Posted on 10/22/2003 6:53:08 AM PDT by DoctorMichael
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:40:46 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The latest proposed victim in our struggle against terrorism is Army Lt.Gen. William G."Jerry" Boykin, recently named deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence. His mission is to reinvigorate the search for Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and other leaders of global terrorism. By training and experience, he is marvelously prepared for his new duties ? having risen from a Delta Force commando to top-secret Joint Special Operations Command, through the CIA, to command of the Army's Special Forces. For a quarter century, he has been fighting terror with his bare hands, his fine mind and his faith-shaped soul.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
I'm sure this is unprecedented in the history of the US. No one ever referred to Hitler as evil. No one condemned the attack on Pearl Harbor as evil. /Sarcasm off
I'm just getting real tired of this crap. If it's bad to believe these things, then what SHOULD he believe in?
This is a good man, with this country's best interest and survival at heart. Besides, he said these things at 'religious observances', NOT on the Parade Ground.
Why not? And how much clandestine multiple mosque-taping is the LA Times doing? Zero?
Agreed. More Anti-American attacks from "Pravda-West".
NBC's Lisa Myers (and the Associated Press' Matt Kelley)highlight a quote that seems to be part of the problem from some of Boykin's critics:
"Boykin's church speeches, first reported by NBC News and the Los Angeles Times, cast the war on terrorism as a religious battle between Christians and the forces of evil.
Appearing in dress uniform before a religious group in Oregon in June, Boykin said Islamic extremists hate the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian. ... And the enemy is a guy named Satan."
.......
A Muslim civil rights group on Thursday called for Boykin to be reassigned. "Putting a man with such extremist views in a critical policy-making position sends entirely the wrong message to a Muslim world that is already skeptical about America's motives and intentions," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
But according to Frontpage's Lowell Ponte, the general is being taken completely out of context:
Only days after this Oregon speech, for example, Boykin addressed a prayer breakfast at Fort Dix, during which, according to the base newspaper, the general “compared the radical Islamic fundamentalists to the radical ‘hooded Christians’ [apparently Ku Klux Klansmen] of the United States.
“’There are Muslims who worship here and support the United States,’ he said, pointing out that those who act violently in the name of their religion do not reflect the principles of Islam,” the base newspaper report continued.
“Nor do they reflect the principles of the Judeo-Christian roots of the United States, he said. Another quote from Arkin and Myers which has whipped up a lot of righteous fervor:
During a January church speech in Daytona, Fla., Boykin recalled a Muslim fighter in Somalia who bragged on television the Americans would never get him because his God, Allah, would protect him: “Well, you know what I knew, that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.”
Again, there's a context here. According to Boykin's biography (note the bio's author), Boykin was the commander of Delta Force during the 1993 Mogadishu raid.
And this introduces an understanding of comparative theology that NBC and the LATimes either missed, or found inconvenient.
Ponte notes (with my added emphasis):
It was in this context that Boykin denounced one underling of a Somali warlord as idolatrous for following a path of violence that violated the most fundamental tenants of Islam.
It would make no sense to a genuine Muslim for Boykin to proclaim his Christian God bigger – because Muslims of this region regard themselves as descendants of Abraham and worshippers of the One God of Abraham, the same God worshipped by their fellow “People of the Book,” Jews and Christians.
Boykin’s statement about his God being bigger (pushed by Leftist media critics as if it were an insult to Islam) has meaning to a Muslim only if intended to convey that this one person [Aidid, and other Wahabbists] was in fact a pagan idolater pretending to be a Muslim while violating the Koran.
So Boykin's remarks have to be strenuously divorced from their genuine context (uttered by a man with a profound understanding of the issues, both military and theological) in this war) to make them as insulting to Moslems as the media are trying to do
So let's recap:
* A general with decades of profound understanding of the Wahabbi sect and its actions, and with immense intelligence in this area (Delta force doesn't just hire killers; you have to be highly intelligent to make it into the unit, particularly as an officer; Boykin served in the unit for 12 years, then commanded it, before commanding all US special forces!).
* Comments delivered completely deprived of the genuine intellectual context in which the general discusses the issue; damning, seven-second soundbits excised, Maureen-Dowd-style, from decades of intensely knowledgeable commentary and action on the subject. * Dubious journalistic ethics....equals the appearance of being another LATimes smear campaign against the President, of course. The media's been unable to impugn the President on the motivations for war (Yellowcakes fell flat; their "imminent threat" trope is imminently cold); and the truth about the situation in Iraq is finally starting to leak out; it may be that the Democrats' best hope left is to try to portray the Administration as extremist ideologues in the eyes of...
...Who?
This is the fascinating question, to me. The media are trying to smear one of our top officers as a simple-minded bigot, by way of impugning the president's emphasis on simple faith. Is it because the media believe that there's a groundswell of anti-Christian backlash waiting to erupt among the electorate? Or are they as out of touch as they seemed to be during the California recall?
The 'usual suspects' of the Left (The LA Slimes & CAIR [Council on American Islamic Relations]) are trying to railroad this brave man.
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