October 16, 2003
Los Angeles Times

'He's in The White House Because God Put Him There'

The top soldier assigned to track down Bin Laden and Hussein is an evangelical Christian who speaks publicly of 'the army of God.'

by Richard T. Cooper

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has assigned the task of tracking down and eliminating Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and other high-profile targets to an Army general who sees the war on terrorism as a clash between Judeo-Christian values and Satan.

. . . the former commander and 13-year veteran of the Army's top-secret Delta Force is also an outspoken evangelical Christian who appeared in dress uniform and polished jump boots before a religious group in Oregon in June to declare that radical Islamists hated the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the enemy is a guy named Satan."

Discussing the battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia, Boykin told another audience, "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."

"We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this," Boykin said last year.

On at least one occasion, in Sandy, Ore., in June, Boykin said of President Bush: "He's in the White House because God put him there."

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The Bible: War, Violence, Fornication

[As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.--Treaty of Peace and Friendship Between the United States and Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary, Art. 11, Annals of Congress, 5th Congress, June 17, 1797

Jihad and The Crusades, The Wisdom Fund

Enver Masud, "Jihad Against Islam," The Wisdom Fund, April 28, 1995

Enver Masud, "Islamic Fundamentalism Greatest Danger To World Peace?," The Wisdom Fund, September 13, 1996

International Crusades becomes International Commission, May 21, 1996

Laurie Goodstein, "Bush's Jesus Day Is Called Insensitive and a Violation of the First Amendment," New York Times, August 6, 2000

Don McCurry, "Islam and Christian Militarism," missionfrontiers.org, April 2001

Peter Ford, "Europe cringes at Bush 'crusade' against terrorists," Christian Science Monitor, September 19, 2001

Paul Williams, and Paul L. Williams, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Crusades," Alpha (October 18, 2001)

Barry Yeoman, "The Stealth Crusade," Mother Jones, May/June 2002 Issue

[The former co-chairman of Jack Kemp's presidential campaign, LaHaye was a member of the original board of directors of the Moral Majority and an organizer of the Council for National Policy, which ABCNews.com has called "the most powerful conservative organization in America you've never heard of" and whose membership has included John Ashcroft, Tommy Thompson and Oliver North. George W. Bush is still refusing to release a tape of a speech he gave to the group in 1999.--Michelle Goldberg, "Fundamentally unsound: Left Behind, the bestselling series of paranoid, pro-Israel end-time thrillers, may sound kooky, but America's right-wing leaders really believe this stuff," Salon, July 29, 2002]

Mark O'Keefe, "Christianizing the Enemy," Newhouse News, March 27, 2003

[The organization has operated under many guises, some active, some defunct: National Committee for Christian Leadership, International Christian Leadership, the National Leadership Council, Fellowship House, the Fellowship Foundation, the National Fellowship Council, the International Foundation. These groups are intended to draw attention away from the Family, . . . The Family's only publicized gathering is the National Prayer Breakfast--Jeffrey Sharlet, "Jesus plus nothing: Undercover among America's secret theocrats," Harpers, March 2003]

[To this aggressive extension of American power in the world, President George W. Bush adds God - and that changes the picture dramatically. It's one thing for a nation to assert its raw dominance in the world; it's quite another to suggest, as this president does, that the success of American military and foreign policy is connected to a religiously inspired "mission," and even that his presidency may be a divine appointment for a time such as this.--Jim Wallis, "Dangerous Religion: George W. Bush's theology of empire," Sojourners Magazine, September-October 2003]

"Rumsfeld defends general who commented on war, Satan," CNN, October 16, 2003

John Aglionby, "West accuses Malaysian PM of racism," Guardian, October 18, 2003

Editorial, "With God on Our Side," Washington Post, October 19, 2003

Editorial, "Wrong and Divisive," Washington Post, October 23, 2003

Kurt Nimmo, "Criticizing Zionism," CounterPunch, October 21, 2003

Paul Harris, "Bush says God chose him to lead his nation," Observer (UK), November 2, 2003

[K. S. Latourette at Yale helped kick-start East Asian studies (his 1929 book is History of the Christian Missions in China); H. E. Bolton at Berkeley pioneered Latin American Studies (his 1936 book is The Rim of Christendom: A biography of Eusebio Francisco Kino, Pacific Coast Pioneer); A. C. Coolidge at Harvard worked out the contours of Slavic Studies (his big book of 1908 is entitled The United States as a World Power). In its infancy, the Church and Washington held sway over Area Studies. Our evangelical imperials of today want to return to this period.--Vijay Prasad, "Confronting the Evangelical Imperialists," CounterPunch, November 13, 2003]

