But Moooom, They Did It Fiiiiiirst

Jewish World Review columnist Cal Thomas has produced a deeply bizarre defense of Gen. William Boykin, who has recently taken heat for public claims that the true enemy in the war on terror is Satan, and that Muslims worship "an idol" rather than "a real God."

Thomas's rejoinder to critics appears to be that since radical Islamists perceive the conflict as an apocalyptic war between the Muslim world and the kufr, we may as well feed that perception until they're willing to give it up. If Mahathir Mohamad gets to make insane generalizations about Jews, he seems to be arguing, it's only fair that our generals get to make insane generalizations about Muslims.

Thomas also appears to subscribe to the "no marginal terrorist" theory, as he blasts critics for spreading "the fiction that our enemies can be made less threatening by what America says and does." That's right; nobody in the Muslim world is sitting on the fence, so loose Crusade-style talk about epochal battles between Christendom and the infidels couldn't possibly make things any worse.