Tancredo won't back down

Washington - Rep. Tom Tancredo refused Monday to back down from his statement Friday suggesting that the United States might respond to a radical Islamic terrorist attack by bombing Muslim holy sites.

Muslim groups earlier Monday called on Tancredo to apologize and said they want to meet with the Colorado Republican.

"I'm not suggesting we do it. I have nothing to apologize for in that respect," Tancredo said. "I'm simply saying to have a good discussion on this issue, a thorough discussion on what is perhaps the most serious kind of possible situation we could face as a civilization, that you cannot simply take things off the table because they are uncomfortable to talk about."

Tancredo, a Littleton Republican, made the statement about bombing Muslim holy sites, including the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca, on a Florida talk-radio show.

Besieged by reporters for the first time Monday as he unveiled an anti-amnesty immigration bill, Tancredo said the terrorism issue was a very tough one to deal with and that "tough things were said." He said he stood by his remarks.

The reference to bombing holy sites, he said, came up in a discussion about possible ways the U.S. could respond to nuclear strikes against its cities by terrorists.

"I simply throw that out there as something to think about, although it is horrendous to think about, I understand that," Tancredo said. "So is having one or more cities destroyed in the United States. And that's all I did."

"When he makes such a statement he should have the courage to go back and apologize," said Rafaat Ludin, president of the Colorado Muslim Society, an organization that includes a mosque and represents 15,000 Muslims in the Denver area. "He is trying to provoke these terrorists who are making our lives miserable, here and across the world. How can you in your right mind call for something like that?"

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, said, "People outside the United States will take this as representative of the United States. It makes the war on terror that much harder."

Asked Monday whether he was concerned about inflaming terrorists, Tancredo said, "You've got people telling us that they're going to bomb our cities and kill however many millions of people that they can. You're telling me there's something more hostile than that?"

Tancredo made the comments Friday in a conversation with talk-radio host Pat Campbell at WFLA in Orlando, Fla. They were discussing an article on the conservative Internet site WorldNetDaily that said Islamic terrorists have brought nuclear devices across the Mexican border, preparing for an attack on the interior U.S.

Asked how the United States might respond to such an attack, Tancredo said, "You could take out their holy sites."

A fervent opponent of illegal immigration, he has begun an insurgent bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination that he says is designed to force a more serious candidate to take a hard-line stance on immigration.

Tancredo said he was not worried about the comments hurting his chance at the presidency.

"I'm not going to couch my words based upon some bizarre hope of, you know, running for president," he said.

Rafaat and Ludin said Colorado Muslims are seeking a meeting with Tancredo to discuss his comments. Tancredo spokesman Will Adams said he was not familiar with the request.

Staff writer Mike Soraghan can be reached at 202-662-8730 or msoraghan@denverpost.com.

Staff writer Anne C. Mulkern can be reached at 202-662-8907 or amulkern@denverpost.com.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following is a transcript of a portion of U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo's conversation with talk-radio host Pat Campbell on Friday:

Campbell: Worst-case scenario - if they do have these nukes inside the borders and they were to use something like that, what would our response be?

Tancredo: What would be the response? (pause) Um, you know, there are things you could threaten to do before something like that happens and you may have to do afterwards (unintelligible) draconian.

Tancredo: Well, what if you said something like, "If this happens in the United States and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims." You could take out their holy sites.

Tancredo: Yeah. What if you said, "We recognize this is the ultimate threat to the United States, so this is the ultimate response." I'm just throwing out some ideas because you would be talking about taking the most draconian measures you could possibly imagine. Because other than that, all you could do is, once again, tighten up internally.

Captains Quarter
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/004989.php

July 18, 2005
Tancredo Fouls The Water (Updated)
We have enough problems fighting the war on terror in the measured, strategic method used by the Bush and Blair administrations without Republican Congressmen recommending the bombing of sites held sacred by Muslims across the political spectrum. Yet today, Tom Tancredo (R-CO) suggested that a nuclear attack on an American city could result in a bombing run on Mecca:

A Colorado congressman told a radio show host that the U.S. could "take out" Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons.
Rep. Tom Tancredo made his remarks Friday on WFLA-AM in Orlando, Fla. His spokesman stressed he was only speaking hypothetically. ...

"Well, what if you said something like — if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered.

"You're talking about bombing Mecca," Campbell said.

"Yeah," Tancredo responded.

The congressman later said he was "just throwing out some ideas" and that an "ultimate threat" might have to be met with an "ultimate response."