[Evangelical Christian leaders expressed dismay yesterday over President Bush's statement that Christians and Muslims worship the same god--Alan Cooperman, "Bush's Remark About God Assailed," Washington Post, November 22, 2003]

[Cole's lawsuit alleges that the curriculum infringes on "his students' First Amendment rights to the free flow of information within the classroom" and that it "constitutes an illegal establishment of religion in violation of the First Amendment."--"Teacher sues over limits on history curriculum," Associated Press, December 4, 2003]

[A leading evangelical Christian seminary is using federal funds to launch a $1 million program to ease strained relations with Muslims with an interfaith code of ethics.--"Seminary to Launch Interfaith Ethics Code," Associated Press, December 6, 2003]

Karen Armstrong, "When God Goes to War," Guardian (UK), December 29, 2003

"Rise Of The Righteous Army," CBSNEWS.com, February 8, 2004

[. . . the Democrats' "tough-minded internationalism" began with Woodrow Wilson, a Christian megalomaniac who believed that America had been chosen by God "to show the way to the nations of this world, how they shall walk in the paths of liberty."--John Pilger, "Choose Your Favorite Pro-War Candidate," Antiwar.com, March 5, 2004]

[The "Constitution Restoration Act of 2004" . . . If enacted, it will effectively transform the American republic into a theocracy,--Chris Floyd, "Pin Heads," Moscow Times, March, 12, 2004]

[It wore the clothing of counterterrorism and spoke the language of a holy war between good and evil.--Karen Kwiatkowski, "The new Pentagon papers," Salon.com, March 10, 2004]

Duane Oldfield, "The Evangelical Roots of American Unilateralism: The Christian Right's Influence and How to Counter It," Foreign Policy in Focus, March, 2004

"The Greatest Story Ever Sold," CBSNEWS.com, April 14, 2004

[I was praying for strength to do the Lord's will. I'm surely not going to justify war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case, I pray that I be as good a messenger of his will as possible. And then, of course, I pray for forgiveness."--" Woodward Shares War Secrets," CBSNEWS.com, April 18, 2004]

George Monbiot, "Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power: US Christian fundamentalists are driving Bush's Middle East policy," The Guardian, April 20, 2004

Philip James, "For God's sake," The Guardian, April 23, 2004

"The Jesus Factor," PBS Frontline, April 29, 2004

["Tenet was allowed to resign 'voluntarily' and Bush informed his shocked staff of the decision Thursday morning. One aide says the President actually described the decision as 'God's will'. God may also be the reason Attorney General John Ashcroft, the administration's lightning rod because of his questionable actions that critics argue threatens freedoms granted by the Constitution, remains part of the power elite. West Wing staffers call Bush and Ashcroft 'the Blues Brothers' because "they're on a mission from God."--Alexander Cockburn, "Has Bush Gone Over the Edge?," CounterPunch, June 4, 2004]

John Alden Williams, "Misunderstanding Islam," israelshamir.net, June 2004

[Weyrich says if the president actually declared that America is in a war against Islam, there might be more Muslims taking up arms against the U.S. - a "real jihad," as he puts it. So Bush, according to Weyrich, is soft-peddling his rhetoric in order to "tamp down" any worldwide activity that might occur.--Chad Groening and Jody Brown, "Conservative Attributes Bush's Pro-Islam Comments to Politics," AgapePress, July 9, 2004]

Jane Lampman, "Christian Zionists soldier to prophecy," Christian Science Monitor, July 14, 2004

David Domke, "God Willing: Political Fundamentalism in the White House, the 'War on Terror' and the Echoing Press," Pluto Press (August 1, 2004)

Bob Fitrakis, "Gott Mit Uns: On Bush and Hitler's Rhetoric," The Free Press, September 1, 2004

James Carroll, "Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War (The American Empire Project)," Metropolitan Books (August 3, 2004)

[George W. Bush has signed on to the neocon agenda with the unshakeable faith of the born again. At this point, we all need a reminder that Crusades 1 through 5 ended badly in the long run, not just for the Crusaders, but on the home front.--Anonymous, "The State Department's extreme makeover," Salon, October 4, 2004]

Katherine Yurica, "Infiltrating the U.S. Military: Gen. Boykin's 'Kingdom Warriors' On the Road to Abu Ghraib and Beyond," Yurica Report, October 12, 2004

[He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis.--Ron Suskind, "Without a Doubt," New York Times, October 17, 2004]

Jonathan Phillips, "The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople," Viking Adult (October 21, 2004)

[The 2004 election marks the rise of a quasi-clerical party for the first time in the United States.--Sidney Blumenthal, "The lowest ignorance takes charge," Guardian, November 11, 2004]

