Where's the "Nuke Mecca" crowd today??

Fox News

Wednesday, December 11, 2002

WASHINGTON — The United States is declaring that it will pull out all the stops and use any means necessary — including nuclear weapons — against Iraq or other hostile countries in response to a chemical or biological attack.

The threat to use "overwhelming force" if the U.S. or its allies are attacked is included in the White House's six-page "National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction," to be delivered to Congress on Wednesday.

The United States "reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force — including through resort to all of our options — to the use of WMD [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad and friends and allies," the statement reads.

The implicit threat of U.S. nuclear retaliation is a deterrent to hostile governments, said senior administration officials who briefed journalists about the document Tuesday.

This same warning was not included in a similar strategy issued by the Clinton administration in 1993, although at different times it warned that any attack on the United States using weapons of mass destruction would result in the U.S. unleashing its wrath.

The officials said President Bush has assigned many federal agencies to determine how to enact the strategy. The president is also spending "considerable sums" of money and manpower on research into new counterproliferation strategies other than missile defense.

They emphasized that the strategy, developed jointly by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Homeland Security Adviser Tom Ridge, is a statement of the Bush administration's overarching principles.

Its timing, however, coincides with other muscle-flexing by Bush designed to show Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that the United States is serious about seeing him disarmed.

The White House document includes doctrines for prevention, deterrence and defense that Bush has enunciated since taking office, including a commitment to boost programs aimed at containing the damage of any chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack.

In a top-secret appendix, The Washington Post reports, the strategy names Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya among the countries that are the central focus of the new U.S. approach. Administration officials said that doesn't mean Bush intends to use military force in any of those countries, but that he is determined to stop weapons transfers in or out of their borders.

The strategy, which represents the first revision of national security strategy since 1993 and turns away from the Cold War doctrine based on deterrence and containment, said some unspecified states that support terrorists already have weapons of mass destruction and seek even more "as tools of coercion and intimidation."

"For them, these are not weapons of last resort, but militarily useful weapons of choice intended to overcome our nation's advantages in conventional forces and to deter us from responding to aggression against our friends," the document said. "Because each of these regimes is different, we will pursue country-specific strategies that best enable us and our friends and allies to prevent, deter and defend against WMD and missile threat."

"We must accord the highest priority to the protection of the United States, our forces and our friends and allies," it continued.

The strategy relies on three 'pillars' to combat weapons of mass destruction.

One is protection against those weapons, which includes the policy of preemptive attacks and development of a missile defense, as well as interdiction.

The second is non-proliferation agreements. Administration officials say there are several non-proliferation treaties they're trying to strengthen.

The third pillar is consequence management, under which the president has earmarked billions of dollars for research into ways to improve the country's ability to respond to and reduce the effects of weapons of mass destruction.

The strategy has effectively been in place for several months and has resulted in directives to a number of government agencies.

While nonproliferation relies on international treaties and laws to prevent countries from producing mass destruction arms, counterproliferation depends on force or physical disruption to stop them.

But the classified version is premised on a view that "traditional nonproliferation has failed, and now we're going into active interdiction," one participant who helped draft it told The Washington Post.

Active interdiction, he said, "is physical -- it's disruption, it's destruction in any form, whether kinetic or cyber."

One official posed the hypothetical scenario of a shipment of special weapons traveling to Libya via the Philippines.

"We're going to interdict or destroy or disrupt that shipment or, during the transloading process, it is going to mysteriously disappear," the official said.

The somewhat vague public version doesn't address specifically the priorities it asserts, nor does it assign them any budget numbers. Instead, those details were contained in classified directives issued to relevant federal departments a couple of months ago, officials said.

Other details of the strategy include state and local preparations for emergency response in case of an attack on the United States.

It also calls for tighter controls on nuclear materials, better export controls and the strengthening of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, endorsed by the Bush administration, reports The New York Times.

"Every administration comes under criticism, for not having an integrated strategy on issues like this," a senior administration official said. "We do."

The document recalls a warning sent to Saddam by former Secretary of State James Baker on the eve of the Persian Gulf War in 1991, which said the United States would use any means necessary against a U.S. attacker and that Iraq would pay a "terrible price" if it used chemical or biological weapons.

An administration official told the Times that Baker's warning came "when hostilities were imminent," a point not yet reached this time around.

A letter from then-President George H.W. Bush promised "the strongest possible response" if Iraq were to use chemical and biological weapons against U.S. and allied troops.

