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bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
"Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" Boykin gets the boot
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Hirsh and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 5:05 p.m. MT Jan 9, 2007
A devout evangelical Christian, he achieved notoriety in October 2003
when he was videotaped telling a church audience that the god of a
Muslim warlord was "an idol" and that "my God was a real God."
Gates Cleans House at the Pentagon. New Pentagon chief is expected to
oust the U.S. general involved in the Somalia strikes.
Jan. 9, 2007 - Airstrikes this week on alleged Al Qaeda figures in
Somalia may prove to be one of the last counterterrorism operations
associated with a controversial Pentagon general who has overseen the
deployment of secret U.S. Special Ops teams against suspected terror
plotters, defense experts close to the Pentagon and intelligence
community tell NEWSWEEK.
Lt. Gen. William Boykin and his boss, soon-to-depart Defense
Undersecretary for Intelligence Steve Cambone, have guided or taken part
in the planning of such covert operations against Al Qaeda-linked groups
in several countries since 9/11. There is no indication that new Defense
Secretary Robert Gates disagrees with the Somalia operation this week.
But Boykin has long been a divisive figure. A devout evangelical
Christian, he achieved notoriety in October 2003 when he was videotaped
telling a church audience that the god of a Muslim warlord was "an idol"
and that "my God was a real God." Boykin and Cambone have also generated
controversy by allegedly seeking to wrest control of intelligence-
gathering from the CIA. Gates has said he is especially determined to
improve cooperation between the Department of Defense and the CIA. In
written testimony during his confirmation process last fall, Gates said
he was "unhappy about the dominance of the Defense Department in the
intelligence arena"—a key element of Cambone's and Boykin's approach.
While Cambone's departure has been announced, Boykin's has not. A
Defense Department spokesman would not confirm Wednesday that Boykin was
planning to retire, but he declined to deny it either. "There have been
no announcements about his retirement," said the spokesman, Maj. David
Smith. A U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity
owing to the sensitivity of the subject, said that Boykin currently was
still on the job. But word around the Pentagon was that Gates would ask
Boykin to go, this official said. Consultants who work with the
intelligence and Special Operations community said it was all but
certain that Boykin was following Cambone out the door. "If you're
getting rid of Cambone, you almost certainly have to get rid of Boykin,"
says Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counterterrorism official who stays in
touch with the community. "They're hand in glove. Gates feels it all
went out of control, that they're doing too many things in too many
places."
Boykin still has supporters inside the defense and intelligence
community who say they will be sorry to see him go. Considered a near-
legendary figure in the Special Operations community, Boykin was badly
wounded in the "Black Hawk Down" attack in 1993 in the Somali capital of
Mogadishu, where he commanded Delta Force. And his strategy of quietly
destroying jihadist cells outside Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11 has
had its successes. Among them: the capture of Algerian terrorist
Abderrazak al-Para in 2004, the assassination of a jihadist leader in
Yemen by a Hellfire missile strike in 2004 and the routing of the Abu
Sayyaf terror group from Basilan Island in the Philippines. "It was Gen.
Boykin who had the best chance of becoming the Patton of the war on
terror," says John Arquilla of the Naval Postgraduate School at
Monterey, Calif. "He really wanted to put the W back in GWOT"—referring
to the White House acronym for the global war on terror.
But the killing of innocents in some of these attacks has been costly to
America's reputation as well. The attacks in Somalia by U.S. Air Force
AC-130 gunships temporarily based in neighboring Kenya began Sunday.
They were launched by the Joint Task Force based in Djibouti, with help
from the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, the CIA and the
National Security Agency, as well as Ethiopian forces. The targets: a
handful of Al Qaeda operatives suspected in the 1998 bombings of two
U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, as well as other alleged Al Qaeda
associates in Somalia, U.S. officials said. The jihadis were believed to
be on the run since U.S.-backed Ethiopian forces overran Mogadishu a
week ago. According to an official U.S. State Department cable described
to NEWSWEEK, the Al Qaeda suspects were "co-located" with forces of the
fleeing Islamic Courts Union in remote southern Somalia.
Pentagon spokesman Joe Carpenter said the targets were "principal Al
Qaeda leadership in the region. We're not discussing their identities or
the individuals that were targeted." However, intelligence officials
said U.S. forces were hoping that at least one of the three of the
figures involved in the planning of the 1998 embassy attacks was among
the dozens reported killed by the strikes. Two senior intelligence
officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the details of the
operation were classified, said it was not confirmed whether any of the
Al Qaeda figures was dead.
Critics of the covert program say that Gates and Cambone's replacement,
Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper, are concerned that too much collateral damage
may work against U.S. interests. Giraldi says the U.S. Special Ops teams
operate too often without accountability, not even notifying the local
U.S. Embassy of their presence. In one case in East Africa a clandestine
team was arrested by the host government and had to be bailed out by the
ambassador, Giraldi says. Adds Arquilla, an advocate of dropping small
teams into countries rather than launching airstrikes: "There's a
growing realization in the Pentagon that the more collateral damage is
done, the worse is our position in the 'battle of the story'—in other
words, every time we kill innocents our story is much less compelling
and the clash of civilizations story is much more compelling."
Boykin has largely operated in the shadows—his only official title is
deputy undersecretary of intelligence—and Pentagon spokesmen say neither
he nor Cambone is officially involved in operations, only policy. But
last spring, Sen. John Warner, then the Republican chairman of the Armed
Services Committee, came out publicly against a bid to name Boykin head
of Special Operations Command.
source:
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/01/kill-em-all-and-let-god-sort-
em-out.html
===
-muslim voice-
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