Norman Solomon, "A Distant Mirror of Holy War," AlterNet, November 11, 2004

Chris Hedges, "Warning From a Student of Democracy's Collapse," New York Times, January 6, 2005

[. . . if the speech was to be taken literally, then clearly it would imply commitment to some sort of a global crusade--Zbigniew Brzezinski, "News Hour with Margaret Warner," PBS, January 6, 2005]

Bill Moyers, "No Tomorrow," ZNet, February 2, 2005

Steve Weissman, "America's Religious Right - Saints or Subversives?," truthout.org, April 6, 2005

[Several former detainees at the Guantanamo and Bagram prisons have reported instances of their handlers sitting or standing on the Koran, throwing or kicking it in toilets, and urinating on it. Prior to the Newsweek article, the New York Times reported a Guantanamo insider asserting that the commander of the facility was compelled by prisoner protests to address the problem and issue an apology.--Calgacus, "Newsweek Got Gitmo Right," Antiwar.com, May 16, 2005]

"Red Cross 'raised Koran concerns'," BBC News, May 19, 2005

VIDEO GAME, developed with a $4 million grant from the U.S. military, teaches how to kill the "enemy" - in an obviously Muslim city: "Full Spectrum Warrior," Pandemic Studios, May 24, 2005

Gary Leupp, "It Really is a Crusade," CounterPunch, May 27, 2005

[America and the West are at war with Islam and that this is a war like no other in history. It will last for decades. The enemy isn't a national one but a cultural one, consisting of cadres of religious and cultural zealots interspersed throughout the world, including the West, and willing to die for the sake of merely killing a few innocent Americans at a time. The enemy's primary aims are to drive a wedge through the West, to destablize its economies and its governments, and to seize key Muslim countries, particularly Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.--Robert W. Merry , "Sands of Empire: Missionary Zeal, American Foreign Policy, and the Hazards of Global Ambition," Simon & Schuster (May 31, 2005), p. 249]

[The point is that this conflict has its origins more in "the West" than in the House of Islam. The image of Muslims as prone to violence by virtue of their religion was mainly constructed across centuries by Europeans seeking to bolster their own purposes, a habit of politicized paranoia that is masterfully continued by freaked-out leaders of post-9/11 America.--James Carroll, "The War Against Islam," Boston Globe, June 7, 2005]

[President George Bush has claimed he was told by God to invade Iraq and attack Osama bin Laden's stronghold of Afghanistan as part of a divine mission to bring peace to the Middle East, security for Israel, and a state for the Palestinians.--Rupert Cornwell, "Bush: God told me to invade Iraq," I Independent, October 7, 2005]

[Best-selling author and evangelical leader Tim LaHaye has contacts that extend to the White House. That could spell trouble, since his theology espouses a bloody apocalypse in Israel . . .

According to a Time/CNN poll from 2002, 59 percent of Americans believe the events in the book of Revelation will take place. There are as many as 70 million Evangelicals in the U.S. . . .

Far from being a Prince of Peace, the Christ depicted in the "Left Behind" series is a vengeful Messiah - so vengeful that the death and destruction he causes to unconverted Jews, to secularists, to anyone who is not born again, is far, far greater than the crimes committed by the most brutal dictators in human history.--Craig Unger, "American 'Rapture'," Vanity Fair, November 28, 2005]

[A growing number of legal experts and Muslim civil rights advocates say that U.S. prosecutors are using jurors' ignorance of Islam as a way to get convictions in terrorism cases.--Paolo Pontoniere, "Islam Put on Trial in Terrorism Cases, U.S. Muslims Say," New America Media, December 1, 2005]

[He said: "I think if you have faith about these things, then you realise that that judgement is made by other people... and if you believe in God, it's made by God as well.--"PM attacked on Iraq 'God' remarks," BBC News, March 4, 2006]

Kevin Phillips, "American Theocracy : The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21stCentury," Viking Adult (March 21, 2006)

[One is the role of oil in defining and, as Phillips sees it, distorting American foreign and domestic policy. The second is the ominous intrusion of radical Christianity into politics and government. And the third is the astonishing levels of debt--Alan Brinkley, "Clear and Present Dangers," New York Times, March 19, 2006]

Dan Wakefield, "Taking Back the Faith," Nation, April 24, 2006

[Observers describe Bush as "messianic" in his conviction that he is fulfilling the divine purpose. . . . There is no more dangerous thing for a democracy than a foreign policy based on presidential preventive war.--Arthur Schlesinger Jr., "Bush's Thousand Days," Washington Post, April 24, 2006]

