Nuke Mecca? Nope.

Frontpage Magazine ^ | 28 July 2005 | Robert Spencer

[BIGLOOK]

Unreliable? Moi?

Our job was to get skinny and send it to the fat cats. Intel's problems are in their laps.

[Mat_Helm]

Let me get this straight, it was bad to get rid of the caliphate because it created terroists group to bring back the caliphate and the caliphate is bad because it would cause war agianst nonmuslim nations. So what he is is saying it is better to have muslim nations fighting war than to have mulsim terrorists? Sounds like stupid logic to me. Than again bring back the caliphate, let them start a war, nuke them and their stone back to the prestone age or slime period out of the pond. No more islam....hhhuummmmm. Liberals would never go for it so I vote for getting rid of the caliphate and never letting it return.

[fish hawk]

see my tagline.

[I see my hands]

I like your thinking. Only prob is that it gives them a few chances to kill more civilized people.

The next suspicious package found anywhere should trigger direct hits on medina and mecca. Sorry, lib-cons but its true.

[lentulusgracchus]

I generally concur.

Osama Bin Laden's trying to stir up a worldwide "faith-based war" against the rest of the world is suicidal, so our policy ought to be to involve the Buddhists and Hindus as quickly as possible. Subject to local complications, of course.

Beneath those two populous millstones, Islam would disappear without a trace.

[JMS]

Actually something similar to this happened during Tamerlane's comquest of the Middle East. After defeating Bayezid and incidentally using him as a footrest, Tamerlane turned the main mosque in Damascus into a stable, called all the imams in and lectured them about why Allah was not on their side or this wouldn't have happened. BTW, Tamerlane was a muslim but apparently he was a Mongol first.

[r9etb]

An extraordinary response to the nuclear destruction of an American city by Islamic terrorists isn't the "discarding of Western values, willy nilly." This is a completely rabid mischaracterization.

Problem is, it's not a mischaracterization. There is a group of folks on this thread whose preferred response basically boils down to genocide. If you want "completely rabid," that's a good place to start.

Any sensible person must reject--out-of hand--any writer who implies, however indirectly, the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima or the conventional attack on Dresden was unjustified.

You've mischaracterized the author's statement. When his point is understood properly, your argument evaporates.

This isn't an argument against nuking Mecca under ultimate extremity--it's an argument against any violent action or threat of violent action; as such it is on its face preposterous.

The "ultimate extremity" would be a decision that ALL Muslims would be to blame for a nuclear attack on us, and that ALL Muslims are thus fair game for retaliatory nuclear attacks. It is certainly true that those responsible must be hunted down and destroyed. However, if it is not the case that "ALL Muslims" are to blame for a nuclear attack, then there is no justification for an "ultimate extremity" that calls for large scale attacks on "ALL Muslims."

Again, the supposedly reasoned response has nothing to do with the actual facts. The abolition of the caliphate in fact accomplished exactly what Ataturk desired: it established Turkey as a secular state. Ataturk couldn't possibly have cared less what a bunch of nut-cases in Egypt used as a justification for their murderous ideology.

You've once again missed the author's point, which is that Ataturk's actions had unintended consequences, as spelled out (accurately) by the author. Nevertheless, if we instead grant your alternative hypothesis about the rise of Radical Islam, all you've really done is acknowledged the author's underlying point, which is that Radical Islam is in fact a response to some external event.

the logic of his position leads inevitably to helplessness and surrender, and his historical assertions are simply laughable.

No, and no. The author's actual position has little in common with your characterization of it. He is not suggesting helplessness and surrender; very far from it.

[lentulusgracchus]

I see you got there before me.

We have.......millions.......of pigs, swine, hogs, porkers, javelinas.

"Tremble, O Islam, before our wrath!"

How's that?

[Theophilus]

Nuke Mecca? Why bother? It wouldn’t work

For the fun of it!!! Radioactively boil Brer Rabbit, don't throw him in the briar patch.

[Bon mots]

they know that the overwhelming majority of Muslims abhor violence and reject extremism, and are our faithful and reliable allies against terrorism in all its forms.

How do we 'know' this?

[Theophilus]

Will men who love death, who glorify suicide bombing and praise God for beheadings and massacres, fear the destruction of holy sites?

Will they bow to a crater?

[gogogodzilla]

You're right on that one.

Which is why I think the idea of nuking just Mecca would not work.

It needs to be broader.

Remember the Cold War? Do you think that at the height of the Cold War, that the Russian military would have thought twice if our MAD policy was to nuke only Moscow?

No, they would have thought it an acceptable loss for the conquest of Western capitalism.

And the same goes for the Islamofascists. Losing Mecca is an acceptable loss for a world caliphate.

Now, if we were to consider nuking all the major Islamofascist population centers as a new MAD doctrine...

I think that only then would the Islamofascists pause to consider.

