Was Boykin Right?

[Starkjudo]

Much has been made of General William Boykin's recent quotes. A review of the complete context of his comments are available here:

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1002908/posts

However, even taken out of context, what are the ramifications of his comments? It seems to me that at a very basic level, he is correct. There is a huge disparity in the current conflict and others that have been fought in the last hundred years. While all wars generally include the invocation of a deity on both sides, the tendency has been that a Judeo-Christian belief has held up on both sides as well - effectively cancelling out religious fears. Whether Allies or Axis suceeded in WWI or WWII, from a religious point of view, neither side had a great deal to fear that their freedom of religion would be abridged if conquered. During the Cold War, there were too main options - either stalemate, or complete nuclear annihilation - which rendered religion relatively moot.

In this age, however, we're presented with a different scenario - Democracy vs. religious states. Today we have democratic governments that are mostly tolerant vs. a Muslim world that appears to be further and further embracing Wahabbism, that most extreme form of Islam. The players have been fairly well drawn out to the Judeo-Christian world vs. the Muslim. Some nations like Russia and France sit more to the sidelines than take an active role, mostly due to other interests - Russia with Muslim rebels in Chechnia, France with a large Muslim population and both with financial interests that that swayed their decisions.

The Malaysian prime minister's barely-veiled threats, the Palestian's not really hid but rarely reported views of driving Israel to the sea, the ties of many Saudi Arabian royalty to terrorist groups, all point to a basic view: They don't like us. We can go around and around on the reasons; we've toppled Middle Eastern governments and set up our own proxies, now and in the past, we've forced the creation of the state of Israel; a long cultural memory going back to the Crusades; we've prevented nuclear programs of "rogue states;" Democracy and republic forms of government threaten their commonly held beliefs in religious states of Islam and tightly conformed-to codes of Muslim justice/social morays.

My point is not to argue whether they're right to believe this, but to simply ask: Was Boykin right? Is it Us vs. Them? And how do we solve the battle when there is no "them", and barely an "Us" to face each other across a negotiating table? Are the lines so tightly defined that neither side can slip far enough through the armor of the other to make inraods for peace?

[elder999]

No.

The guy commanded Delta force. He and his troops were there when 18 soldiers died in an effort to snatch a Somali warlord—a tough day immortalized in Mark Bowden's book Black Hawk Down. Boykin told a Florida audience last year that he collapsed in his bunk that day, angry that God had let him down. "There is no God," Boykin sobbed in the wake of their deaths. "If there was a God, he would have been here to protect my soldiers." But in the same address, Boykin says he heard God answer him, "If there is no God, there is no hope."

He’s wrong, though…and, maybe nuts.

I’m no shrink, though, so I’ll just deal with why he’s wrong.

For instance, in June, just before he assumed his Pentagon post as the nation's top uniformed intelligence officer, he told a church gathering in Sandy, Ore., that foes like bin Laden and Hussein "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus."

Gen. Boykin said the terrorists come from "the principalities of darkness," that they are "demonic" and they hate us because "We're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian and the enemy is a guy named Satan." The general also recounted the time he was chasing down a Somali warlord who was bragging that the Americans would not capture him because his God, Allah, would protect him. "Well," Gen. Boykin responded, "my God is bigger than his God. I knew my God was a real God and his was an idol."

In short, Gen. Boykin is being accused of calling America a Judeo-Christian country, the war on terrorism a religious war, and of expressing his belief in the truth of the New Testament of the Bible. While his critics concede that he has a right to express his religious views, they argue that his expressed opinions of the Islamic and Christian religions make him unfit to perform his duties of helping to lead in the war on terrorism.

America-the United States of Emerica is not a Judeo-Christian country, right-wing protestations to such not withstanding. Our founders were a bunch of atheists and deists, and the priniciples that are upheld as “Judeo-Christian” cut across almost all religions, anyway.

