An evangelical US general played a pivotal role in Iraqi prison reform
Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday May 20, 2004
The Guardian
Saving General Boykin seemed like a strange sideshow last October. After it was revealed that the deputy undersecretary of defence for intelligence had been regularly appearing at evangelical revivals preaching that the US was in a holy war as a "Christian nation" battling "Satan", the furore was quickly calmed.
Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, explained that Boykin was exercising his rights as a citizen: "We're a free people." President Bush declared that Boykin "doesn't reflect my point of view or the point of view of this administration". Bush's commission on public diplomacy had reported that in nine Muslim countries, just 12% believed that "Americans respect Arab/Islamic values". The Pentagon announced that its inspector general would investigate Boykin, though he has yet to report.
Boykin was not removed or transferred. At that moment, he was at the heart of a secret operation to "Gitmoize" (Guantánamo is known in the US as Gitmo) the Abu Ghraib prison. He had flown to Guantánamo, where he met Major General Geoffrey Miller, in charge of Camp X-Ray. Boykin ordered Miller to fly to Iraq and extend X-Ray methods to the prison system there, on Rumsfeld's orders.
Boykin was recommended to his position by his record in the elite Delta forces: he was a commander in the failed effort to rescue US hostages in Iran, had tracked drug lord Pablo Escobar in Colombia, had advised the gas attack on barricaded cultists at Waco, Texas, and had lost 18 men in Somalia trying to capture a warlord in the notorious Black Hawk Down fiasco of 1993.
Boykin told an evangelical gathering last year how this fostered his spiritual crisis. "There is no God," he said. "If there was a God, he would have been here to protect my soldiers." But he was thunderstruck by the insight that his battle with the warlord was between good and evil, between the true God and the false one. "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."
Boykin was the action hero side of his boss, Stephen Cambone, a conservative defence intellectual appointed to the new post of undersecretary of intelligence. Cambone is universally despised by the officer corps for his arrogant, abrasive and dictatorial style and regarded as the personal symbol of Rumsfeldism. A former senior Pentagon official told me of a conversation with a three-star general, who remarked: "If we were being overrun by the enemy and I had only one bullet left, I'd use it on Cambone."
Cambone set about cutting the CIA and the state department out of the war on terror, but he had no knowledge of special ops. For this the rarefied civilian relied on the gruff soldier - a melding of "ignorance and recklessness", as a military intelligence source told me.
Just before Boykin was put in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden and then inserted into Iraqi prison reform, he was a circuit rider for the religious right. He allied himself with a small group called the Faith Force Multiplier that advocates applying military principles to evangelism. Its manifesto - Warrior Message - summons "warriors in this spiritual war for souls of this nation and the world ... "
Boykin staged a travelling slide show around the country where he displayed pictures of Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. "Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army," he preached. They "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus". It was the reporting of his remarks at a revival meeting in Oregon that made them a subject of brief controversy.
There can be little doubt that he envisages the global war on terror as a crusade. With the Geneva conventions apparently suspended, international law is supplanted by biblical law. Boykin is in God's chain of command. President Bush, he told an Oregon congregation last June, is "a man who prays in the Oval Office". And the president, too, is on a divine mission. "George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters in the US. He was appointed by God."
Boykin is not unique in his belief that Bush is God's anointed against evildoers. Before his 2000 campaign, Bush confided to a leader of the religious right: "I feel like God wants me to run for president ... I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen."
Michael Gerson, Bush's chief speechwriter, tells colleagues that on September 20 2001, after Bush delivered his speech to the Congress declaring a war on terror, he called Gerson to thank him for writing it. "God wants you here," Gerson says he told the president. And he says that Bush replied: "God wants us here."
But it's Bush who wants Rumsfeld, Cambone and Boykin here.
It was an unforgettable image. A teenager standing alone at a checkpoint, explosives strapped to his chest, confused, trying to follow Israeli orders to get him to dismantle his bomb.
That afternoon, in March 2004, 15-year-old Hussam Abdo took up his own small place in the imagery of this conflict.
I thank God that the operation didn't go through. God doesn't want me to die
Hussam Abdo
Since his arrest he has been in an Israeli prison.
We were let inside a high security jail in the north of the country and told to wait in a meeting room.
Minutes later, Hussam Abdo was brought in to see us.
He was wearing a brown prison uniform and handcuffs. He was tiny - he didn't even reach my shoulder.
He sat down, smiled and talked readily. A prison guard sat at the end of the room watching our conversation.
Below is a transcript of the interview:
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James Reynolds: Everyone saw the TV pictures of you at the checkpoint that day. Can you tell me what you did that day?
Hussam was arrested at the checkpoint four months ago
Hussam Abdo: In the morning at 6am I prayed and kissed my mother goodbye and told her I was going to school.
Then I went to my friend's house at 6am.
He took me to some guys in Nablus. I sat with them and spoke to them. And then they took pictures of me and put on the bomb belt.
And then I went off to the checkpoint. I got to the checkpoint at 1pm.
The army caught me at 1.30pm. I stayed with the soldiers at the checkpoint till 9pm and then they took me to the military base.
JR: When you went out with your bomb belt what was your target?