A senior administration official said the 1991 letter had its intended effect. "He [Hussein] didn't cross the line of using chemical or biological weapons," the official said. "The Iraqis have told us that they interpreted that letter as meaning that the United States would use nuclear weapons, and it was a powerful deterrent."

This President Bush has already warned the Iraqi military against using such harmful weapons, saying its leaders would be considered war criminals if they did so.

The strategy's priorities will be reflected in the new budget Bush submits to Congress in February.

Also on Tuesday, Bush used a private White House meeting with Turkish political leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan to press for permission for U.S. troops to use Turkish bases. The president argues that the display of solidarity could persuade Saddam to give up his weapons without much resistance.

Fox News' Wendell Goler and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

I still think All Arabs should be deported.

Why?

So far, we've got three competing theories:

I've got a 4th one.
A large number of human beings who follow the religion of Islam. Some of them are badguys who want to kill me because I'm not a Muslim, some just want to get on with their life.

Not unlike what you'd find in the non-Islamic world.

..there is a marked difference between George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein.
The latter believes God is on his side, while the former prays to be on God's side...

Luis, don't EVER leave FR, okay?

You are one of the best things about this place.

The Flower Grew in the Dark

How can it be?
From under the snow
The flowers emerge
And begin to grow

How can it be?
The seed that dies
Goes into the ground
Only to arise

How can the humble
The meek and the lost
Find redemption again?
Only at great cost

How can a people
Break the tyrant's chain?
If the strong will help them
They can rise again

Miracles happen
Every single day
If we will only work
If we will only pray

EV

Just curious...

Are all vanities moved to Chat?

No answeres to my questions?

I guess you're a discriminating bigot?

Someone needed to say this..

Say what... this?
Where is the "Nuke Mecca" crowd? The "The only good muslim is a dead muslim" crowd? The "Islam is a death cult" crowd? The "Intern all Arabs" crowd? The "Islam is a religion of peace" crowd?
I've had a few run-ins with these people over the past few months. I've tried to make the obvious case that not ALL 1.6 billion muslims in the world are blood thirsty animals. And I've been called everything from a muslim to a communist to a democrat to a traitor. I've taken a beating for standing up against what I saw as bigotry...And many others have gone through the same.
But today we saw muslims handing flowers to our troops, kissing pictures of President Bush and waiving American Flags.
Is this just an act? Are they trying to lull us into a false sense of security while they are plotting to kill every last one of us in the name of their "Moon God"? Or are many of them simply held against their will by brutal dictators and/or religious fanatics who have warped their muslim ideals and ways?
I choose to believe it's the latter. And I hope the above mentioned crowds are gone for good.

It's not a little ironic that broad brushes are decried even as they are used. Of course Mecca shouldn't be nuked, nor should all Arabs be interred. Muslims, like any other group, are going to be a mixed bag.
That Iraqis have welcomed US troops in Baghdad and elsewhere is heartwarming. It shows that we have the potential to reach Muslim hearts and minds across vast cultural barriers.
Does it say anything more about Islam?
When Ceaucescu fell, when the Berlin Wall came down, did the joy of the Romanians and East Germans demonstrate anything positive about Communism?
The answer to all of the above is "no."
While Saddam ran a secular cult of personality in a Muslim nation, a look around the Islamic world reveals a panorama of autocratic and dictatorial regimes of varying degrees of brutality. The most democratic and Westernized example, Turkey, has conducted multiple holocausts against Armenians, Assyrians, and others, and has driven out most of its sizable Christian minority in recent decades.
Like Communism, Islam has a dismal record as a system under which free and open societies can flourish, anywhere it is a significant cultural force.
In fact, cults of personality, Saddam's secularism notwithstanding, are not new in the Muslim. Islam it self is a posthumous cult of personality to its murderous, brutal founder, Mohammed. The forceful imposition of sharia and connversion at swordpoint are not new, they have been with Islam since the beginning. Islam is not, at it's core, a religion of peace. The Mohammedan impulses within Islam that lead to conflict with the West are still there, I believe intransigently so.
So, it seems to me that lumping "nuke mecca" bluster with a sober assessment of the ugly truths about Islam is more emotional than accurate. However, since the premise of this thread is that all of the above are part of some crowd, and the implication is that we've been missing in action, here are some threads I posted yesterday about reaction in the Arab and Muslim world to the events in Baghdad...