As far as his being fit to lead the war on terror-talk like this may make him eminently fit, and it’s only, as far as I know, taken place where it’s appropriate:in church.

President Bush distanced himself from these remarks, though.

Moderate Muslim clerics took issue with Boykin, during recent talks on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

from our President
"I said, 'He didn't reflect my opinion. Look, it just doesn't reflect what the government thinks.' And I think they were pleased to hear that".

So, the President says he was wrong, at least in terms of American policy. Why?

Because-whatever else I think about him-I know that he recognizes that the minute this becomes perceived by us as a war on Islam, Amercia will have lost something precious.

We're supposed to stand for something finer than that. We're supposed to offer the same freedoms and opportunities to people of all religions, from all parts of the world. That includes muslims from Pakistan and Afghanistan. The minute this becomes a war against those people-and some of them are already here, and have been a long time-we will have lost that.

More importantly, this nation cannot come against anyone "in the name of Jesus." The general, however, should certainly feel free to-it's his right as an a American.

[kirigirisu]

Boykin, while being a religious nutjob who has no business being anywhere near the command of military assets unless he was sent back in time to sack Constantinople along with the other misguided crusaders in an attempt to "make the holy land safe from heathens," does have a point, buried underneath all that pseudo-hocus-pocus "The Great JuJu is on our side" shyte.

It is a matter of two loosely-defined groups that for whatever reason just plain don't like each other. Take away all the religious trappings, and you still have two loosely defined groups that don't like each other.

The Middle East, being the stinking browneye of the world where no human in their right mind would choose to live (all those "holy" places aside, it's a really crappy piece of realestate IN THE FREAKING DESERT), has produced a population and a doctrine best suited for survival in that horridly unforgiving hellhole. All well and good, but not so well and good when they apply their unwashed desert nomad survival tactics in other parts of the globe.

In the same way, the "civilized" "First World," with its own multitude of problems, has produced a population and doctrine best suited for its particular part of the world. Again, all well and good until you try to take it to B.F.E. or B.F.A..

What both parties utterly fail to understand is you can't apply your particular brand of "civilization" to an entirely different environment and population with a completely different set of parameters that you and little Jimmy or little Habib grew up with.

Thus you get folks trying to "democracize" and "civilize" peoples that will only manage to royally eff it up because they have no concept of "one man, one vote" and "socially conscious responsibility" outside of immediate clan and kin. In the same way, you had agressive little desert folks forcing womenfolk into burkhas and adopting bull-shyte "modesty" habits who've grown up with no such constraints upon their freedoms and sexuality.

It's all a wash. I say put them all in a big-arsed arena (that stinkhole known as the Middle East will do nicely), let the Jesus Freaks and Desert Loonies kick the living hell out of each other, then kill the survivors and let whatever hypothetical JuJu they believe in "receive" them.

[Starkjudo]

Aaron,

My point is not are we conducting a war on Islam - Is Islam conducting a war on US?

As to: <b>The general also recounted the time he was chasing down a Somali warlord who was bragging that the Americans would not capture him because his God, Allah, would protect him. "Well," Gen. Boykin responded, "my God is bigger than his God. I knew my God was a real God and his was an idol." </b>

The article had to say:<b>

This desecration and the weak Clinton response thereafter did much to inspire Osama bin Laden and other fanatics to regard the United States as a “paper tiger” that could be defeated.

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 was in fact a pagan idolater pretending to be a Muslim while violating the Koran. </b>

In short; Boykin was not proclaiming the Judeo-Christian "God" to be greater than the Muslim "Allah" - only that "God" was greater than the perverse Wahabbi "Allah" that advocates Jihad and car-bombs. He is no better than the "God" of the Ku Klux Klan, who advocate the genocide and slavery of blacks and Jews.