Francis A Boyle, "The Middle East Agenda: Oil, Dollar Hegemony & Islam," Perdana Global Peace Forum, June 22, 2006

[. . . it was only during Muslim rule that Palestine enjoyed uninterrupted peace and harmony among Muslims, Christians and Jews. . . . Throughout Muslim lands, the Jews lived in peace and freedom in sharp contrast to the Christian world's unabashed persecution of the Jewish minority for 2,000 years.--Muhammad Ali Siddiqi, "'Awkward' truths about Palestine," Daily Dawn, July 21, 2006]

Patrick Cockburn, "Yes, It is a Crusade!," counterpunch.org, August 5, 2006

Max Blumenthal, "Birth Pangs of a New Christian Zionism," Nation, August 8, 2006

[Benedict quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and a Persian scholar on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said. "He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'"--"Religious leaders across Mideast rage against pope's comments on Islam," USA Today, September 15, 2006]

["I want to see them radically laying down their lives for the gospel, as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine."--Dan Glaister, "They cry, pray to Bush and wash out the devil - welcome to Jesus Camp," Guardian, September 29, 2006]

David D. Kirkpatrick, "For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel Is 'God's Foreign Policy'," New York Times, November 14, 2006

"GOP lawmaker wants to win in Iraq by 'spreading the message of Jesus Christ' ," The Carpetbagger Report, December 21, 2006

Thomas Cahill, "The Peaceful Crusader," New York Times, December 25, 2006

[Erik Prince, the secretive, mega-millionaire, right-wing Christian founder of Blackwater, the private security firm that has built a formidable mercenary force in Iraq, champions his company as a patriotic extension of the U.S. military. . . . The appearance of these paramilitary fighters, heavily armed and wearing their trademark black uniforms, patrolling the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, gave us a grim taste of the future.--Chris Hedges, "America's Holy Warriors," truthdig.com, December 31, 2006]

[Erik Prince, who is a neo-crusader, a Christian supremacist, who has been given over a half a billion dollars in federal contracts, and that's not to mention his black contracts, his secret contracts, his contracts with foreign friendly governments like Jordan.--Jeremy Scahill, "Our Mercenaries in Iraq: Blackwater Inc and Bush's Undeclared Surge," democracynow.org, January 26, 2007]

VIDEO: Chris Hedges, "American Fascists - The Christian Right and the War on America," Google, March 31, 2007

[Weinstein, a 1977 graduate of the Academy and former assistant general counsel in the Reagan administration, and a lifelong Republican, has devoted the last several years of his life to battling what he has come to regard as a fundamentalist takeover of the Academy, turning it, in effect, into a taxpayer-supported Evangelical institution.--Robert Koehler, "The Christian Taliban Is Running the Department of Defense," Common Wonders, May 3, 2007]

Max Blumenthal, "Rapture Ready: The Christians United for Israel Tour," YouTube, July 26, 2007

[ . . . after an investigation spurred by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not be delivering "freedom packages" to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had originally intended.

. . . the packages . . . held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which "soldiers for Christ" hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers.--Michael L. Weinstein and Reza Aslan, "Not so fast, Christian soldiers," Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2007]

[Bothwell documents that there wasn't a war the U.S. was involved in that Rev. Graham couldn't bless.--William Hughes, "The Dark Side of Rev. Billy Graham," counterpunch.org, September 27, 2007]

"Fundamentalism in US military?," Times of India, February 19, 2008

[The controversy over the coins that Iraqis said some Marines are passing out comes on the heels of a tempest triggered by a U.S. sniper who used the Quran, Islam's holy book, for target practice.--Jamal Naji and Leila Fadel, "Iraqis claim Marines are pushing Christianity in Fallujah," McClatchy Newspapers, May 29, 2008]

Leonard Doyle, "At last, Blair is free to 'do God' - and America loves it," Independent, February 6, 2009

[They see themselves not as subversives but as spiritual warriors - "ambassadors for Christ in uniform," according to Officers' Christian Fellowship; "government paid missionaries," according to Campus Crusade's Military Ministry.

