"You are worm dirt..."

Playing the Atheism Card Against Pat Tillman's Family
By Stan Goff
Truthdig.com

Friday 28 July 2006

Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich has taken Christ into his heart, or so he says. Like my old colleague, Lt. Gen. William G. ("Jerry") Boykin, he has also carried the organically entrapped messiah onto the heathen-infested battlegrounds of Southwest Asia. Kauzlarich is the subject of my exposition today, but Boykin is his context.

You all remember Jerry Boykin-the general who, as part of the Bush 2003 civil relations effort in Iraq, called Muslims idol worshippers.

Back in the Reagan days, Boykin and I were simultaneously assigned to the allegedly super-secret Delta Force. He was a major then, and he would organize prayer breakfasts for the unit, driving many of us out of the building to purchase sausage-biscuits. His evangelical lunacy was already under siege then. Special Operations is a motley fraternity, in which operators are as likely to worship Odin or an oak tree as they are to attend Sunday services.

Boykin's recent rise is symptomatic of War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's fascination with Special Operations-in spite of its generally dismal record. Kauzlarich was on the same career fast track when he was the 75th Ranger Regiment's "cross commander" at Forward Operating Base Salerno, Khoust, Afghanistan, in 2004.

Bishop Boykin, shooting from the lip, asserted in 2003 that the U.S. military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq involved "an Army of God" squaring off against Satan.

Beelzebub himself! Can't say Jerry lacks ambition. Of course, the Satanists in this case were the very Muslims that the administration was trying to recruit as political puppets in the oil patch.

For this subtle bit of international relations, Boykin was punished by promotion to the position of deputy undersecretary of defense for... intelligence. Yes, the pun is nearly unbearable.

And so Boykin ascended. As the Haitian proverb says: The higher the monkey climbs, the more you see his ass.

Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, on the other hand, is not exactly being placed center-stage at the Pentagon. More than any other single person below the rank of general, he is probably most responsible for the Pentagon's embarrassment when NFL-player-turned-Army-Ranger Pat Tillman was killed on April 22, 2004, by his own comrades.

Full article here