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<p>Nothing is more predictable than hysteria when Democrats say boo to a certain species of Republican. Sen. John Warner of Virginia, like a horse-country gent arriving late to the fox hunt, yesterday joined the hue and cry to take out Lt. Gen. William Boykin for his remarks, already widely distorted, decrying radical Islam's violent expression of a hijacked faith.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Joe Lieberman said a top Army general should be reprimanded for his criticism of Muslims, calling those comments the "mirror opposite" of Osama bin Laden's vilification of Christians and Jews. In an interview with Associated Press reporters and editors, Lieberman said Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin should be held to account for casting the United States' fight against terrorists in religious terms with comments that were "wrong theologically" and "very bigoted." The general, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, has come under widespread criticism since the Los Angeles Times reported last Thursday that he...

EDITOR'S NOTE: This appears in the Nov. 10, 2003, issue of National Review. During the Korean War, Douglas MacArthur wanted to attack Manchuria, and he let that be known to everyone who would listen. That was not U.S. policy, however, and President Truman promptly sacked the great man. During the Cold War — in fact often pretty hot — NATO general Edwin Walker was instructing his troops in the theorems of the John Birch Society. That the U.S. government was 60 percent under Communist control was not the view of the Kennedy administration, and Walker was gone. Flash forward to...

<p>AT FIRST it sounded like satire. My God is bigger than yours? Did General William Boykin actually taunt his Islamic enemy with that muscular divinity? Not my weapons are bigger than yours.</p> <p>Not my battalions are bigger than yours. My God is bigger. It sounded like some e-mail that got through the morning spam filter: Click here if you want your God to be three inches bigger.</p>

Who Is William Arkin?A look at the Greenpeace activist cum L.A. Times military affairs columnist who's taking after Gen. Jerry Boykin. by Hugh Hewitt 10/23/2003 12:00:00 AM Hugh Hewitt, contributing writerWHO IS WILLIAM ARKIN? For starters, he is the scribbler who launched the assault on Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin a week ago by providing NBC with tapes of Boykin speaking in churches, and then followed with a Los Angeles Times op-ed that accused the general of being "an intolerant extremist" and a man "who believes in Christian 'jihad'" (Arkin later admitted on my radio program that Boykin never used the...

Remarks about religion by Lt. General William G. Boykin drew the disapproval of President Bush, who told a gathering of moderate Muslims in Bali, Indonesia, that the general's comments "didn't reflect my opinion ... it just doesn't reflect what the government thinks." Gen. Boykin, deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence and war-fighting, had been quoted as comparing the war against Islamic militants to Christianity’s struggle against Satan and had told evangelical gatherings that a militant Muslim militia leader in Somalia worshiped an "idol" and not a "real God." According to the New York Times, the general has been...

Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin, deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, ignited an international firestorm. Addressing a religious group in June 2003, Boykin said radical Muslims hate us "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian . . . and the enemy is a guy called Satan." Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Lieberman asked President Bush to denounce Boykin's "hateful remarks," adding, "The war on terrorism is a war on terrorists, not religions. The Bush administration, which claims to understand that, needs to condemn anyone who says otherwise." Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said, "It is outrageous...

<p>A senior Saudi Arabian official last night said Lt. Gen. William Boykin's remarks about Islam were "outrageous" sentiments worthy of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born terrorist who has been hunted by the U.S. military since his group carried out the September 11 attacks.</p>

WASHINGTON, Oct 22 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Wednesday he disagreed with a senior military intelligence official's comments that Muslims worship an idol and not a "real God" but a top Pentagon aide said there were no plans to oust him. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday announced an internal Pentagon investigation into the propriety of comments by Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence and war-fighting support, while in uniform at churches and prayer breakfasts. Lawrence Di Rita, Rumsfeld's chief of staff, on Wednesday praised Boykin's "very distinguished" military career. He said...

Song of Roland BitPig (B-Chan) • 2003.10.22 In a recent column, John Mark Reynolds of californiarepublic.org asks the obvious question: “Why is it suddenly a crime to think your own religion is true? Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin had the nerve to express traditional Christian theology in public. That makes him unfit to be a member of the elite, as defined by the Los Angeles Times [see “Can the Crusader”, editorial 9/16/03]. Why? Boykin believes his religion to be correct, which by extension means he thinks other religions to be (at least somewhat) incorrect. Basic logic would indicate that...