. . . Not only did Obama keep on Robert Gates as defense secretary; he retained the secretary of the Army, Pete Geren - another star of the Christian Embassy video, who also, in commencement remarks at West Point last year, characterized America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as struggles for religious freedom against the "darkness and oppression" of radical Islam - and also appointed as his national security adviser the retired Marine general James Jones, a regular on the prayer breakfast circuit.--Jeff Sharlet, "Jesus killed Mohammed: The crusade for a Christian military," Harpers, May 2009]

[U.S. Soldiers have been encouraged to spread the message of their Christian faith among Afghanistan's predominantly Muslim population--"GIs Told to Bring Afghans to Jesus," military.com, May 4, 2009]

SLIDES: "Iraq war briefings headlined with biblical quotes, reports US magazine," Guardian, May 18, 2009

[ . . . 900,000 bibles in the Arabic language [were] distributed by Christians in Iraq.--Jeff Sharlet, "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power," Harper Perennial, June 2, 2009]

[ . . . a cadre of 40 U.S. chaplains took part in a 2003 project to distribute 2.4 million Arabic-language Bibles in Iraq.--Kathryn Joyce, "Christian Soldiers: The growing controversy over military chaplains using the armed forces to spread the Word," Newsweek, June 19, 2009]

[The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,"--Jeremy Scahill, "Explosive Allegations: Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder," AlterNet, August 5, 2009]

[Historically speaking, these formidable outposts are the 21st century equivalent of crusader castles, rising out of the plain, projecting superior force, and grimly dominating all they behold.--Simon Tisdall, "America's new crusader castles," Guardian, October 29, 2009]

[One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."--Joseph Ree et al, "U.S. Military Weapons Inscribed With Secret 'Jesus' Bible Codes," ABC News, January 18, 2010]

James Carroll, "Onward, Christian Zionists: Deep-rooted Christian tradition has put its mark on British, US policies in Mideast," boston.com, August 23, 2010

Michel Chossudovsky, "America's Holy Crusade against the Muslim World," globalresearch.ca, August 31, 2010

Robert Koehler, "Our Own Holy War," antiwar.com, September 17, 2010

VIDEO: "Christian Zionism," We Hold Thes Truths, September 22, 2010

[Emerson is a leading member of a multimillion-dollar industry of self-proclaimed experts who spread hate toward Muslims in books and movies, on websites and through speaking appearances.--Bob Smietana, "Anti-Muslim crusaders make millions spreading fear," tennessean.com, October 24, 2010]

[Rarely has the United States seen a more reckless and bare-knuckled campaign to vilify a distinct class of people and compromise their fundamental civil and human rights than the recent rhetoric against Muslims.--Robert Steinback, "Jihad Against Islam," Southern Poverty Law Center, Intelligence Report, Summer 2011, Issue Number: 142]

[The new prophets and apostles believe Christians - certain Christians - are destined to not just take "dominion" over government, but stealthily climb to the commanding heights of what they term the "Seven Mountains" of society, including the media and the arts and entertainment world. They believe they're intended to lord over it all. As a first step, they're leading an "army of God" to commandeer civilian government.--Forrest Wilder, "Rick Perry's Army of God, texasobserver.org, August 3, 2011]

Gilad Atzmon, "How God Made the English A Chosen People?," gilad.co.uk, November 10, 2013

[ . . . makes vividly clear that religion is not the problem.--Karen Armstrong, "Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence," amazon.com, October 28, 2014]

Noam Chomsky - Why Does the U.S. Support Israel? July 2, 2016

James Carroll, "The War on Terror as the Launching of an American Crusade," tomdispatch.com, March 8, 2018

[The result was an ideologically lethal package that assumed whatever Americans did was democratic because God is on our side, that old-fashioned CIA skullduggery was passe, and that the time had come to switch to more open means."We should not have to do this kind of work covertly," Gershman later explained. "We saw that in the 60s, and that's why it has been discontinued. We have not had the capability of doing this, and that's why the endowment was created."--Daniel Lazare, "The National Endowment for (Meddling in) Democracy," theamericanconservative.com, March 8, 2018]

Mehdi Hasan, "Caliph Donald Trump and the Rise of the Christian Taliban," The Intercept, June 20, 2018

[CNP's membership is a carefully guarded secret; its meetings are private - off limits to the public and the press - and even the location of the gatherings is carefully protected.--Max Blumenthal, "ELECTION 2020: The Rise of the Council for National Policy and Who is Behind It," consortiumnews.com, september 2, 2020]

Liz Theoharis, "The Rise of Christian Nationalism in America," tomdispatch.com, September 27, 2020

Evangelical Christians in the USA, DW Documentary, January 14, 2021

Why evangelical Christians influence US foreign policy in the Middle East, Witness Documentary, Al Jazeera, March 19, 2024

Constitution Restoration Act of 2004 (H. R. 3799 and S. 2082): Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Supreme Court shall not have jurisdiction to review, by appeal, writ of certiorari, or otherwise, any matter to the extent that relief is sought against an element of Federal, State, or local government, or against an officer of Federal, State, or local government (whether or not acting in official personal capacity), by reason of that element's or officer's acknowledgement of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government.