The 'religious zealot' double standard

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 that someone who holds such extreme, close-minded, zealous views would be allowed such a prominent position in our military." An editorial in Investor's Business Daily notes that "A (Los Angeles) Times reporter called Boykin's comments 'extreme and pernicious.' NBC's Tom Brokaw termed them 'divisive.' ABC and CBS referred to him as a 'holy warrior.'"

But what exactly did Gen. Boykin say that smacked of religious bigotry and intolerance? Boykin called America a "Christian nation." So did President Harry S. Truman, who once said, "This is a Christian nation." John Jay, the first chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, said, "Providence has given to our people the choice of their ruler, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." Patrick Henry said, "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

Of Boykin's suggestion that terrorists hate us because of our non-Muslim religiosity, please refer to the new book by Robert Spencer, "Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West." Spencer, using Islamic sources, past and contemporary, makes the case that the call for jihad against Christians, the West and Jews springs from the dictates of the religion of Islam.

The Koran, writes Spencer, says, "Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free . . . (Sura 9:5)."

Spencer cites numerous other Islamic sacred laws, as well as other passages in the Koran, that require all Muslims to give non-Muslims three choices: conversion, submission with second-class status under Islamic law, or death.

Grand Sheik Tantawi of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, the foremost cleric in Sunni Islam, said in a communique at the beginning of the current war in Iraq: "It is in accordance with logic and with Islamic religious law that if the enemy raids the land of the Muslims, Jihad becomes an individual's commandment, applying to every Muslim man and woman, because our Muslim nation will be subject to a new Crusader invasion targeting the land, honor, belief, and homeland. . . . The Center for Research has studied the events . . . and realized that our Arab and Islamic nation, and even our religious faith, Islam, are a main target of all the military forces, who are targeting millions of people from among our nation, as well as our faith, everything sacred to us, and all the sources of wealth and power of the Arabs and the Muslims. The first manifestation of this will be the attack on Iraq, the occupation of its land, and the seizing of its oil reserves."

Meanwhile, the "moderate" Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, a Muslim, recently said about Jews, "The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule the world by proxy. . . . They get others to fight and die for them." He called on the Islamic world to modernize, not to catch up with the West, but rather so that Islamic countries need no longer rely on purchasing weapons from its "enemies." Outrage, anyone?

President Bush and others criticized the prime minister's remarks, but Mahathir refused to apologize and disagreed with those who called his remarks anti-Semitic. "People make such statements (about Muslims or Muhammad the prophet), and they seem to get away with it," he said. "But if you say anything at all against the Jews, you are accused of being anti-Semitic." The foreign minister of Yemen backed him up, "I don't think (the comments) are anti-Semitic at all. I think he was just stating the facts."

As for Lt. Gen. Boykin, he apologized: "For those who have been offended by my statements, I offer a sincere apology." But Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, "It doesn't look like any rules were broken." For, unlike those in the Arab world, Americans enjoy something called freedom of speech, protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution.



		THIS GOOD CHRISTIAN SUPPORTS ISRAEL AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE. THAT IS WHY THE ENEMIES OF FREEDOM ARE DEMANDING HIS HEAD. THE VERY SAME PEOPLE WHO HATE CHRISTIANS AND AUTHENTIC BIBLE LOVING JEWS ARE DEMANDING HIS RESIGNATION. --- Michael Savage

	General Boykin Bio Native of Wilson, N.C. Married to the former Ashley Steele of Darien, Conn. Graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University with a bachelor's degree in education (1971). 1971: Commissioned in U.S. Army. Served in 2nd Armored Division, Fort Hood, Texas; 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, Ky.; and 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Fort Stewart, Ga. 1978-1990: Assigned in various capacities to Delta Force. 1980: Delta Force operations officer on the April 24-25 Iranian hostage rescue attempt (Operation Eagle Claw) 1983: Grenada 1990-1991: Army War College 1992-1995: Commander of Delta Force. 1992: Col. Boykin is commander of the initial eight-man Delta team sent to Colombia on July 26 to hunt down Pablo Escobar (Lt. Col. Gary Harrell is one of the officers involved in the mission; now Brig. Gen. Harrell, commander of special operations in Iraq.) 14 April 1993: Col. Boykin, together with Brig. Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker (currently chief of staff of the Army) meets with Attorney General Janet Reno to discuss Waco planning. 1993: Somalia; commander of the Oct. 3-4, 1993, raid in Mogadishu, Somalia, to grab clan leaders of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Wounded by a mortar round. 1994-1995: Chief, Special Operations Division, Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 1995: Participated in the White House Security Review as a consultant 1995: Deputy director of special activities in the U.S. Army Element of the CIA, assigned to the Military Special Projects Group (also known as the Special Activities Staff). 1995: Haiti operations. April 1998 to February 2000: Commanding general, U.S. Army Special Forces Command (Airborne), Fort Bragg, N.C. March 2000-2003: Commanding general, U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center, Fort Bragg, N.C. June 2003 - present: Deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence (intelligence and war fighting), the Pentagon

