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--- Begin Message ----Caveat Lector- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml? xml=/news/2003/10/17/wboyk17.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/10/17/ixnewstop. html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=15391 God put Bush in charge, says the general hunting bin Laden By David Rennie (Filed: 17/10/2003)The general leading the hunt for Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein has publicly declared that the Christian God is "bigger" than Allah, who is a false "idol", and believes the war on terrorism is a fight with Satan, it emerged yesterday. Investigative reporters from the Los Angeles Times and NBC television have dug up two years' worth of seemingly incendiary comments from Lt Gen William "Jerry" Boykin, the newly promoted deputy undersecretary of state of defence for intelligence. Gen Boykin has repeatedly told Christian groups and prayer meetings that President George W Bush was chosen by God to lead the global fight against Satan. He told one gathering: "Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. He's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this." In January, he told Baptists in Florida about a victory over a Muslim warlord in Somalia, who had boasted that Allah would protect him from American capture. "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real god and his was an idol," Gen Boykin said. He also emerged from the conflict with a photograph of the Somalian capital Mogadishu bearing a strange dark mark. He has said this showed "the principalities of darkness. . . a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy". On the Middle East, Gen Boykin told an Oregon church in June that America could not ignore its Judaeo-Christian roots. "Our religion came from Judaism and therefore [Islamic] radicals will hate us forever." In the same month, Gen Boykin told an Oklahoma congregation that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were not the enemy. "Our enemy is a spiritual enemy because we are a nation of believers. . . His name is Satan." The disclosures will doubtless be seized on by Muslim critics as proof that the US-led war on terrorism is a crusade against Islam. It is a charge that Mr Bush has worked hard to refute. Though careful to respect minority religions within its ranks, the US military is strikingly devout from top to bottom. Mr Bush and several key figures in his administration are staunch Christian conservatives. Few outside the Pentagon noticed when Gen Boykin, a 13-year member of Delta Force, the top-secret commando unit modelled on the SAS, was promoted this summer, with responsibility for speeding the flow of top- secret intelligence to commandos hunting bin Laden and other high-value targets. At a routine press conference yesterday, Donald Rumsfeld, the normally confident defence secretary, appeared wrong-footed by the controversy. He hailed the general's "outstanding record" and said his comments were made "in his private capacity". However, Mr Rumsfeld was careful to cite Mr Bush's injunctions against viewing Islam as the enemy. Gen Boykin told NBC that he would be curtailing his speeches to religious groups. "I don't want to come across as a Right-wing radical," he said. Is George W. Bush God's president? [16 Oct '03] - The New York Observer © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003. http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=5333 Is George W. Bush God’s President? by Joe Conason Do tax cuts for the wealthy represent the will of God? What might normally be an impertinent and perhaps offensive question suddenly seems entirely reasonable after hearing George W. Bush’s ungrammatical but passionate pledge to defend the tax cuts his administration provided to the richest, smallest segment of American citizens, at the cost of his own life if need be. The vow he uttered during his town-hall meeting in California over the weekend—"Not over my dead body will they raise your taxes!"—was the strongest he’s made on any subject since his promise to deliver Osama bin Laden to justice "dead or alive." Even allowing for hyperbole, such edgy remarks indicate what matters most to Mr. Bush. For the moment, however, he appears more capable of fulfilling the former promise than the latter. And since it has lately become respectable to discuss his elevation to the nation’s highest office as a matter of divine will, Mr. Bush’s deep determination to empty the Treasury into the pockets of friends and supporters may likewise signify the unknowable agenda of the Almighty. Unbelievers will scoff at such notions, but in the wake of Sept. 11, the idea that a higher power ordained the inauguration of Mr. Bush is no longer confined to the loonier fringes of the religious right. While the President and the First Lady modestly demur whenever this topic comes up, others around the Oval Office assert that they are convinced. "I think President Bush is God’s man at this hour," a top White House aide told a religious publication not long ago. Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition who now chairs the G.O.P. in Georgia, says his fellow evangelicals believe God selected the President because "He knew George Bush had the ability to lead in this compelling way." Nor is this revelation confined solely to Protestant conservatives. Two days before Christmas, Rudolph Giuliani, a devout but not excessively rigorous Catholic, announced his own opinion that "there was some divine guidance in the President being elected." In this sentiment, the Time magazine "Man of the Year" was swiftly seconded by a Catholic bishop. (Again, a skeptic might impiously wonder why the Lord didn’t simply bless Mr. Bush with the actual majority of votes. But faith is nothing without mystery.) The implications of all this are obviously profound. If the President is indeed guided by Providence in lavishing additional billions upon those who already enjoy so much material abundance—even while the numbers of unemployed, uninsured and homeless soar—then his ascension may represent a millennial reversal of heavenly policy. Until now, few directives have been clearer than the guidance enunciated by prophets of both the Old and New Testaments regarding earthly greed. "Woe to you who are rich," Jesus told his disciples, "for you have already received your comfort." The impoverished carpenter also reportedly informed a well- heeled acquaintance that it is "easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." His best-known speech included the admonition that "you cannot serve both God and Mammon." Universally familiar as those statements are, they are reliably among the most widely ignored. Entire schools of theology, across all ecumenical lines, have long been devoted to parsing a convenient loophole in such injunctions. They aren’t the sort of Biblical quotations that politicians try to post in public schools, or that televangelists cite as evidence that Republicans are the party of God. What a relief it would be if the tax policy of the Bush administration means that we no longer have to worry about worshipping the golden calf. Divine inspiration may not be a persuasive explanation for Mr. Bush’s fiscal schemes, which are pushing the government into deficit and threatening to prolong the recession. It is indeed hard to imagine that any omniscient power would prefer a $254 million tax break for Enron to a cut in payroll taxes for the working poor. But it’s just as difficult to credit any of the more earthly justifications emanating from the White House press office. In any case, not all branches of the federal government have awakened yet to the new dispensation. On the same day that Mr. Bush made his "dead body" remark, a report issued by the Congressional Budget Office disparaged his tax cuts as useless for reviving the economy. According to the C.B.O. analysis, better results would ensue from more progressive cuts in payroll and sales taxes. While the nonpartisan report appropriately said nothing about theology, its recommendations were highly reminiscent of that old-fashioned scriptural preference for the poor and the toilers. So perhaps Mr. Bush’s supporters should reconsider their political epiphany. The followers of the last public figure who claimed to be executing God’s will are now dodging daisy-cutters. back to top This column ran on page 5 in the 1/14/02 edition of The New York Observer. SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEW YORK OBSERVER HOME PAGE OF THE NEW YORK OBSERVER COPYRIGHT © 2002 THE NEW YORK OBSERVER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it." 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