Hussam: They told me to go to a checkpoint. They told me you blow yourself up at the checkpoint.
They showed me a videotape of it.
JR: When you put on that belt did you really know - as a 15-year-old - that you were going to go and murder people, that you were going to go and cause great suffering to mothers and fathers, that you were going to be a mass murderer? Did you really know that?
Hussam: Yes. Just like they came and caused our parents sadness and suffering they too should feel this. Just like we feel this - they should also feel it.
JR: Were you excited ?
I prayed and kissed my mother goodbye and told her I was going to school
Hussam: I was a little bit nervous. But not to the point that I was very scared. I was kind of normal.
JR: Were you scared of dying?
Hussam: No. I'm not afraid of death.
JR: Why not?
Hussam: Nobody is going to live forever. We're all going to die.
JR: But you were only 15 years old at the time.
Hussam: I wanted to be relieved of school.
JR: When the army caught you, how did you feel?
Hussam: I was a bit scared. The soldiers came to me and there were many of them so I was a bit scared.
I was afraid that they would beat me but I wasn't afraid that they'd shoot me.
They were nice to me - they treated me well.
JR: Are you sad that you didn't manage to blow yourself up and kill many Israelis?
Hussam: I feel normal. But I thank God that the operation didn't go through.
JR: You thank God that you didn't die - why?
Hussam: It's just the way it is. God doesn't want me to die.
JR: Who sent you?
Hussam: My friend Nasser. He's 16. He was my classmate.
JR: How did he tell you about it?
Hussam: I was sitting with a friend of mine and he comes to me and says can you find me a martyr bomber?
The soldiers came to me and there were many of them so I was a bit scared
Then I told him I'll do it. My friend says - really? And I answer - yes I'll do it.
So he agreed and he took me to see another guy.
The guy's name was Wael. He was from Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. He was 21.
Then he took me to another guy who put the bomb belt on me and they took pictures of me.
The pictures were on the day before. Of course he asked me a lot of questions.
He asked me who I was and why I wanted to do this. I answered all of his questions. I told him I wanted to do it because of my friend who was killed and he agreed to let me do it.
JR: Did the people who sent you - the people from the Al Aqsa Brigades - did they promise you anything?
Hussam: Of course they did. They told me, once you carry out the operation and the soldiers come and demolish your home, we'll stand by your parents and rebuild your house and give them money.
JR: What are your feelings towards the people who sent you?
Hussam: I feel normal. One of them is my friend and he will stay my friend because, just like, me he's also in prison.
JR: Did you ever talk to your family about what you were going to do?
Hussam: I didn't tell my parents.
JR: Why not?
Hussam: Because if I'd told my mother she wouldn't have let me leave the house.
She'd have yelled at me, cried and told me not to do it.
JR: Have you spoken to them since your arrest?
Hussam: I spoke to them shortly after I was arrested. I was at the army base and the doctor there was checking me and I told him I wanted to speak to my mother, so he lent me his mobile phone.
The first reason I became a suicide bomber was because my friend was killed. The second reason I did it is because I didn't want to go to school
He let me speak to my mother. She began to cry - she'd seen what happened on TV.
Then the doctor took the phone away from me and he spoke to my mother.
He said don't worry about your son, he's fine, we'll take care of him.
JR: How did you feel when you spoke to your mother?
Hussam: I felt relieved.
JR: Some teenagers want to be footballers, others want to be singers. You wanted to be a suicide bomber. Why?
Hussam: It's not suicide - it's martyrdom.
I would become a martyr and go to my God. It's better than being a singer or a footballer. It's better than everything.
JR: What was the main reason for you deciding to become a suicide bomber? The one reason in particular.
Hussam: The reason was because my friend was killed.
The second reason I did it is because I didn't want to go to school.
My parents forced me to go to school and I didn't feel like going.
JR: Are you saying that one of the reasons you wanted to become a suicide bomber was because you didn't like your teacher?
Hussam: That and because of my friend Sabih, who was killed.
JR: It seems extreme that if you don't like your teacher it could partially propel you towards murder and suicide.
Martyrdom is better than being a singer or a footballer. It's better than everything
Hussam: The thing is my parents forced me to go to school and I didn't want to go.
So I used to go there and run away. Then I had problems with the teachers. The principal took me to the police because I got into a fight with the teachers.
JR: Let's say there's another kid your age - 15 or 16 - and he wanted to go and blow himself up and kill Israelis. Would you stop him?
Hussam: I would stop him because if he got caught he would go to prison and it's not a nice place and he shouldn't be away from his parents.
JR: If you could turn back time and go back to that morning would you do it again?
Hussam: No.
JR: You wouldn't do it again? Why not?
Hussam: Because of prison. And also in the end there'll be peace.
JR: You really think in the end there will be peace?
Hussam: Yes.
JR: Do you know how long you will be here in an Israeli prison?
Hussam: The lawyer told me two-three years.
JR: What do you want to do with your life when you get out of prison?
Hussam: I want to go home and be with my parents and work in my father's shop.
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A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams...John Barrymore
Takes decades of occupation and oppression before someone even thinks of blowing themselves up with a bomb. Scary though. The long term effects of having your land taken away, family members killed, houses bulldozed, and crops razed, can be devestating.
