giving the commencement speech at Falwell’s Liberty University and telling Russert, “I believe that the Christ – quote, ‘Christian right,’ has a major role to play in the Republican Party.”

No doubt, the Christian right is going to line up behind Boykin. But will McCain back someone known for both his role in torture and his religious grandstanding? If he does, maybe it really is time to talk about the devil’s role in human affairs, because the senator will have sold his soul.

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Birds of a Feather…

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At several of his talks, he showed photos from the capital of Somalia, where he had commanded Delta Forces during the 1993 battle there. In the pictures, there were black streaks in the sky, photographic evidence, he said, of a “demonic spirit over the city of Mogadishu.”

Those weren’t from demons — they were from OUR PRECIOUS FLUIDS.

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Yeah, that’s that this made me think of too. Only this is arguably more crazy. And it’s real. I mean, it’s honestly pretty chilling.

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Definitely.

Ever see “Seven Days in May,” with Kirk Douglas? That’s a totally serious crazy-general film, and that general has senatorial support. Good movie, too.

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He’s baaack. But not for long.

Jan. 9, 2007 - Airstrikes this week on alleged Al Qaeda figures in Somalia may prove to be one of the last counterterrorism operations associated with a controversial Pentagon general who has overseen the deployment of secret U.S. Special Ops teams against suspected terror plotters, defense experts close to the Pentagon and intelligence community tell NEWSWEEK.

Lt. Gen. William Boykin and his boss, soon-to-depart Defense Undersecretary for Intelligence Steve Cambone, have guided or taken part in the planning of such covert operations against Al Qaeda-linked groups in several countries since 9/11. There is no indication that new Defense Secretary Robert Gates disagrees with the Somalia operation this week. But Boykin has long been a divisive figure.

While Cambone’s departure has been announced, Boykin’s has not. A Defense Department spokesman would not confirm Wednesday that Boykin was planning to retire, but he declined to deny it either. “There have been no announcements about his retirement,” said the spokesman, Maj. David Smith. A U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity owing to the sensitivity of the subject, said that Boykin currently was still on the job. But word around the Pentagon was that Gates would ask Boykin to go, this official said. Consultants who work with the intelligence and Special Operations community said it was all but certain that Boykin was following Cambone out the door. “If you’re getting rid of Cambone, you almost certainly have to get rid of Boykin,” says Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counterterrorism official who stays in touch with the community. “They’re hand in glove. Gates feels it all went out of control, that they’re doing too many things in too many places.”

Pentagon spokesman Joe Carpenter said the targets were “principal Al Qaeda leadership in the region. We’re not discussing their identities or the individuals that were targeted.” However, intelligence officials said U.S. forces were hoping that at least one of the three of the figures involved in the planning of the 1998 embassy attacks was among the dozens reported killed by the strikes. Two senior intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the details of the operation were classified, said it was not confirmed whether any of the Al Qaeda figures was dead.

Critics of the covert program say that Gates and Cambone’s replacement, Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper, are concerned that too much collateral damage may work against U.S. interests. Giraldi says the U.S. Special Ops teams operate too often without accountability, not even notifying the local U.S. Embassy of their presence. In one case in East Africa a clandestine team was arrested by the host government and had to be bailed out by the ambassador, Giraldi says. Adds Arquilla, an advocate of dropping small teams into countries rather than launching airstrikes: “There’s a growing realization in the Pentagon that the more collateral damage is done, the worse is our position in the ‘battle of the story’—in other words, every time we kill innocents our story is much less compelling and the clash of civilizations story is much more compelling.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16549316/site/newsweek/

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Hahaha, I just thought this was a new thread, and I saw this and went “WTF the fuck?!”

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Macaca!

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I thank Brian Rucker and all the other good Virginians for saving the rest of the country from Allen (I should point out that while I couldn’t give much time, I gave more money to the Webb campaign than I’ve ever given in any non-presidential election before).

Now if only Texas would’ve saved us from Bush… <grin>

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Austin tried.

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…and apparently forgot the lessons from Slacker.

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A key al-Qaeda suspect was not killed during Monday’s air strike in southern Somalia, the top United States diplomat in the region has told the BBC. Somali officials had said that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, accused of masterminding the 1998 bomb attacks on US embassies in East Africa, was dead.

Ambassador Michael Ranneberger also strongly denied reports that a number of civilians had died in the attack.

The US says it carried out the air strikes to target al-Qaeda suspects.

There has been considerable criticism of the US after its first overt military action in Somalia since 1994.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6251077.stm