So, when I read this story about how Lt. General Jerry Boykin ran an operation in North Korea that relied on Christian missionaries as spies, there was a part of me that thought "Damn it, aren't all the Christians in NK heading for a firing squad now?" And also, "Isn't this liable to make them paranoid about any NGO trying on some good works where starving and poor North Koreans are concerned?" I am also reminded that North Korea was sore as hell for reasons while the US was under the Bush Administration. And I am also reminded that these days, Boykin is a full-on radioactive Christianist whackadoodle. I'm reminded of the entire unhelpful extent that the military got played into performing a holy war under George Bush the Lesser.
And I never want another theocratic or theocrat-friendly politician in the White House ever again. Because that kind of logic is...not logic. It's signifying and in error. It doesn't work.
2 comments:
When do they throw his ass in Leavenworth? This really seems treasonous at worst, subversive at least.
He was a top intelligence officer in the Bush Administration at the time--so what he did was presumably with approval. But it hints at the mindset of the people carrying out intelligence in that I don't think they contemplated that the methods used had risks that might outweigh the value of the intelligence gained for other NGO's and civilians in that country. Viewing "war" (which foreign policy needn't be and intel-gathering is only tangential to) as good vs evil leads to "ends justify the means" short-sightedness. (He was involved with the "Gitmoizing" of Abu Ghraib.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/22336-genghis-christ-general-boykin-and-the-fundamentalist-christian-holy-war )
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