Several years from now when the United States is no longer sending troops, munitions, an infuriating amount of tax dollars and more wasted good will than we will likely ever see again to the Middle East where all of them will be somehow lost forever, there will be several movies made about the whole ordeal. Many of them will be solemn dramas and graphic war pictures that attempt to make sense of a senseless era and to humanize those caught in the middle of it. But not all of them will be that kind of respectable Oscar-bait. One smirking, deeply ironic film will be made about Gary Faulkner, the bearded dingbat who, up until recently, could be found wandering around the Pakistan/Afghanistan border hunting for Osama bin Laden. A dark comedy is the only way to properly tell Faulkner's story because a straight piece of journalism can't possibly paint this sad but true event as anything but a very stupid, very embarrassing indication of what the War on Terror really is.

So, here's the skinny. Gary Faulkner is a construction worker from Colorado who up and decided one day to fly to Pakistan, illegally cross the border into Afghanistan and trudge around the mountains looking for history's most famous terrorist who, by the by, is quite likely dead from a kidney disease that would be awfully hard to treat while hiding from the US military in a system of Afghani caves. Faulkner somehow evaded capture from Pakistani authorities long enough to camp out in some woods with a gun, a dagger, a giant freaking sword and a handful of hashish until he was finally apprehended earlier this month.

What's really amazing about Faulker's story is that his brother, Scott, was entirely aware of his plans and he didn't do what any sensible adult would, which is sit the idiot down and try to convince him to reconsider. According to Scott Faulkner, a practicing physician and therefore quite likely college-education grown-up, Gary proved that he was serious about finding bin Laden by producing a pair of plastic handcuffs. Plastic. That's all it took to make a man with a scientific job believe in his stupid-ass brother's quest to track down an irrelevant ghost in a very big, very dangerous country about which he knew next to nothing. If any of you readers happen to be patients of Dr. Scott Faulkner in Fort Morgan, Colorado, you'll want to do one of two things immediately: Either find a new, less idiotic doctor or use his cartoonishly gullible nature to get a script for medical marijuana.

It should also be noted that Gary Faulkner, alongside his wicked sword, was also carrying Christian literature. I know I've written or said this several times, but the mainstream Christian community of America really needs to start reigning in the crazies on the fringes. This is why everyone thinks you're insane, Christians. You don't keep the most ridiculous among you on a leash. Of course, American authorities aren't willing to call Faulkner crazy just because he was compelled by his faith to put his and others' lives in danger. Attaching religion, or really just Christianity, to any insane act in America is basically a get-out-of-the-institution free card. Some dude runs around Pakistan with drugs, a sword and some plastic handcuffs? He's crazy. Some dude runs around Pakistan with drugs, a sword and some plastic handcuffs for Christ? Totally reasonable.

Although, I do think there's some potential in Gary Faulkner's story. See, many Middle Eastern countries have sent their own crazy religious fundamentalists to America where they've done a lot of damage, so perhaps we ought to do the same. We should institute a government program to send guys like Gary Faulkner to the Middle East where they can run around and be their crazy selves so we don't have to deal with them anymore.