I think the "ultimate response" to Tancredo's apolcalyptic fantasy is that we don't bomb civilians in response to terrorist attacks, no matter how seductive such a response might seem. The idea that the US would retaliate in such a manner should be repulsive to any rational person, no matter where they fall on the political spectrum. The war on terror targets the terrorists and the governments which fund and/or shelter them, not the civilians who happen to live there.

Besides, who is Tom Tancredo to make these threats anyway? He doesn't have anything to do with the military chain of command or the national security systems that would make those kinds of recommendations. He certainly doesn't speak for the President, who has to make the final determination in loosing those weapons on any target. Tancredo does, however, lend a false sense of credibility to such threats in international circles, thanks to his position as an elected Republican official.

The GOP needs to remind Tancredo of the wisdom of silence in some issues.

UPDATE: Yes, we dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 -- but we were at war with Japan and both cities had significant military production facilities. We also gave them plenty of warning on both and an opportunity to surrender each time.

We, however, are not at war with Saudi Arabia, and Mecca has little or no military significance. Furthermore, Tancredo doesn't want to nuke it for military advantage, but simply as an extortionate threat. That's little different than what al-Qaeda does.

And Truck, we bombed Saddam's military facilities in open warfare, fully declared. We didn't aim at civilians. If you can't tell the difference between that an a nuclear attack, that's simply pathetic.

Roving Theologian
http://www.rovingtheologian.com/index.php/weblog/more/tom_tancredo_in_the_lead_for_stupidest_thing_said_this_year/

Monday, July 18, 2005
Tom Tancredo - In the lead for Stupidest thing said this year?
In case you didn’ hear, one of our Colorado Congressmen, Tom Tancredo (R) implied, in a “hypotetical scenario” that maybe we should have plans to bomb Mecca should a U.S. city be nuked. No, really…

I didn’t get clued into this today until I checked Hugh Hewitt’s website and found out what Rep. Tancredo said. Beyond dumb. Just plain stupidly silly. Tom, here are a few major things to consider:

1) Mecca is a holy site to Muslims in a way that no Christian city can be or should be. The closest connection is the orthodox Jewish appoach to Jerusalem and the land of Palestine. But that is a tiny minority within worldwide Judaism. The Haj to Mecca is one of the five pillars of Isalm to all of the world’s 1 Billion Muslims.

2) The United States military includes thousands of Muslims soldiers. Are you seriously suggesting they should be ordered to bomb one of their two most holy sites?

3) Such a bombing would be a declaration of war against all 1 billion Muslims, and I dare say, that it would be a war that could not end. You think the Crusades make the Muslims mad (which occured almost a millenium ago), you ain’t see nothing yet!

4) Such an action would do nothing to inhibit the radical elements in Islam. You must remember that for the Muslim, the will of God is absolute, so should Mecca be destroyed, it would be seen as the will of Allah, and cast as part of Allah’s plan to reinspire all Muslims to bring all Infidels under the rule of Islam.

Now, as an evangelical Christian, I do not share the squishy concept of all religions are the same. I have great respect for Islamic culture, history and even, to some degrees, theology. But, as a Christian, I believe that no one comes to God except through the Son, Jesus Christ (but that is another topic). That does not mean, and cannot mean, that I would ever accept the use of military force on Islam’s (or any faith’s) most holy sites. I suport the Global War on Terror, which is in reality, a war on the Fascists elements of Islamic extremism, but this will not help, it will only hurt, and would be an obomination to all the United States stands for.

Tom Tancredo, apologise...to the U.S. Muslim soldiers, to our allies in the Islamic world, to your party and to the nation at large. And none of this, “Sorry if my words upset you” kind of apology. Say it boldly, “I was wrong. We have no reason to ever consider such a course of action. Muslims of the world have nothing to fear from us, unless they try and impose their will by the use of terror and oppression.”
------
Better Living: Thoughts from Mark Daniels
http://markdaniels.blogspot.com/2005/07/what-was-this-congressman-thinking.html

What Was This Congressman Thinking?

Hugh Hewitt rightly says that everyone who got exercised over Dick Durbin's comments comparing the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo to the actions of the Nazis under Hitler or Pol Pot's Cambodia, should also be upset with Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo. He's right! During a radio interview, Tacredo allowed himself to be enticed into speculation about bombing Muslim holy sites, such as those in Mecca.

What on earth was the congressman thinking?

No matter how hypothetical Tancredo thought his outrageous comments were, in the eyes of the world, he's an official of the US government, even if he's not in the executive branch.