As to the "Moderate" Mulim clerics taking issue with his comments? I'll vote from Cady's post of the Jeff Jacoby Boston Globe article in the "Berlin Wall" thread:
<b>
Mahathir's speech raised no storm of controversy among most Muslims because the Muslim world by and large has no problem with anti-Semitism. Even in the United States there was little shocked repudiation of Mahathir's venom by American Muslim leaders. A Nexis search turns up just one mild quibble: When CNN invited the head of CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, to comment, he said only that he doesn't believe Jews run the world, "so I see that statement as a misguided opinion."

On Tuesday I asked six American Muslim organizations -- CAIR, the American Muslim Association, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Islamic Insititute, the Islamic Society of North America, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council -- whether they had any reaction to Mahathir's words. Three never replied; two replied by saying they had no comment. Only MPAC condemed Mahathir for his "extremely offensive, anti-Semitic comments."
</b>

Why weren't these same clerics making protestations against the rabid anti-semitism of the Malaysian PM?

[elder999]

Originally posted by Starkjudo
Aaron,

My point is not are we conducting a war on Islam - Is Islam conducting a war on US?

Some of them certainly are trying to-but it's not just a war on us-or the U.S. It's a war on Hinduism and Buddhism and anything else not Islamic, or "Western." Mostly Western, I think.


In short; Boykin was not proclaiming the Judeo-Christian "God" to be greater than the Muslim "Allah" - only that "God" was greater than the perverse Wahabbi "Allah" that advocates Jihad and car-bombs. He is no better than the "God" of the Ku Klux Klan, who advocate the genocide and slavery of blacks and Jews.

Well, that's only another spin on what he said, isn't it? As for what he said in church, as I've said before, that's his right.

But isn't saying that our enemy is "Satan" kind of telling?


Why weren't these same clerics making protestations against the rabid anti-semitism of the Malaysian PM?

Well, I couldn't say. It's also kind of telling, though.

We still have to hold ourselves, as a nation, and form of government, but, most importantly, as a people to a higher standard, or we'll have lost this war, even as we kill all who oppose us.

[elder999]

Dear General:

You got a lot of press last week, General. Perhaps you didn't expect the things you've been saying in churches to go public - about America's "Christian army," the holy war we're waging against the "idol" of Islam's false God, and the "spiritual battle" we're fighting against "a guy named Satan" who "wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army." You call yourself a "warrior for the kingdom of God," but most of your service has been with the Special Forces and the CIA. You say, "We in the army of God, in the house of God, in the kingdom of God, have been raised for such a time as this." You apparently have no doubt that "America is still a Christian nation," while other nations "have lost their morals, lost their values." You think "George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters in the United States," but that "He was appointed by God." You say, "He's in the White House because God put him there." And maybe you believe God has put you in the new position to which you were just appointed as deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

Because your views sound like a "Christian jihad" at a time when the United States government is sensitive to offending the Muslim world, you have become a controversy. I'm sure you've been under a lot of pressure since the story of your religious views broke in the Los Angeles Times. Your critics say your private religious views are your own business, but when you speak with your uniform on, you're a spokesperson for the U.S. military and government. We don't need to make the Arab world angrier at us than they already are and it doesn't help when you say things like, "Why do they hate us? The answer to that is because we are a Christian nation. We are hated because we are a nation of believers." Or when you describe the Muslim warlords you fought in Mogadishu, Somalia, as "the principalities of darkness" and a "demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy," that "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus."

General, I think the hymn "Onward Christian Soldiers" must have been written just for you. I'm sure your superiors have already given you a lesson in politics and public relations,and I've heard that you have toned down your opinions and said you didn't mean to offend anyone. Whether you keep your job is a political question, the outcome of which we will know soon enough.

I want to raise some different issues, though: biblical theology, bad teaching, and church discipline. General, your theology bears no resemblance to biblical teaching. You utterly confuse the body of Christ with the American nation. The kingdom of God doesn't endorse the principalities and powers of nation-states, armies, and the ideologies of empire; but rather calls them all into question. You even miss the third verse of "Onward Christian Soldiers," which reminds us, "Crowns and thrones may perish, Kingdoms rise and wane, But the Church of Jesus, constant will remain." And let's not misinterpret the famous first verse, "Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before." The cross, General, not the Special Forces.

