General to tone down religious rhetoric

You know, that's not good enough for me. It's one thing to tell the guy to stop publicly bashing Islam, but it's a whole other thing to know that every decision he makes, whether it affects him alone or people under his command, will be tainted with this crude, offensive philosophy. That he isn't forced to resign is further proof that there is a fundamentalist agenda in this admininstration.

The story:

Oct. 17, 2003 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- A top general has said he will tone down his rhetoric after being criticized for casting the war on terror as a religious battle, Pentagon officials said Friday.

But Defense Department lawyers, public affairs officials and others were meeting Friday to try to figure out whether that would be enough to calm the storm of criticism surrounding Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, who has said the counterterror war is a battle with Satan.

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2003/10/17/general/index.html

Glad to get moral clarity on that. And here I thought we were merely making war on an emotion (terror). Are we just trying to exorcise the world ? Is Bush the Messiah ?

I believe in free speech, and I think honesty is the best policy.

For one thing, no one should be forced to keep their ignorance and stupidity secret.

Especially since his salary is paid by the taxpayers, they have a right to know exactly what they are paying for.

Just as important, the bush regime *IS* engaged in a Crusade against Islam, and the only people who are deceived by lame denials of this are bush regime loyalists and maybe a handful of sharonistas in Israel.

The family of disappeared US citizens and residents know it is, the victims of US war crimes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and elsewhere are under no illusions about it.

Most American voters do not have any problem with a war against Islam, although what they think is not really relevant unless they are really high up in the defense industry or a REALLY big donor to political campaigns.

And the taxpayers, affluent voting classes and those whom the tax burden hits hardest, most of whom do not vote, should not be subject to clumsy, ineffectual gestures to try to mislead them about exactly how their money is spent.

Ditto for the citizens of other nations, whose soldiers the bush regime seeks to rent.

Go ahead. Say it loud. It's a Crusade.

The regime, after all, is the most powerful in the world and has nothing to fear.

Except the possibility that Americans will figure out that what scares the US about Islam has nothing to do with cloth on heads or even suicide bombs, but the fear that illiterate Mullah's chanting rote Arabic and slogans will slowly but surely give way to extremely literate scholars persuading their governments to unite not in Jihad and the rifle alone, but in an Islamic economy spread over 2 billion and growing people across the globe.