Good and evil

In war, if there is no geography, no physical ground or territory to conquer and to bring under one’s control, it’s difficult to claim victory.

In war, if there is no individual enemy – i.e. an individual person or a group of persons acting collectively as an entity (such as a party, a movement or a nation) which can be called enemy – to conquer and to bring under one’s control, or perhaps to eliminate altogether, it’s difficult to claim victory.

For, in war, victory comes when the enemy, in its tangible and finite form, is identified, located, engaged in combat and defeated.

In a cosmic war, where the forces fighting each other believe that they are both acting in God’s name and are freeing the world of and from evil – in other words, when the war is declared as a war between good and evil – the situation and the enemy become difficult to comprehend, and the strategy and solution even more difficult to conceive and execute.

Perhaps, the only way to win a cosmic war, as Reza Aslan suggests in his book How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror, is to win over the hearts and minds of the people.