If the sophisticates who lead the government in China can't understand the distinction between the branches of our government and therefore feel compelled to lecture Congress to lay off the proposed UnoCal deal, how do you suppose young Muslims who have never experienced democracy are likely to interpret Tancredo's remarks?

Like most people in the world, they'll see it as an American threatening them. It's therefore an unnecessarily provocative statement.

As Hewitt writes:

Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo's speculation about using nukes on Mecca following an act of nuclear terrorism in the United States is the most irresponsible statement any American official can make. It will be on al-Jazeera within the hour, and it will be used by jihadists against us. Such speculations send the message that we are at war with all of Islam. We are not. We are at war with a slice of Islam that is radical and violent. Statements like Tancredo's invite all of Islam to think they are our enemy.

That's just a start. Need more?

A few simple questions to start with.

How are you going to enforce these new laws?

How are you going to pay all the new bureaucrats you will need to hire to enforce these new laws?

What are you going to do with the people you sweep up between the time they are arrested and the time a court hearing can be held to order deportment?

What are you going to do with those citizens and illegals you arrest in enforcing these new laws?

Since most states all ready have too many prisoners and too few prisons, who are you going to release to lock up these new criminals? If not released, how are you going to pay for new all the new prisons?

Are you not concerned that by granting these new law enforcement authority to the Federal Government you are pissing all over the 10th Amendment and the idea of separation of powers? Why stop here? Since you are so willing to have the Fed come in and dictate everything to the states, why not just abolish the State's completely and run EVERYTHING from DC?

The point, which the anti-illegal immigration side cannot seem to get because of their emotional knee jerk reaction to anyone who disagrees on this issue, is this. You cannot "deport all the illegals" and "Fortify the border" with out fundamentally increasing the size and power of the Federal police authority. Every idea put forward by the anti-migrants requires that the Feds step in and start dictating how local and state authorities function. As a strict constructionist, that is a cure that is worse then the disease to my mind. Instead of demanding a top down hysterical Leftist style Washington directed solution, why don't the anti-migrants work on local and state authorites to implement some of your ideas first?

"As to solutions; you hit on one of them with strict interior enforcement of immigration laws. To stop illegal immigration you have to remove the incentives for aliens by making employers unwilling to hire them."

Yes. But here is the problem I have with that solution. I live in Minnesota. We have about 4% unemployment. Most economists agree that about 5% unemployment is "full employment". They figure that about 5% of the population is either changing jobs or too dysfunctional to be employed. I work nights. Driving home from work I go by a couple of small hobby farmer. These are just guys who have a few fields they farm in addition to doing some other type of work. Who do I see out there working their crops? Who do I see working the counter at the fast food place I stop for breakfast? Who do I see cleaning my office when I arrive at work at 1am? A bunch of the local middle class kids from the area communities? NO, I see a bunch of Hispanics who may, or may not, be here legally doing the work. So suppose we do what the anti-immigration side wants. Suppose we magically create a Berlin Wall style defense all along our borders and round up and deport all those illegals. Who is going to do all those cleaning/farm/fast food jobs currently being filled by illegals? As I pointed out, at 4% Unemployment, my state doesn't have an unused labor pool to fill those jobs. That is an issue the anti-migrant side is going to have to address. Given their emotional response to President Bush's "Guest Worker" ideas, I do not think the anti-migrant side is mentally mature enough to deal with the complexities of this issue. Egged on by the political demagoguery of people like Tancrado and Hillary, a certain segment of the Right has been emotionally manipulated to think there are a couple of simple solutions to this complex issue. There are not. Unfortunately, when you try to point that out to the anti-migrant side, they go into foaming at the mouth, gibbering fits. Any workable solution on immigration is going to require some compromises. Unfortunately, I have yet to see any ability to compromise on the anti-migrant side. Today by way of experiment, I took the opposite side. Based on the volume and content of the mail I got, the anti-migrant side would rather place their hands over their ears and scream slogans then actually do something about the problem. This confirms something I have suspected from watching American politics for 3 decades. There is a certain segment of the Hard Right who would rather sit in the corner and throw tempertrantrums than actually do the hard messy job of ruling. So no matter what the Republican's do, these people will always find some reason to throw a howling fit. Immigration is just the latest bandwagon for this group. That is why they have such admiration for Tancradeo. He hasn't actually DONE anything! All he does is mouth the same slogans and platitudes they do, and for that, a certain segment of the Hard Right has elevated him to sainthood. I am surprised I have not yet seen some of them start claiming their theory of Tancradeo infalliblity!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.