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Ci-dessous, nous présentons trois textes d’octobre 2003 qui permettent de mieux cerner la personnalité du général Boykin, adjoint de l’adjoint au secrétaire à la défense Stephen A. Cambone. Boykin, sorte de “fou de Dieu” fermement installé au Pentagone, vient d’apparaître, le 10 mai, dans la chronique du scandale des tortures. On détaille par ailleurs, dans notre chronique Faits & Commentaires, l’apparition du nom de Boykin et nous esquissons certaines des implications de l’événement.
La documentation que nous proposons concernant Boykin comprend trois textes qui permettent, sans commentaire supplémentaire, d’avoir une idée de sa personnalité et de son rôle.
• Un texte de
• Un texte de NBC News/The Washington Post du même 17 octobre 2003, présentant les circonstances de la controverse autour de la nomination de Boykin.
• Un portrait plus approfondi de Boykin, venu du site Alternet.org, du 21 octobre 2003.
NBC NEWS, October 15, 2003
NBC News has learned this highly decorated general has a history of outspoken and divisive views on religion — Islam in particular. These are quotes from recent speeches by Lt. Gen. William Boykin to evangelical church groups.
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, BROKEN ARROW, OKLA., JUNE 30, 2002
[SLIDE SHOW, PICTURE OF OSAMA BIN LADEN] “And then we began to see this face…the 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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Lisa Myers (Bradley graham), NBC (The Washington Post), October 17, 2003
There is controversy over the Pentagon intelligence official who says the war on terror is a religious war. Will toning down the words end it? NBC’s Lisa Myers reports.
Oct. 17 — Remarks by a three-star U.S. Army general casting the war on terrorism in religious terms drew rebukes yesterday from politicians and military specialists and calls from religious groups for the officer to be reassigned or reprimanded.
BUT THE Pentagon’s top military commander defended the officer, Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin, saying he did not think any military rules had been broken.
The controversy followed reports Wednesday on “NBC Nightly News” and yesterday in the Los Angeles Times citing Boykin, who is an evangelical Christian, speaking in uniform to church audiences over the past two years. He spoke of Islamic extremists hating the United States because “we’re a Christian nation” and added that our “spiritual enemy will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus.” He said that President Bush “is in the White House because God put him there,” and that “we in the army of God . . . have been raised for such a time as this.”
Discussing a U.S. Army battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia in 1993, Boykin told one audience: “I knew my god was bigger than his. I knew that my god was a real god and his was an idol.”
A much-decorated veteran of covert military operations, Boykin took over in June as deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, heading a new Pentagon office focused on hunting al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and other high-profile targets.
His tendency to frame the fight against terrorism as a religious battle contrasts with attempts by Bush and senior aides to avoid such language out of concern that it could sound inflammatory in the Muslim world and play into efforts by Islamic extremists to portray themselves as engaged in a holy war.
“The lesson here is not whether someone has a constitutional right to say what he wants,” said Peter Feaver, an associate professor at Duke University specializing in civil-military affairs. “The lesson is how things spoken in one context will be interpreted differently in another.”
Outraged by Boykin’s remarks, the Interfaith Alliance appealed to Bush to reprimand the general. An Islamic rights group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, demanded that Boykin be reassigned.
“Putting a man with such extremist views in a critical policymaking position sends entirely the wrong message to a Muslim world that is already skeptical about America’s motives and intentions,” said Nihad Awad, the council’s executive director.
Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee (R-R.I.) called the reported remarks “deplorable,” and Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) said the Armed Services Committee, which he chairs — and which recommended Boykin be confirmed for the Pentagon post — would examine the matter.
But at a Pentagon news conference, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that “at first blush” he did not think Boykin’s remarks had violated any military rules.
“There is a very wide gray area on what the rules permit,” Myers said, noting that he also had spoken at a prayer meeting in uniform.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, appearing with Myers, offered no opinion on Boykin’s comments but praised the general as “an officer that has an outstanding record in the United States armed forces.”
Even with such backing, however, Boykin indicated that he had learned a lesson, telling NBC News that he will be curtailing his speechmaking. Said Feaver, “This is the kind of thing that’s corrected within minutes of being made aware of.”
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By Farai Chideya, AlterNet, October 21, 2003
There are several battles going on simultaneously in Iraq. One is to secure the country against lawlessness and terrorism. Another is to dole out the spoils of the oil resources. Third is to secure victory for George W. Bush in the 2004 elections. And yet another is to win a public relations offensive, convincing the world that this was a just war in the first place.
In that last campaign, mark one for America in the ''skirmish lost'' column.
Recently NBC News broadcast footage of Army Lt. General William Boykin, a deputy undersecretary of defense, equating our campaigns in the Middle East to a religious war. Among his arguments: that Islam is ''a spiritual enemy. He's called the principality of darkness. The enemy is a guy called Satan,'' out to destroy America ''because we're a Christian nation.''
For bonus points, Boykin also pegged God (not the Supreme Court) as the deciding factor in the 2000 elections. ''Why is this man [President Bush] in the White House?'' he said. ''The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.''
Who does it serve to antagonize not Islamic terrorists, who need no further incentive for their deeds, but the rest of the members of the world's fastest growing religion? If any Islamic cleric or politician were to make similar statements about Christianity in a public forum, you can bet our government would decry their hate speech.
Therefore the most troubling aspect of the Boykin incident is not his words, but the Bush administration's reaction to his attacks. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called Boykin ''an officer that has an outstanding record in the United States Armed Forces.'' He then defended the Lt. General's statements on free speech grounds, saying, ''We're a free people.''
A free speech defense has great appeal. But this administration, which has relentlessly criticized those who speak out against the Iraq war and occupation, seems to have a very selective view of its uses. (Remember former White House spokesman Ari Flesicher admonishing Bill Maher of 'Politically Incorrect' and ''all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do''?)
Much has been made of the evangelical Christianity of President Bush. He has tried to blend his courting of evangelical voters with attempts to extend an olive branch to a growing political force, Arab-Americans. But the President and his administration cannot have it both ways. They cannot restrict the meaning of ''true American'' to ''Christian-American,'' and also purport to believe in a pluralistic society. And they cannot allow the military to promote the idea of an American Jihad – a religious war – while claiming to fight a religion-neutral war on terrorism as well.
The issue of religion in American identity will be one of the lynchpins around which the 2004 election turns. Currently the Supreme Court is debating whether schoolchildren should use the phrase ''under God'' (which was only added during the Red Scare of the 1950s) while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. The Supreme Court may well bar the use of the words in school – but every politician running for President will then, to court voters, leap to their defense. On a much deeper level, the Red State/Blue State faultline corresponds nicely with states in which evangelical or fundamentalist beliefs pervade (Red) versus states with a healthy, if hard-won, sense of religious pluralism (Blue).
In our own nation, and abroad, we cannot take lightly the threat that religious warmongering holds for our Union or our standing in the world. The administration must recognize the speech of Lt. Gen. Boykin and any others like him for what it really is: a threat to national security and American democracy as well.
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