Brother Boykin, I believe you are a product of bad theology and church teaching. Why were you never given sound biblical tools to help you discern the shape of your vocation? Why were you never taught in Sunday school about the real meaning of the kingdom of God, and the universality of the body of Christ? And why have you never heard that only peacemaking, not war-making, can be done "in the name of Jesus?"

General, I really don't want to blame you for the lack of Christian teaching that you have obviously suffered. But there is a legitimate issue of church discipline here. When a high-ranking military officer espouses a zealous religious nationalism that claims the name "Christian" for both his nation and his army, and when he invokes the name of Jesus - not to love our enemies as he instructed, but rather to target them for destruction - the church must discipline that errant brother and name his public statements for what they are, not mere political incorrectness, but idolatry. General, you have substituted your nation and your army for God, your faith is more American than Christian, the Jesus you claim is not the Jesus of the New Testament, and his kingdom will not be ushered in by the U.S. military.

Whatever happens with your job-and I really hope that you keep it-I pray that you find a church that offers you the ministry of repentance, forgiveness, and restoration to a more authentic biblical faith.

[Kimpatsu]

Boykin is nuts, just like Ashcroft and all the others who break the separation of church and state. He thinks his imaginary friend helped him? I suppose he still plays with Lego and sleeps with a gun under his pillow in case the mosnters in the closet get him... :rolleyes:

[Iain]

Originally posted by Starkjudo
Aaron,

In short; Boykin was not proclaiming the Judeo-Christian "God" to be greater than the Muslim "Allah" - only that "God" was greater than the perverse Wahabbi "Allah" that advocates Jihad and car-bombs. He is no better than the "God" of the Ku Klux Klan, who advocate the genocide and slavery of blacks and Jews.

Don't toss the word wahabi around willy-nilly. There's nothing inherent to wahabism that makes it fundamentally more violent than any other sect, not to mention that Islamic terrorists come from numerous denominational backgrounds. Wahabism in places like Daghestan is perfectly normal (well, as normal as you can get in a messed up place like that). Wahabis got a bad rap for their involvement in the Chechen war, but it's worth noting that the Chechen head of state has repeatedly scorned them for pillaging the countryside. Wahabism is no worse than any orthodox Christian religion. Just because Tim McVeigh was Christian doesn't mean we get to heap scorn on Mormonism. Heaping scorn on Wahabism because Osama-Bin-Laden is a terrorist makes just as much sense.

[kage110]

I don't think we are in a state of 'us against them' but we are very much in danger of making it so. The vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace and not be bothered by anyone, just as the vast majority of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists do too.

There does seem to be a ground-swell of opinion in the UK that Muslims are 'bad', or at very least 'suspect', and I gather that this feeling is shared in the USA too. This does seem to be creating a sense of 'us' among the white polulation of the UK and if this feeling is made stronger and the rhetoric and actions of certain governments is made more extreme we will ensure that the Muslim world bonds together as 'them'.

The Muslims are every bit as divided over religion as the different sects of Chrstianity are and in the eyes of some Muslims other groups of Muslims are the worst kind of evil, far worse than Jews, Christians or atheists put together. But if we in the UK and USA view all Muslims as the same and take action against all Muslims because of the actions of some Muslims then we will ensure that the fragmented Muslim world does band together to resist us.

Some Muslims (eg. Osama Bin Laden & Co.) are most definitely pursuing a 'holy' war against the USA and her allies but they do not speak for the entire Muslim world anymore than Southern Baptists or the Church of England speak for all Christians (never mind non-Christian westeners) - just ask a Roman Catholic how they would fell about that!. If we think they do we are only exposing our own inate racism and prejudice and this will only make the problem twice as bad as it is now.