Pentagon Probes General's Church Speeches By MATT KELLEY ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon will investigate a general's church speeches casting the war on terrorism in religious terms, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday. The announcement came days after two prominent senators asked Rumsfeld to launch a probe of Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin. Several Islamic and religious freedom groups criticized Boykin last week when reports surfaced of his comments during several speeches at evangelical Christian churches. Boykin said the enemy in the war on terrorism was Satan, that God had put President Bush in the White...

Video MSNBC has discovered that General Boynik is *gasp* an EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN!

An apology from Lt. Gen. William Boykin for speechmaking on the war on terrorism in terms that offended some Muslims was heavily edited by Pentagon lawyers, CNN has reported. The former head of U.S. Army Special Forces said in a June speech to a Christian prayer group that radical Muslims hate the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and roots are Judeo-Christian and the enemy is a guy named Satan." He added, "I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol." Some of the redacted language from the apology, which...

They See Visions The Religious Order of the LA Times [John Mark Reynolds] 10/20/03 Why is it suddenly a crime to think your own religion is true? Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin had the nerve to express traditional Christian theology in public. That makes him unfit to be a member of the elite, as defined by the Los Angeles Times [see Can the Crusader editorial 9/16/03]. Why? Boykin believes his religion to be correct, which by extension means he thinks other religions to be (at least somewhat) incorrect. Basic logic would indicate that if Boykin is a Christian, he...

Drowning Belief in a Pool of Ink The Los Angeles Times’ Assault on Christianity [Carol Platt Liebau] 10/20/03 This is the first in a series of occasional pieces exploring the relationship between religious faith and California institutions. Seventeenth century English physician, philosopher and writer Sir Thomas Browne once observed that, “Things evidently false are not only printed, but many things of truth most falsely set forth.” Never do Browne’s words ring truer than upon examining the treatment of Christian religion by the Los Angeles Times – just over the last two weeks. Most recently, the Times lobbed a grenade at...

Eight years after NPR's Nina Totenberg, on Inside Washington, wished death upon Senator Jesse Helms ("If there is retributive justice, he'll get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it"), on the same show over the weekend she seemingly desired to hasten the death of Army General Jerry Boykin for having supposedly expressed the view that the war on terrorism "is a Christian crusade against Muslims." Totenberg hatefully advocated: "I hope he's not long for this world." When the other panelists were taken aback by her wish ("You putting a hit out on this guy or...

“I Apologize for Telling the Truth” Exclusive commentary by Patrick Rooney Oct 20, 2003 Army Lt. General William G. Boykin, the new U.S. deputy secretary for intelligence, apologized to his critics Friday for offending Muslims, after reportedly making some absolutely outrageous assertions, like Islamists hate the United States because it’s a Christian nation, that the real enemy is not Osama bin Laden but Satan, and that God put President Bush in the White House. These statements are outrageous… aren’t they? Let’s look at ‘em: 1. “Islamists hate the United States because it’s a Christian nation.” Sounds good to me. 2....

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has assigned the task of tracking down and eliminating Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and other high-profile targets to an Army general who sees the war on terrorism as a clash between Judeo-Christian values and Satan. Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin, the new deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, is a much-decorated and twice-wounded veteran of covert military operations. From the bloody 1993 clash with Muslim warlords in Somalia chronicled in "Black Hawk Down" and the hunt for Colombian drug czar Pablo Escobar to the ill-fated attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980,...

Casting military or political struggles in intolerant, especially religious, terms is a sure way to make them intractable. The Thirty Years War, which was at bottom a battle among Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists, left Europe blood-soaked in the 17th century.

A top general has said he will tone down his rhetoric after being criticized for casting the war on terror as a religious battle, Pentagon officials said today. But Defense Department lawyers, public affairs officials and others were meeting today to try to figure out whether that would be enough to calm the storm of criticism surrounding Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, who has said the counterterror war is a battle with Satan. His comments came in speeches, some made in uniform, at evangelical Christian churches. Boykin, the new deputy undersecretary for intelligence, has said he will curtail...