Boykin was poised for punishment
How can we forget our good friend Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence? As you may recall, eyebrows were raised around the world when media researchers discovered that Bush had asked a man to coordinate our military intelligence in the war on terror who also happened to be an anti-Muslim religious zealot.
Among Boykin’s more colorful remarks, which were delivered in uniform:
* A year ago, Boykin conducted a slide show with a church group. He said, “Well, is he [bin Laden] the enemy? Next slide. Or is this man [Saddam] the enemy? The enemy is none of these people I have showed you here. The enemy is a spiritual enemy. He’s called the principality of darkness. The enemy is a guy called Satan.”
* When asked why terrorists have targeted the United States, Boykin said, “Why do they hate us so much? Ladies and gentlemen, the answer to that is because we’re a Christian nation.”
* America’s “spiritual enemy,” Boykin once said, “will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus.”
* Boykin recalled in a January speech a Muslim soldier in Somalia who believed Allah would protect him in battle against the U.S. “Well, you know what I knew, that my God was bigger than his,” Boykin said. “I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.” When the Muslim soldier was eventually captured, Boykin claims to have told the man that he “underestimated our God.”
In August, we learned that Boykin was violating military guidelines for official conduct. Today, however, there’s news of the extent to which Boykin ran afoul of his responsibilities.
The Pentagon general who likened the war against Islamic militants to a battle against Satan violated several Pentagon rules in delivering a series of speeches at religious-oriented events, according to an inspector general’s report made available on Thursday.
The report, issued last August but not previously released, recommended that the officer, Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin of the Army, be subjected to “appropriate corrective action.”
That still, however, doesn’t quite clear this up.
Rumsfeld’s Pentagon dragged its feet on an investigation of Boykin’s conduct. Once the probe was complete, and officials believed Boykin should face “appropriate corrective action,” nothing serious happened.
Indeed, Boykin wasn’t reassigned or formally reprimanded for his misconduct. The inspector’s report found that Boykin failed to obtain clearance for his remarks, failed to clarify that his remarks were personal and not official, and failed to report reimbursement of travel costs from one of the sponsoring religious groups. For that he was punished with … nothing in particular.
The consequences for rule breaking with this gang seem to relate directly to whether Bush likes what you’ve done.
Balloon Juice
says:[…] More than that, the further you go up the hierarchy in our ruling party the more comfortable you get with fundamentalist religion. This is the government where NASA appointees feel free to promote astronomical creationism, where service academies can become thinly-disguised evangelical recruiting stations and where a General and Undersecretary of Defense feels free to paint our current war as an intramural conflict between two types of fundamentalism – a right one and a wrong one. When an intolerant religious group claims that its taboos are being stepped on, we can appreciate that. […]
Think Progress » ThinkFast: April 4, 2006
says:[…] In a letter to Secretary Rumsfeld, Sen. George Allen (R-VA) recommends that Lt. Gen. William Boykin — who infamously described the war on terrorism as a battle between a “Christian nation” (the United States) and “Satan,” and claimed that Muslims worship an “idol” — should be promoted to lead the U.S. special operations command. […]
Ex Cathedra » Blog Archive » St. Judas?
says:[…] The official Roman religion was intertwined with the state: how could you be a good Roman if you didn’t pay your respects to the Roman gods like everybody else did? After all, they’d accommodated other nations by offering the local gods a place in the Roman pantheon. […]