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The other newsworthy 60 Minutes story
Lt. Gen. William Boykin yesterday granted his first major interview about accusations that he's anti-Muslim. Specifically, he talked about his comment, "I knew that my God was bigger than [that of Somali warlord Osman Atto]. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."

"Let's go back to the day that we captured Osman Atto," Boykin told 60 Minutes on last night's broadcast (CBS has a 4-minute video clip that hits the highlights, but not everything). "He was a corrupt, evil warlord who was stealing from and robbing his own people. He was a man who worshipped graft, corruption, power and money. My reference to his God being an idol was not to Allah. My reference was to his worship of corruption, of power, of money. He was a thug. He was not a good Muslim."

Does the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of Boykin's chief critics, want to dispute that? Weblog doesn't think so. So Boykin has put his detractors on the defensive: Either defend Atto as a true Muslim or lay off. There's a third option: Don't believe him. Say he's lying. Say he really meant to disparage Islam and promote Christianity.

Can't do it, says Boykin. "Look, I'm a Christian. I make no apologies for that," he said. "But I'm also not foolish enough to deliberately offend or in any way ostracize any religion. I'm not anti-Islam, I'm not anti-Allah."

Not mentioned in the CBS report—or any media report for an awfully long time—are Boykin's remarks to churches saying that terrorists aren't real Muslims.

The CBS report has some awfully annoying aspects. For example, it calls Boykin "a fundamentalist Christian" without any indication about what that might mean. Surely Boykin didn't use the term to describe himself (he explicitly rejected the term "fanatic"). And since he's a high-ranking military officer, he clearly doesn't believe in the historic Fundamentalist creed of separating from culture. The use of the f-word in this case, then, is purely pejorative; it has no descriptive value.

The program is also annoyingly consistent in talking about Boykin's belief that "God sustains Americans in battle" and "that prayer saves American lives." Both are phrases from CBS correspondent David Martin, not Boykin. The tone would have been quite different had CBS told its viewers that Boykin believes that "God answers prayer."

In the interview, Boykin comes off as a very likeable, sometimes emotional human being who has experienced a very personal relationship with God. He believes that Satan exists in a real sense (in one of his speeches, he showed a photo of what he says is a "demonic spirit over the city of Mogadishu"), but he seems to believe that his calling in life is to protect human life, not to lead a crusade. His belief in a real Satan, in fact, is counter-evidence to media claims that he "equated" Osama bin Laden or other American enemies to the devil.

It's worth noting that the two Boykin associates interviewed in the piece don't seem to share his religious convictions, but they're very supportive of the general. "He didn't go around proselytizing or preaching or anything like that," said Logan Fitch, who served under Boykin. "I simply knew that he was a devout person."

So unless we want to ban devout people from the military, let's please stop with all the calls for Boykin's dismissal. A few retractions from the newspapers that called him a "bigot" are in order as well.

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September (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48