Our Unholy Holy War

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo posts this very crucial reminder of some of the people other than Rumsfeld who may bear responsibility for what's gone on at Abu Ghraib:

...In many of the articles on this emerging Iraqi prisoners story, it has been claimed that some of the key instigators or enablers of bad acts were military intelligence officers.

Now, who's the head of military intelligence? 'Head' is too vague. There's no such post per se. But what comes pretty close is the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.

And who's that? Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin.

Remember him? He's the one who got in trouble last year for describing his battle with a Muslim Somali warlord by saying "I knew that my God was bigger than his God. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol," saying President Bush was chosen by God, and generally that the war on terror is an apocalyptic struggle between Christianity and Satan.

Last fall, after Boykin's efforts to channel Charlemagne or perhaps Urban II became known, he asked Don Rumsfeld to initiate an 'investigation' into whether his comments "violated any Pentagon rules or procedures" whatever that might mean. Just this week it was reported that the 'investigation' still continues; and Boykin has not been disciplined in any way.

In any case, I doubt very much that all this mess we've gotten ourselves into is attributable to this one man. But at what point in this scandal does someone ask whether some of this might have some connection to the fact that the guy running military intelligence believes the war on terror is a literal holy war pitting Christian America against Satan and his Muslim minions? ...