And then, two years after it started, the War on Terror got on track. At long last, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld put a general in charge who was capable of actively pursuing President Bush's orders to \smoke terrorists out of their holes."" In a true breakthrough, this man had discovered the identity of terror's supreme commander.
To our surprise, the kingpin was not Saddam Hussein, a Saudi prince or even Osama bin Laden. It was a guy-""a guy called Satan.""
Just when we thought our foreign policy couldn't be any scarier, the Los Angeles Times reported two weeks ago that top Army Lt. Gen. William G. ""Jerry"" Boykin conceptualizes the War on Terror as a battle with the fallen angel Lucifer.
Boykin, an Evangelical Christian and the man the Pentagon has called upon to pump new life into the hunt for bin Laden, has frequently sermonized in the past to religious groups in overtly crusade-ish terms.
Speaking to a Baptist Congregation in Oklahoma, he extolled his direct line to God's war room. Pointing to a dark spot on a picture he took above Mogadishu, Somalia in the aftermath of the failed ""Blackhawk Down"" operation, he explained the blemish as ""a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to [Boykin] as the enemy.""
Boykin has also called Islam's prophet Muhammad ""an idol,"" and suggested that terrorists will only be defeated if we ""come against them in the name of Jesus.""
His belief in Godly determinism extends even to his ideas about presidential politics. Boykin, in a profound misunderstanding of electoral democracy, told an Oregon congregation that he thinks President Bush was ""appointed by God.""
There is nothing wrong with an openly religious person holding high rank in our government or military. Spirituality often inspires achievement.
But in our top military brass, we need for that faith to be anchored by clear contact with worldly reality.
It is fine if the idea of battling Satan gets a person out of bed each morning. Great-fight Satan, Beelzebub, Grendel, Gollum, whomever. As long as you stay the hell away from me, I don't care who you think you're fighting.
And I won't care until you are a general leading my country's army in a war against religious fanatics by being, well, a religious fanatic. Ideological restraint is necessary when representing a nation that is, if not secular, rooted in the idea that a mandate from God is insufficient qualification to rule (think King George III).
More importantly, no one who sees Islam as a religion of idolatry should guide the U.S. Army through countries filled with Muslims. I just checked our approval ratings in the Middle East, and I'm afraid Boykin could turn those 15 people against us.
Even in a War on Terror that focuses on combating hidden foes, it is a big leap to appoint a general who fights enemies that don't tangibly exist at all. Al Qaeda, and groups like it, are still very real.
As such, I would feel better if the U.S. Army limited its hunt strictly to human terrorists.
If Gen. Boykin wants to try to get the Dark Prince on his own time and dollar, I urge him to do so, but victory will not come easy. This is the nature of fighting a metaphor.
dlhinkel@wisc.edu.
