Senator Ted Cruz has just announced proposed legislation to list Nigeria as a “nation of particular concern” with respect to religious freedom, specifically referencing the persecution of Christians by Muslim terrorist groups. His measure further proposes the imposition of sanctions on Nigerian officials who have failed to act against the terrorists and, in particular, those who have enabled these terrorists. The legislation also would specifically label the groups Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa as “entities of particular concern.”
Given the horrific situation of Nigerian Christians, Cruz’s proposal deserves applause and speedy passage, although one can’t help but note that, in the House of Representatives, Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey has been trying for some time to see similar legislation passed. Moreover, even without legislation, this is something that the Trump administration could take on directly. The previous Trump administration adopted just such a measure, only to find it rescinded by Joe Biden, part of a larger pattern of failure, of typical Biden fecklessness, when it comes to the persecution of Christians. (RELATED: The Left Ignores Nigeria’s Suffering Christians While Proclaiming to Be Perfect Humanitarians)
Will it appreciably hinder what amounts to a genocide in progress, an exercise in religious ethnic cleansing on a massive scale?
But will any of this make a difference? Will it appreciably hinder what amounts to a genocide in progress, an exercise in religious ethnic cleansing on a massive scale? Will it in any way deter the rising wave of Muslim attacks on Christians in other parts of Africa? Will it even register outside of the relatively small number of Christians in Europe and the United States who actually care about the plight of these communities? It can scarcely be accidental that, in announcing this measure, Cruz reached out to the National Review, rather than any of the mainstream media outlets, which, one suspects, would have ignored or buried it. (RELATED: Nigeria: The Most Dangerous Place To Be a Christian)
After all, across the historically Christian countries of Europe and, too frequently, here in this country, the progressive narrative excludes Christians (and, it must be said, Jews) from any sympathy. One wonders if Senator Cruz’s legislation will receive any Democrat votes, as that party succumbs to the influence of its leftist, pro-Hamas, “Omnicause,” hate America wing. As we’ve recently witnessed in connection with the murder in North Carolina of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, the narrative matters more than any semblance of decent human feeling. (RELATED: She Fled the Ukraine War for Safety. America Delivered Her to a Killer.)
Still, even the speedy passage of the proposed legislation, however welcome, promises little to ameliorate the plight of these Christian communities. The several Muslim terrorist groups involved are well-armed and, sadly, highly motivated in their pursuit of a West African caliphate, and Nigeria has a well-established history of deflecting accusations of indifference with “we’re trying, but the problem is hard.”
Finding specific Nigerian officials to sanction and making the sanctions stick may prove difficult. Nigeria, after all, is a huge country and, while there is widespread poverty, there’s enough oil money floating around to insulate bad actors from sanctions pain. One can applaud the idea and encourage the effort, but sanctions tend to take time to have effect, and time, unfortunately, is something the Nigerian Christians lack. What they need most urgently is armed protection, and Nigeria’s armed forces apparently lack both the will and the capability to make this happen.
So where might this come from? I shudder at the thought of American boots on the ground, and I doubt that this would achieve anything more than providing the terrorists with yet another set of handy high-profile targets. No one has even proposed a U.N. peacekeeping force, for the simplest of reasons — the very idea is laughable. It’s literally impossible to imagine today’s U.N. authorizing a force intended to protect Christians, and the performance of U.N. peacekeeping forces, whether in Lebanon or the Congo, has become contemptible. Inserting a U.N. force promises nothing better than another Srebrenica, where Dutch peacekeepers stood by while Serbian invaders slaughtered some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims.
Bosnia offers an example of what might work. Instead of relying on troops on the ground, a dedicated air campaign to pound the several terrorist groups. Again, however, would Nigeria allow such a thing? Who might provide it? Pope Leo recently condemned the Nigerian genocide, but, to echo Josef Stalin, how many divisions does the pope have? There’s entertainment to be had in contemplating a Nigerian mission for the Swiss Guard. The Guard, after all, consists of Swiss citizens who’ve received proper military training at home. They don’t have to be deployed in costume, with halberds.