	Quotes from General Boykin FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, BROKEN ARROW, OKLA., JUNE 30, 2002 [SLIDE SHOW, PICTURE OF OSAMA BIN LADEN] "And then we began to see this facethe face of Osama bin Laden. And finally we said, 'There's the enemy. That's our enemy. That's the man that hates us. And all of those that follow him." [PICTURE OF PRESIDENT BUSH] "And then this man stepped forward. A man that has acknowledged that he prays in the Oval Office. A man that's in the White House today because of a miracle. You think about how he got in the White House. You think about why he's there today. As Mordecai said to Esther, 'You ave been put there for such a time and place.' And this man has been put in the White house to lead our nation in such a time as this. "But who is that enemy? It's not Osama bin Laden. Our enemy is a spiritual enemy because we are a nation of believers. You go back and look at our history, and you will find that we were founded on faith. Look at what the writers of our Constitution said. We are a nation of believers. We were founded on faith." [PICTURE OF SATAN] "And the enemy that has come against our nation is a spiritual enemy. His name is Satan. And if you do not believe that Satan is real, you are ignoring the same Bible that tells you about God. Now I'm a warrior. One day I'm going to take off this uniform and I'm still going to be a warrior. And what I'm here to do today is to recruit you to be warriors of God's kingdom." GOOD SHEPHERD CHURCH, SANDY, ORE., JUNE 21, 2003 CELEBRATE AMERICA EVENT "And we ask ourselves this question, 'Why do they hate us? Why do they hate us so much?' Ladies and gentlemen, the answer to that is because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian. Did I say Judeo-Christian? Yes. Judeo-Christian. "That means we've got a commitment to Israel. That mean's it's a commitment we're never going to abandon. "Go back and read the history books. Go back and read what the early founders of this nation said about Israel, about the Jews. John Adams wrote extensively of, he called it the Hebrews, the contributions they had made to our concepts of liberty and the importance of their contributions to the founding of this great nation. "Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin each, independently, when asked to come up with a national symbol for this new nation, both came up with a national symbol that reflected on our Jewish heritage. "One had Moses standing over the Red Sea with his staff and the water parting. "The other had the Israelites coming out of bondage in the desert being led by a ball of fire. They recognized the importance of our relationship to the Jews and to Israel. Ladies and gentlemen, we will never abandon Israel, we will never walk away from our commitment to Israel because our roots are there. Our religion came from Judaism, and therefore these radicals will hate us forever." FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, DAYTONA, FLA., JAN. 28, 2003 "There was a man in Mogadishu named Osman Atto. You see him in the movie ["Blackhawk Down"], smoking a big cigar and talking philosophically. How many of you have seen the movie? Acting like a big shot. Well let me tell you something. That's not what Osman Atto did. The reality was Osman Atto was Aideed's closest ally. He was Aideed's top lieutenant. He was a multimillionaire financier for Aideed's clan. And we knew if that if we could capture Osman Atto and take him away, that we could destroy Aideed's network. So we went after Osman Atto about two weeks before the battle.... We went after Osman Atto. We got into a terrible fight. And I'm sad to say a lot of Somalis were killed as we went after Osman Atto. But we missed him by seconds. He walked out of the facility that we raided, he walked down the street and blended in with the crowd and we missed him. "And then he went on CNN and he laughed at us, and he said, 'They'll never get me because Allah will protect me. Allah will protect me.' "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. But I prayed, Lord let us get that man. "Three days later we went after him again, and this time we got him. Not a mark on him. We got him. We brought him back into our base there and we had a Sea Land container set up to hold prisoners in, and I said put him in there. They put him in there, there was one guard with him. I said search him, they searched him, and then I walked in with no one in there but the guard, and I looked at him and said, 'Are you Osman Atto?' And he said 'Yes.' And I said, 'Mr. Atto, you underestimated our God.'"

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