[chris1]

So what is and would be your response if we are nuked by Islamic warriors???

[I see my hands]

So waste your time with me. Your response to another attack on the USA, please?

[RavenATB]

"When heard in context, Tancredo's comments are perfectly reasonable."

Spot-on. Tancredo was responding to the question as to appropriate reponse to the use of nuclear weapons against the US, on our soil.

We obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki for less...and rightfully so. In so doing, we killed many thousands of Japanese civilians. Such is the nature of war. We need to make it absolutely unthinkable for any nation on earth to knowingly harbor and/or support terrorists. There is only one way to achieve that end, and that's to make the rest of the world "pant-sh!++ing" afraid of what will happen to them if they do. They need to know that the US is serous, that we've got the will and the resolve to do whatever it takes to protect our nation and people, and that we won't wait a second to strike with brutal force to punish any nation that supports a terrorist/terrorist group that attacks our nation with WMD. There are two ways to achieve that end. We can either sit back, guard our tongues, and wait until we've been devastated to finally grow some spine and respond. Or, we can do exactly what Tancredo did...warn the world that there will be hell to pay, literally, for anyone and/or any country that is connected to such an attack, in any way.

[Cyber Liberty]

That's just ludicrous sounding to me.

Hey, me too. Not to them. Islam has the 5 pillars. If you don't do all 5 you go to hell (thousand cockroaches eating your stomach, the works). Make one impossible and yes, the entire faith goes down the proverbial tubes.

[isthisnickcool]

What is the best way to deal with the threats of the insane?

There is really nothing you can do to deal with the insane. If they happen to be insane and murderous your best bet is to eliminate them. Other than that it really does not matter what you do. They are crazy. So, since it does not matter what you do then do whatever you want.

Since Mecca is the home office and not near by why nuke it? It's better to eliminate all the local "franchise" operations.

[Mack the knife]

"I wouldn't take it off the table. But I wouldn't mention it either. "

Ahhh, but to quote Dr. Strangelove ... "But the whole point of having a DOOMSDAY device is for other people to KNOW that you have a DOOMSDAY device."

You have to let them know that it will happen. They should be scared s***less that we are even talking about it.

Radical Islamists believe that we are ultimately impotent -- we can't find Osama, and we can't even threaten to kill thousands of Muslims if there is an attack without the whole billion Muslims coming after us, and Allah would't let us destroy their holy places anyhow. They feel invulnerable. So they attack us with impunity. And so called "Moderate Muslims" are guided by the Koran to protect any Muslim against any unbeliever.

This is a very dangerous belief ... for us, and, unfortunately, for them. They evidently don't understand that, since the US convinced itself it was necessary to destroy Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US could equally well convince itself to destroy Mecca. It would be much better for all if Muslims believed that we would incinerate all Muslim Holy Places if we were attacked with WMD.

OR ...

Maybe they should worry that some members of the Zionist Conspiracy might decide that turn about is fair play, and make their own dirty bomb and contaminate Mecca with radioactive cesium -- making it uninhabitable for the next 100 years.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Will men who love death, who glorify suicide bombing and praise God for beheadings and massacres, fear the destruction of holy sites?

I don't know. Let's test the proposition, unless you have some other bright idea.

[oldfart]

Allow me: "They" is Islam.
We who have been raised in the relative safety of modern United States carry a huge burden around. One that will, unless we find some way to set it aside, will kill us all. That burden has a beautiful name and we all love it. It's called "goodness."
We pride ourselves on being against violence and hatred and discrimination. We avoid any mention of evil, even when that evil tries to kill us and our children. We seem to think that is we just ignore it, it'll go away and leave us alone. This is borne out in the instructions to prospective victims of robbery or rape: "just give them what they want and they'll let you go."
Well, Islam isn't going to just go away. The basic tenets of the cult require the faithful to establish Islam in every corner of the world, by force if neccesary.
Pigs smell bad. go to any pigpen and check it out if you don't believe me. But those pigs we see at the County Fair don't smell bad. They've been washed and combed and curried and even perfumed. But they're still pigs and when they go home from the Fair, they'll smell badly again.
Islam is like those pigs. Individuals, in special circumstances, work, eat and play much like their Christian neighbors. But they are still Muslim and when enough of them have moved into a country, state, or neighborhood, they want their neighbors to become Muslim too, and remember, this is to be done by force if neccesary.
Islam will never be eradicated, even by destroying every holy site they have. But it can be kept in check if they all-- especially including the County Fair types-- firmly believe we will destroy every holy site, every mosque and every jihadist that dares to show his head.
First though, we have to make them believe it and to do that, we have to speak as one voice on the subject. Dissent among our own forces will hardly accomplish that.
Ive raised a lot of kids over the years and one thing I know: Threats of punishment are meaningless. A promise of punishment is what gets results.