Posted on 07/28/2005 9:39:56 AM PDT by rdb3
Why not bomb Mecca? Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) has brought the issue to the table. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has demanded that he apologize to Muslims, and commentators left and right have subjected him to vociferous criticism. At the same time, however, he seems to have tapped into the frustration that many Americans feel about official Washingtons politically correct insistence, in the face of ever-mounting evidence to the contrary, that Islam is a religion of peace that has been hijacked by a tiny minority of extremists.
Although Tancredos presidential hopes and possibly even his seat in Congress may go up in the mushroom cloud created by the furor over his remarks, the idea of destroying Islamic holy sites in response to a devastating terror attack on American soil is not going to go away particularly as long as elected officials rush after every Islamic terror attack to repeat the well-worn mantras about how 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.
However, although the resentment Tancredo has tapped is real and has legitimate causes, his suggestion that among the many things we might do to prevent such an attack on America would be to lay out there as a possibility the destruction of Islamic holy sites is still wrong but not generally for the reasons that most analysts have advanced.
Primarily, of course, it contravenes Western principles of justice which, if discarded willy-nilly, would remove a key reason why we fight at all: to preserve Western ideas of justice and human rights that are denied by the Islamic Sharia law so beloved of jihad terrorists. But even aside from moral questions, which are increasingly thorny in this post-Hiroshima, post-Dresden world, there are practical reasons to reject what Tancredo has suggested.
Tancredos idea, of course, is based on the old Cold War principle of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Both sides threatened each other with nuclear annihilation, and the threats canceled each other out. The Soviets would no more risk Moscow being wiped out than we would Washington.
But applying this principle to present-day Islamic jihad is not so easy. The Soviets did not inculcate into their cadres the idea enunciated by Maulana Inyadullah of al-Qaeda shortly after 9/11: The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death. This lust for death runs through the rhetoric of todays jihadists, and goes all the way back in Islamic history to the Quran, in which Allah instructs Muhammad: Say (O Muhammad): O ye who are Jews! If ye claim that ye are favoured of Allah apart from (all) mankind, then long for death if ye are truthful (62:6). Will men who love death, who glorify suicide bombing and praise God for beheadings and massacres, fear the destruction of holy sites? It seems unlikely in the extreme and that fact nullifies all the value this thread may have had as a deterrent. Nuke Mecca? Why bother? It wouldnt work.
Others have argued, however, that the deterrent value of destroying Islamic holy sites would lie not in giving jihad terrorists pause, but in showing Islam itself to be false and thus removing the primary motivation of todays jihad terrorists. If Allah is all-powerful and rewards those who believe in him while hating and punishing the disbelievers (the vilest of creatures, according to Quran 98:6), wouldnt he protect his holy sites from these disbelievers?
However, Muslims have weathered such shocks to their system in the past. In 1924, the secular government of Turkey abolished the caliphate; the caliph was considered the successor of the Prophet Muhammad as the religious and political leader of the Islamic community. By abolishing the office, Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk hoped to strike at the heart of political Islam and create a context in which Islam could develop something akin to the Western idea of the separation of religion and state. Instead, his act provided the impetus for the establishment of the Muslim Brotherhood, the first modern Islamic terrorist organization, in Egypt in 1928. The Brotherhood and its offshoots (which include Hamas and Al-Qaeda), and indeed virtually all jihadist groups in the world today, date the misery of the Islamic world to the abolition of the caliphate. The ultimate goal of such groups is the restoration of this office, the reunification of the Islamic world under the caliph, and the establishment of the Sharia as the sole law in Muslim countries. Then the caliph would presumably take up one of his principal duties as stipulated by Islamic law: to wage offensive jihad against non-Muslim states in order to extend Sharia rule to them also.
The abolition of the caliphate, then, accomplished precisely the opposite of what Ataturk hoped it would: it gave the adherents of political Islam a cause around which to rally, recruit, and mobilize. In essence, it gave birth to the crisis that engulfs the world today. It is likely that a destruction of the Kaaba or the Al-Aqsa Mosque would have the same effect: it would become source of spirit, not of dispirit. The jihadists would have yet another injury to add to their litany of grievances, which up to now have so effectively confused American leftists into thinking that the West is at fault in this present conflict. But the grievances always shift; the only constant is the jihad imperative. Let us not give that imperative even greater energy in the modern world by supplying such pretexts needlessly.
>> And you're going to start a real shooting war with all of them. <<
Um, I believe THEY (that would be muslims which is a religion, not a race) started it about 30 years ago.
Significant Terrorist Incidents, 1961-2003: A Brief Chronology
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/pubs/fs/5902.htm
"Once we vaporize mecca it would prove their entire religion is a sham"
I don't think they're logical enough to realize after Mecca's destruction that their religion is a sham. They've well established their irrationality. My gut feeling is that they'd keep on keepin' on with the beheadings, misogyny, wild-eyed intolerance, chest-thumping, blood-letting, effigy burning, suicide bombing, baby killing, and so on...ad bloody nauseam...
Stop wasting your breath (or bandwith). He isn't going to answer. I doubt he _has_ an answer. I doubt he could formulate one if we _were_ attacked.
Just pass his posts by, as I do...
Cheers!
- John
It would be exactly the _correct_ and most appropriate response to take, if the United States is attacked with a nuclear weapon that destroys a city, or a biological weapon that creates mass casualties. By "mass casualties", I mean deaths and grievous injuries in the tens of thousands.
The fact that bombing Mecca would be tantamount (in your words) to "an attack on all of Islam" is precisely _why_ it would be required.
It would provide a response that is equal in force (what force OTHER THAN nuclear would, could, might _ever_ be an suitable response to the use of such weapons against US?), but SYMBOLIC in nature, without destroying any of the Islamic nations' major population centers. Indeed, we might not know from which country the contents of the weapon issued, or even who manipulated it into place. At that point, it might be a strategical mistake to destroy, say, Tehran when perhaps Syria or Islamabad might be the real (read: guilty) targets.
Almost every Freeper will agree that the "War on Terror" is, itself, a misnomer; that the _real_ war we are engaged in is with something else. That "something else" is Islam, which seeks the destruction of the West (indeed, of everything non-Islamic, by the design of the Quran).
There is no single nation, no specific capital, that we can point to as the instigator of this war. Or is there? Which city, frankly, is the "capital" of Islam itself? The city towards which _all_ Muslims pray?
I knew you could answer that.
Faced with [what at this time still seems] the unthinkable, perhaps without a specific Islamic nation onto which we can assign blame (and retribution), the United States must - and I emphasize MUST - be willing to strike back symbolically with overwhelming force against a target that will get the undivided attention of ALL Muslims EVERYwhere, and the leaders that govern them.
That message must be: "Islam's thirst for the destruction of the West must end NOW. We have demonstrated what you, as Islamic individuals and nations, will face if it does NOT stop. If you have any doubts, you need look no further than the ruins of your [once] holiest city. Behold what the teachings of Mohammed hath wrought!"
Never happen, you say? Perhaps. But the war that we are engaged in now isn't going to end this year, or this decade. It could become humanity's greatest struggle, the final battle between light and dark for the future of mankind. I was never deeply into the Bible, but if ever there might be an Armageddon, this could be it.
Someday, as this struggle progresses - and probably years after I am gone - the world may witness the destruction of Mecca as the climax of the War between the West and Islam. Frankly, I cannot foresee any other possible ending, if our side is to "win". Islam is incompatible with the West on the most fundamental terms: the two cannot co-exist in a world in which both sides have acquired nuclear technology (as an aside, the West could tolerate and resist Islam so long as their side had the equivalent of pocket knives to our guns, but that is no more). As such, there can be only one side triumphant. The other must wither, perhaps disappear.
I know which side _I_ want to win!
Cheers!
- John
Dear Author, The US has been nuked at this point. What can we do in response to a nuclear attack on America that will avoid adding "another injury" to "their litany of grievances"?
Wouldn't every Islamic terrorist on earth head to Mecca if they know that we have designated it as a "safe zone" for terrorists to hang out at?
People like this author would like to condition you to accept the destruction of your country without reacting angrily afterward.
Oh, great and knowlegeable sage, perhaps YOU can answer the simple question that Bommer still has not answered -- and thus I cannot answer his question:
Who popped the nuke?
Simple enough question, right? Any rational response would require the answer to that question, before we went off nuking places.
Now, we've got lots of folks blaming all living and dead adherents of a particular religion -- which is pure foolishness, not to mention a direct affirmation of the author's point about rejecting Western standards of justice "willy-nilly."
And we've got folks like Bommer not answering at all, because his answer is likewise no doubt "everybody who's a Muslim."
But he won't answer the simple question. He has dodged it every single time. I wonder why that is? Perhaps he dodges it because the logic of his answer isn't so compelling when he has to actually consider the consequences of his recommendation? Perhaps it's because he has more moral fiber than his loud talk lets on?
Well, Bommer? Are you going to answer my simple question?
Dear Jim: No it hasn't been nuked. It's a hypothetical that will probably never be realized in our lifetimes. But even as a hypothetical it's flawed, because nobody seems to be able to tell us who's guilty of popping the nuke in the first place. And without that piece of information, how can we possibly start lobbing our own nukes in response?
Wouldn't every Islamic terrorist on earth head to Mecca if they know that we have designated it as a "safe zone" for terrorists to hang out at?
No. If you're a terrorist, you try to get where you can hurt us. You can't stage terrorist attacks from Mecca, and you can't set up your training camps there, either. If you could, you'd have already done so.
People like this author would like to condition you to accept the destruction of your country without reacting angrily afterward.
Not even close to what he said.
I agree.
Glad you are back with us!
You would criticize the hypothetical response while dismissing the hypothetical situation? That would be like dismissing the hypothetical situation of a Soviet nuclear strike to focus on the hypothetical response. Perhaps you will be able to recognize your flaw by considering this analogy:
"The United States has a policy of wiping out the Soviet Union"
"Yeah, well that's only if they attack the US with nukes first...that would be the US response to such an attack"
"But the Soviets haven't attacked the US with nukes...The United States has a policy of wiping out the Soviet Union"
In the situation that Tancredo responded to, I believe it was Islamic terrorists that "popped the nuke". Are you trying to apply Tancredo's response to some completely different hypothetical that you have imagined?
Or we can go with the answer that r9etb would give to the question r9etb asked "No one popped the nuke, relax"
Post #20 "What is the proper response to Muslims nuking Washington DC or even the Vatican?"
Then I get some simplistic crap of "Which Muslims?"
Some enlightenment for a simplistic mind like yours can understand. American Muslims, Chinese Muslims, Saudi Muslims, Albanian Muslims, Gay Muslims, Republican Muslims, every Muslim on the face of the Earth ALL worship to MECCA! All hold Mecca sacred. Destroy MECCA and you destroy Islam! There's nothing to worship, there's nothing to go to visit which all Muslims must do once in their life!
I would like to dumb it down for your mind to understand, but I've got an 8 year old that can even get this basic concept.
So for the 4th time, understanding (I hope but doubt) what is now stated on what a MUSLIM is, "What is the proper response to Muslims nuking Washington DC or even the Vatican?"
You're making me mad now, pal! They started it. Why don't you just shut up?
Christians don't scream (usually) about it when a church is destroyed.
Today. It wasn't all that long ago that they did.
Nuking Mecca still sounds like a good idea to me.
Deporting every follower of the religion of peace a/k/a mohmmadans yesterday along with flushing the unholy q'uran down the sewer is another.
From another thread that I posted:
This guy obviously has NO clue what he's writing about.
The purpose of nuking Mecca isn't to kill gobs of people, though of course it would accomplish that.
The purpose of nuking Mecca is this:
Islam is built upon "5 Pillars" which are REALLY the way you get into paradise. There's the praying to Mecca 5 times a day. Contributing to charity. The Haj to Mecca at least once in their lives. Don't remember the last two.
Nuking Mecca would remove at least 2 of the 5 pillars that will get your average muslim into paradise.
It's hard to make a pilgrimage to a smoking crater of fused glass.
And praying 5 times a day to said crater is sorta an exercise in futility.
Therefore, no muslim would be able to get into paradise thereafter.
THAT'S the deal with nuking mecca, not "western values" for or against it. Not MAD.
Kicking the spokes out of their wagon wheel for all eternity is the deal :)
Godspeed
Before a strike (Terrorist Nuclear Strike on the United States)we would make it known:
We might say to the powers at be in Islam, "If a nuclear strike were to happen against the United States and its origin was a Islamic Terrorist Org, then all bets are off and every option is on the Table including a strike by the United States against Holy Sites.
Its the standard deterance used in the Cold War.
There is nothing other than standard policy in his supposition.
Read what Tancredo said. He didn't advocate the "discarding of Western values, willy nilly." As for the positions of others on this site, don't even try to drag me into defending them. This is an argument between Tancredo and one of his critics, who has chosen to set up a straw man to knock down. Problem is, what Tancredo said is in the public record, and it isn't what Spencer implies with this over-the-top description.
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.
Not true. Ataturk understood the consequences of his actions, and the results were not unintended at all. Contrary to Spencer's assertion, the rise of radical Islam had its foundations laid long before Ataturk, and his abolition of the caliphate had little--if anything at all--to do with its subsequent successes. Where Ataturk intended to suppress Islamist influences--in his own country--he succeeded. And in fact, quite well, because he was not nearly so revolutionary as Spencer suggests. In 1924, Turkey had been on its way to becoming a secular state for already nearly a century under the Ottoman Empire. And in 1924 Islamic extremism was already alive and flourishing.
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."
Your arguments are very nearly as silly as Spencer's. It was certainly not the case that ALL [sic] Japanese or even a majority of them favored their aggressive war against the United States in 1941. Japanese interests throughout the world nevertheless became legitimate targets. I doubt seriously that more than a fraction of the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had any animus toward the United States, or even contributed significantly to the war effort. Nevertheless, their destruction was morally--and in light of the lives saved--practically, justified. However that may be, it's straw man time again. Tancredo hasn't called for attacks on ALL [shouting in the original] Muslims, and neither have I.
Understand this: we are in a war. Under those circumstances there is only one legitimate reason for destroying (or preserving) a particular target, and that is whether it serves our interests to do so. Neither the destruction of Islamic Holy sites, nor the credible threat to do it, serves our war objectives at this time. Period.
Blather about "hunting down and destroying" a handful of miscreants as the only legitimate response to the loss of trillions of dollars in property and hundreds of thousands or even millions of American lives because we can't afford to provide "recruiting opportunities" to al Qaeda is typical of the kind of flaccidity that got us 3,000 dead Americans. By all means call up your buddies at Foggy Bottom or Langley and wring your hands over the loss of Western Values, "willy nilly." For my part, I see nothing wrong with more serious people discussing more serious reprisals. That's all Tancredo has done.
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.