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There were reasons for the president’s celebrated use of the word “crusade” in the aftermath of the atrocity. Faced with an apocalyptic situation, with fires still burning in New York and the smoke from the Pentagon visible in the heart of Washington, D.C., he was convinced that he had to find the right register for his first public speech after the catastrophe. He was certain beyond doubt of the dominating presence of threatening evil in the world. He had mused openly in these terms during a campaign speech at Albuquerque, New Mexico, in May 2000: “We’re certain there are madmen in this world, and there’s terror, and there’s missiles and I’m certain of this.”65 On the afternoon of Sunday, September 16, 2001, on the south lawn of the White House, he spoke to the press and the world:

We need to be alert to the fact that these evildoers still exist. We haven’t seen this kind of barbarism in a long period of time. No one could have conceivably imagined suicide bombers burrowing into our society and then emerging all in the same day to fly their aircraft—fly U.S. aircraft into buildings full of innocent people—and show no remorse. This is a new kind of—a new kind of evil. And we understand. And the American people are beginning to understand. This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while.66

The president was tired and drained by the turmoil of events. The day before, he had been at Ground Zero in New York. Now he spoke from the heart, in a rambling and repetitious fashion, as he said, on the Lord’s day.67 But he made sure that he hammered home the word “evil” or “evildoers” time and again. His remark about a crusade came in an off-the-cuff response to a journalist’s question. What Bush actually said was: “This … this … this … crusade … this [pause] war on terrorism.”68 Listening to a recording again, you are struck how he struggled to find the right word, which was, for him, “crusade.”69 This was a word that came from deep inside, a gut reaction. It meant a lot to him: it signified the struggle of good with evil.

It was the right response to what was, Bush said, “a new kind of evil.” Everyone would know what he meant, deep down. For the same reason he again used the language of maledicta on a much more formal and better prepared occasion. The utterances on September 16—the repeated reiteration of “evil” and “evildoers,” the invocation of a crusade—were in an impromptu setting. But in his next State of the Union message, on January 29, 2002, he once more insisted upon the same register:

States like these [Iran, Iraq, North Korea], and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.70

Would “axis of hatred” have had the same impact as “axis of evil” in January 2002? Probably not. Some words are curiously resonant, and “evil” is one of them. So too are “crusade” and jihad. For much of the history described in this book, “infidel” was another. “Terror,” “terrorism,” and “terrorist” have acquired many of the attributes of fear and horror that once attached to Turks and Tartars. There were many such regressions to the older world of maledicta in Bush at War, but one that stands out in particular.

The president had signed a new intelligence order, the gloves were off.

“You have one mission,” Black instructed [Cofer Black was the director of the Counterterrorism Center at the Central Intelligence Agency] … “Get Bin Laden, find him. I want his head in a box.”

“You’re serious?” asked Gary [“Gary” was the senior agent on the ground in Afghanistan] … “Absolutely,” Black said. The new authority was clear. Yes, he said, he wanted Bin Laden’s head. “I want to take it down and show the President.”

“Well, that couldn’t be any clearer.” Gary