The Swiss Air Force also operates some very good F/A-18 Hornet fighter bombers and has some very good pilots. Perhaps we could supply the pope with a few F/A-18s, and some Swiss pilots could be recruited for the Guard, prepared to carry out airstrikes against the Fulani terrorists, who tend to operate on the backs of motorcycles and pickup trucks — quite reasonable targets, and, given their monstrous brutality, quite deserving of “death from above.”
No, please, however bitter the humor, I’m only joking. I don’t mean this as a serious proposal, but rather as a reductio ad absurdum. It’s my way of saying that there appears to be no ready means of applying the kind of military force that might change the situation in Nigeria. One might wish, more realistically, that the IDF might take on the task of destroying these terrorists, but they’re currently fully occupied protecting Israel. In my latest novel, I tried to envision a means of protecting these communities, but even in fiction, it strains credibility.
Sadly, I find myself turning to another famous commentator on African affairs, songwriter Warren Zevon, specifically to his 1978 song “Roland, the Headless Thompson Gunner.” As the lyrics tell us, “Roland was a warrior from the land of the Midnight Sun,” a Norwegian mercenary who fought first in Biafra — an earlier tragic Nigerian conflict — then to “help out the Congolese.” But Roland, the best of all the Thompson gunners, was eventually betrayed by a comrade, Van Owen, who “blew off Roland’s head.”
The now headless Roland becomes an avenging ghost, searching for Van Owen across Africa, finding him in a bar in Mombasa, and then blowing Van Owen’s body “from there to Johannesburg.” Thereafter, the Roland roams the world, a spirit spewing death from his Thompson gun, a bitter specter haunting every conflict. Scarcely a hero, then, but one who appeals when the massacred cry out for vengeance — and for some modicum of protection.
This, then, is what I’m left with as I contemplate Ted Cruz’s bill. Let’s see it passed, by all means, and let’s search for every lever to push the Nigerian government to act. The options may be limited, but if we don’t at least try, then they might as well be nonexistent. Furthermore, I refuse to yield to Stalin’s cynicism about the pope and his divisions. I’m glad that Pope Leo has condemned the Nigerian genocide, and I share his belief in the power of prayer. I’m glad that in my parish, prayers are now offered at every Mass for the Nigerian Christians. Even in the face of an apparently hopeless situation, there is no hope at all without prayer.
Perhaps we might also reflect on the fact that, while the situation in Nigeria is currently the most dire, Christianity is under attack across the globe, including here in the United States. We need to give hard thought to what this means, and what it calls upon us to do. If they pay attention at all, too many Christians view the prayer to St. Michael in abstract terms, or simply as a call to fight against the everyday temptations of the Devil. It’s all of that, but perhaps, in this year of our Lord 2025, it’s something else, a reminder that some evil spirits arrive with AK-47s or Molotov cocktails. Sometimes they arrive on the backs of dirt bikes in Africa, sometimes they shoot children in a church in Minnesota, or sometimes they assassinate liberty-minded political commentators.
We can’t trust Roland to be on our side or wait for him to intervene with his mythical Thompson gun. We can’t expect these evildoers to be blown all the way to Johannesburg. In more than one American Spectator essay, I’ve explored possible answers, but the bitter truth remains that there are no easy answers, not in Nigeria, not here in the United States, not in all the places where Christians are under attack. The challenge for all of us is to keep thinking, and thinking harder about what needs doing. That’s how we should view what Ted Cruz has proposed. It may be a good start, but it’s only a start.
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James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. He’s just published his new novel, The Zebras from Minsk, the sequel to his well-received 2022 thriller, Letter of Reprisal. The Zebras from Minsk finds the Reprisal Team fighting against an alliance of Chinese and Russian backed terrorists, brutal child traffickers, and a corrupt anti-American billionaire, racing against time to take down a conspiracy that ranges from the hills of West Virginia to the forests of Belarus. You can find The Zebras from Minsk (and Letter of Reprisal) on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions.