"In the fall 2011 season of the Showtime series Dexter , the plot revolved around a serial killer who acted in furtherance of an End-Times scenario based on his understanding of the New Testament’s Book of Revelation. As a foil for the serial killer’s idiosyncratic beliefs is a former gang leader, now a practicing Christian, who comes to faith while in prison. One suspects that a principal role of the Christian convert was to set apart the serial killer from mainstream Christianity.
This is important because, early in the series, the homicide detectives realize that the killer’s predation is based on his understanding of Revelation , even as they also understand that his views are warped. As errant as the killer’s perceptions of the book are, because Revelation clearly serves as a key to his state of mind and a roadmap of his plan of action, the inspectors keep copies of it close by as an analytical tool and ready reference.
Nobody questioned the necessity of this activity, even though a number of the inspectors relying on the text were either nominally religious or non-believers. There was never a suggestion that only Christian inspectors were qualified to carry on the investigation. In fact, their subjective religious beliefs were not held to be relevant to their qualifications as investigators. What qualified them was not their prowess in theology but their skills as homicide detectives. Of course, this last point is so self-evident that the issue never became a topic of debate in the program. The necessity of looking at Revelation to generate leads and situational awareness to catch the serial killer was manifestly obvious.
In the War on Terror, there should be no controversy over the need to look to the self-identified doctrinal drivers of a self-identified threat. This book simply argues for the same latitude when following the evidence granted to ordinary homicide detectives, albeit in a television drama. After all, there would be no question as to the serious malpractice of those detectives if, knowing the relevance of the Book of Revelation –and knowing that people were being killed because of it –they nevertheless chose to ignore it." (Taken from chapter 1 in Stephen Coughlin's book, Catastrophic Failure, published by Centre for Security Policy, 2015).
What can we learn from Afghanistan?