CHAPTER 8 Cosmic War The world is at war Osama bin Laden proclaimed in a fatwa cklin red in February 1998 months before the bombing of the i l11eriC 111 ern bassies in Kenya and Tanzania bombings he was accused of l11Z1ster minding and financing Bin Laden wanted to make clear t11M it yas nN he vho started the war however but Americans through thei r actions in the Middle East These had constituted in bin Laden words 1 clear declaration of war on God His messenger and r 1uslims f Ii own acts of violence by implication were merely responses to 1 I C lt ongoing struggle Bin Laden s was not the only war recognized hy religious c1 cti j t around the world nor was it the only one targeting America When lin Gritz the leader of the American Patriot movement led a po e into the woods of South Carolina in August 1998 to hunt for the 1lleg d abortion clinic bomber Eric Robert Rudolph he expbined th lt Rudolph considered himself a soldier at war one whose llell1 1 was the American government Gritz could be confident of thelt l cses C ment since many of his militia colleagues viewed thelTlsehes in fe actly the same way The acronym RAHO X A which stands fpr r lcial holy war is in fact a greeting and a rallying cry ill the orld Chm ell of the Creator the group associated with Benjamin Nathnlliel S1J1ith racially targeted killings in Illinois and Indiana in July T 999 The Lord God is a man of War Christian Identit bIder I C n Noble reminded his followers in the Arkansas compound of til 1 45 f THE LOGIC OF RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE C yenant the S ord and the Arm of the Lord 2 In 1998 after he had erved prison time and left the movement Noble regretted his radical st8nce but explained that he then felt it necessary since his group needed to know that it was time to cross the line into violence and these actions would be acceptable to the Lord When one of Noble s fonner colleagues Bob Matthews took seriously this mandate fN violence and was implicated in the killing of a Jewish radio host he secluded himself in a hideout on Whidbey Island north d Seattle where be issued a statement declaring that he and his com r des were in a tull and unrelenting state of war against the u s gcnernment 4 The Bible is a book of war a book of hate another Christian Identitv activist remarked s These images of divine warfare are persistent features of religious ac tivism They provide the content and the themes that are played out in the grand scenarios that lie behind contemporary acts of performance jolence In many cases these images are not new but are a part of the heritage of religious traditions that stretch back to antiquity and abun examples of warfare may be found in sacred texts In a booklet enPrepare War for instance Kerry Noble provided a scriptural ra tionale for his martial stance and for his involvement in the Christian Army of God Because God was a man of war Ex I5 3 and took yengeance on his enemies Noble argued it behooved his followers to do the same Like many activists who have turned to terror he has been driven by an image of cosmic war I call sllch images cosmic because they are larger than life They evoke great battles of the legendary past and they relate to metaphys ical conflicts between good and evil Notions of cosmic war are inti mately personal but can also be translated to the social plane Ultimately though they transcend human experience What makes re ligious violence particularly savage and relentless is that its perpetrators haye placed such religious images of divine struggle cosmic w r in the service of worldly political battles For this reason acts of religious terror serve not only as tactics in a political strategy but also as evoca tions of a much larger spiritual confrontation The script of cosmic war is central to virtually all of the incidents of performance violence described in the first part of this bOOk In Christian movements the literature of the militia and the Christian pa triots including Timothy McVeigh s favorite book The Turner Diaries is rife with images of warfare 6 A brochure published by the COSMIC WAR 7 Christian Identity affiliated group Aryan Nations included this Ulte ment in their creed of faith We BELIEVE there is a battle being fought this day between the children of darkness today knovYll as Je alJd the children of Light God the Aryan race the true Israel f the 7 The Christian Reconstruction preacher Rev J lichael Bra described his violent abortion clinic protests as part of a culture waged in the United States that includes among between big and little government high and low taxation gUll cC lItrol and no gun control abortion rights and no abortion rights sodomy and no sodomy rights g In Northern Ireland Rev all has frequently spoken in military terms about faith and p litics launched a magazine in October 1997 named The Battle Standard A follovver of Paisley who was convicted of terrorist acts assented to notion that his assaults on Irish Catholics were part of a religiot s war 10 Jewish activists following Rabbi Meir Kahane haye 1lso been COI1 vinced that their violent acts have been authorized as weapons in 1 di vine warfare sanctioned by God Dr Baruch Goldstein s massacre at the shrine of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron in J994 was de crjhed as a military act All Jews one of his supporters told me that it was common knowledge are at war with the Arabs II In an odd echo of this Jewish activist s statement Barnas SlIrr lrters claim that they too are at war a war with Israel 12 It is this great conflict that has created the need for Hamas Sheik Ahmed Yassin wId me 13 Mahmud Abouhalima warned me that Americans are unaware that there is a war going on 14 Shortly before the bomhing of the World Trade Center when Abouhalima was driving a taxicah in New York City an ABC journalist recalls riding with the Muslim activist and being lectured that America would lose the war against Islam withoLlt even knowing that it was in it or when the moment of defeat had ar Q 15 The Muslim concept of struggle jihad has been employed for cen turies in Islamic theories of both personal salvation and political re demption Life is faith and struggle said Iran s Ayatollah Khomeini indicating that the notion of fighting is basic to human existence and on a par with religious commitment 16 As noted earlier Abd al 5 lal11 Faraj and others have exploited the idea of jihad to call for force if necessary in the struggle against all ideas 1 1P TH LOGIC OF RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE Iitical