As if the public relations debacle couldn't get any worse, it appears that Lt. Gen. William G. Jerry Boykin, the deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, may have been involved in the recommendation to use questionable methods to soften up detainees for interrogation. Boykin became controversial for his statementsthat in the war on terror the United States is a "Christian nation" fighting Satan and for his considered opinion of the religious beliefs of a Muslim Somali warlord: "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."
A Senate hearing into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners was told on Tuesday that Lt. Gen. William Boykin, an evangelical Christian under review for saying his God was superior to that of the Muslims, briefed a top Pentagon civilian official last summer on recommendations on ways military interrogators could gain more intelligence from Iraqi prisoners.
Critics have suggested those recommendations amounted to a senior-level go-ahead for the sexual and physical abuse of prisoners, possibly to "soften up" detainees before interrogation -- a charge the Pentagon denies.
Boykin is free to believe whatever he likes. But the costs of putting him in such a position of responsibility have now been made apparent. There could be nothing worse for the United States than to have a top military official who publicly proclaims that this is a holy war enmeshed in a scandal involving the abuse and torture of Muslim detainees, the vast majority of whom appear to be innocent of any crime at all.
Democracy has become our nation's secular religion, and we have come to believe in conversion by the sword.
By definition, you cannot impose democracy. Imposed democracy is an oxymoron. Democracy isn't a piece of hardware you can take out of a box. There is no instruction book and there are all kinds of things involved about which the Iraqis know nothing.
Americans often ask why the terrorists hate America so much. You've been told they hate us because of our freedoms and because of our lifestyle. That ought to be an insult to your intelligence. It's ludicrous to think they would die because we're free or have a different lifestyle.
Their perspective is that we are responsible for some of their dying. They want the world to see that they have a complaint. They want to be heard.