Shock, disbelief at Saddam'sdefeat
(Islamic reactions)

US Marines Topple Towering Saddam Statue
(ArabNews.com tells the truth)

Jordanians Stunned Following Events in Iraq

Exclusive: US Occupies Baghdad
( pssst... ArabNews scoops the world! )

Take a look, and I think you'll find that Muslim reactions are, as should be expected, a mixed bag.
A sidenote: the past few weeks, I've noticed a lot of the "why isn't the so-and-so crowd on this thread?" jeers... as though that means anything.
Different posters are animated by different topics, that's why we have more than one thread a day. There are topics that are generally of interest to me that I've hardly glanced at since the beginning of the liberation of Iraq. When the war is over, my interests there will probably resume. Also, even though I've spent a lot of time on FR during the war, posting dozens of threads, but I've flat-out missed a ton of others. Occasionally a title will catch my eye, and at closer examination I find it's two days old and has 250 posts.
My suggestion is that if you see a thread that illustrates some point you've been trying to make in an ongoing debate with some particular poster, flag them to it, and keep the conversation civil. You (I'm using the collective "you" here) might be surprised at the results.

By their fruits shall you know them.

Bump that, especially in context. From the Book of Matthew, chapter 7:

7:15
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

7:16
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

7:17
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

7:18
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

7:19
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

7:20
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

If ever there was a passage of the New Testament that speaks of Islam and its false prophet, this is it.
Mohammed was the bad seed. Modern jihadis are the bad fruit.
Islam is the bad tree by which one is ripened from the other.
The obvious fact that not all Muslims are completely lost changes none of that.

It's not a little ironic that broad brushes are decried even as they are used. Of course Mecca shouldn't be nuked, nor should all Arabs be interred. Muslims, like any other group, are going to be a mixed bag.

Broad brushes? Yes, of course.

But...

I've seen too many of the comments I've described given a pass around here. This post for instance: http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/889453/posts#15

And when I've tried to speak up against the person making the comments by comparing them to people who visit Stormfront.com (Rightfully so, in my opinion...And I am also of the opinion that we are infested with Distruptors who really beleive such things and liberal Disruptors who don't believe such things but try to make Free Republic look bad by posting such things) I've been shouted down, called names and thretened with banning.

And I might get banned again for this post...I don't know. But I'm tired of seeing bigots discredit the name of Free Republic.

I can't still can't seem to learn how to use this house of mirrors correctly...

Here is the post I was pointing you too: http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/889453/posts#15

And if that doesn't work, it's post number 15.

NUKE VANITIES!

But first, kill all the strawmen.

If you want to get a bonfire of the strawmen going, I'll bring the fixings for the s'mores.

What? No hot dogs? What are you, some kind of veggie-weenie?

Broad brushes? Yes, of course.

But...

"But..."
And there you have it. Your brushes are good, theirs are bad, but the tools are the same.

We are all still here!
I still think All Arabs should be deported.

LCG, since you directed me to Texas Lizard's post, I thought I'd flag him for some clarification about his position on deportation.
First, though, I'll clarify mine. We are at war, and I believe, despite the position of President Bush, that this is a war between two civilizations: Western Judaeo-Christian civilization, and Islam. While not all Muslims are necessarily at war with us, Islam is, because it's prime directive is to subjugate the world to sharia law, by force if necessary. It's important to bear in mind that while not all Islamic nations are equally oppressive, the difference is a matter of degree and has been so for 1,400 years, right back to Mohammed, Islam's founder and false prophet.
It's also important to remember that on 9/11, this Clash of Civilizations came looking for us. Protestations that to accept the premise of this Clash is to agree with bin Laden are impertinent. In World War II we accepted Hitler's premise for that conflict, necessarily so, in insure the survival of much of the civilized world.
Now, even while you may disagree that violent conflict between Islam and the West is inevitable, I think you must concede that the position is not without merit. Once you do, however, other issues are cast in a different light.
If one accepts the premise of the Clash of Civilizations, and we are currently in that war, and that war has come to us on our soil in the form of terrorists who've exploited our traditionally generous immigration policies, then how do we best counter that domestic threat?
Looking at History, wherever Islam has gained a foothold trouble has inevitably followed for non-Muslims. Wherever Islam has gained a majority, non'Muslims are, at best, second class citizens. Therefore it is in our national interest to see to it that Islam does not fluorish in America.
However, since America rightfully doesn't treat people as second class citizens based on their religion, there should obviously be no anti-Muslim pogroms or Kristallnachts of the mosques. So long as Muslim citizens abide by our ways, their freedoms should in no way be affected.
But what about Muslim non-citizens?
Non-citizens are our guests here, and remain in America at our pleasure. Non-citizens who come from a hostile culture that is at war with ours represent an unnecessary theat, with a simple, moral, and perfectly Constitutional solution: deportation.
Therefore, I favor the deportation of all Muslim non-citizens from the Untied States as a matter of national security. There would be exceptions for the spouses and minor children of American citizens. This should be done humanely, with appropriate notice given and time allowed for deportees to get their affairs in order.
I wouldn't deport all Arabs, since Lebanese Marionites, Egyptian Copts, Iraqi Chaldeans, Assyrian Orthodox, etc., are examples of Arabs whose cultural understandings are not in opposition to ours.
EternalVigilance made the observation that there might be some provisos from the broadly brushed "nuke Mecca crowd." I've offered a few provisos here, with explanations, and also flagged some of the folks who posted to this thread in disagreement with at least some aspect of it's premise.
Incidentally, that's most of the posters here which at least partially answers the loaded question, "Where's the "Nuke Mecca" crowd today??"

self bump

Lois, as you may know from my previous posts, I would like to see tolerance among religions and do not rush to cast the stone.

And I have not cast the stone against Islam here either. Fistly, I spoke of political organizations in the U.S., not the private beliefs of the Muslims. But just as an average German was tolerant to, if not inpired by, the Nazis, the average Muslim in the United States is at least tolerant of people that represent him.

As for the statements issued, of course I could've missed something! But you also appear to have missed my point: I spoke of condamnations without ifs and buts. Yet, even the link you give me says that the statement "contained in part." This appears to be typical: the complete statements are without a date (issued much later, as damage control), and those dated Sep 11 are given only "in part" (because most of them contained references to our failed "Middle Eastern policies" that should make us "understand" the hijackers; you know full well that this has been reateated of every talk showe for about a month, until they understood that this was not good PR).

No need to lecture me on the difference between Muslims and Arabs: I myself indicated the difference by referring to the Turkish Association, the members of which are Muslim and also great patriots of this country. Similarly, when I referrred to cultural traits, I was careful to speak of ARabs and not Muslims.

I thank you for the link to your interview. The tape appears to be 2h-long, so I"ll listen when I have more time. Regards, TQ.

Damn, three little zeros sure do add-up to a LOT in the end!!

800,000 people here, 800,000,000 people there, pretty soon you're talking about a lot of people.

An excellent post, Sabertooth. Thanks for including me in the ping list.

Thanks also for pointing out that there are indeed “provisos from the broadly brushed ‘nuke Mecca crowd.’"

Just wanted to highlight some of the points I especially agree with …

We are at war, and I believe, despite the position of President Bush, that this is a war between two civilizations: Western Judaeo-Christian civilization, and Islam.

… it is in our national interest to see to it that Islam does not fluorish in America.

Agreed.

However, since America rightfully doesn't treat people as second class citizens based on their religion, there should obviously be no anti-Muslim pogroms or Kristallnachts of the mosques. So long as Muslim citizens abide by our ways, their freedoms should in no way be affected.

Agreed.

Non-citizens are our guests here, and remain in America at our pleasure. Non-citizens who come from a hostile culture that is at war with ours represent an unnecessary theat, with a simple, moral, and perfectly Constitutional solution: deportation.

Agreed. Tho' I think "mass deportation" (for lack of a better term) will remain an ideal rather than a reality due to the seemingly unswerving faith our politicians have in the god of political correctness.

But let's say our politicians recover their collective backbone through the urging of their constituents, the American people, and agree to deportation of Muslim non-citizens. I imagine there would be a logistical nightmare with regards to locating and bringing in each Arab for an interview to determine his/her “cultural understandings.” Which is not to say it can’t be done, but that in addition to orchestrating the large task of gathering the interviewees, the interviewers would have to make personal judgment calls on the “hostility quotient” of each person. Such a system will not be foolproof.

And there you have it. Your brushes are good, theirs are bad, but the tools are the same.

OK fine...

There are anti-mislim/anti Arab bigots running around here and a lot of the time they get a pass.

I don't know what was wrong with my original comments but maybe that one was better.