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Nuke Mecca? Nope.
Frontpage Magazine ^
| 28 July 2005
| Robert Spencer
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 Washington’s 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 Tancredo’s 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.
Tancredo’s 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 today’s jihadists, and goes all the way back in Islamic history to the Qur’an, 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 wouldn’t 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 today’s 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 Qur’an 98:6), wouldn’t 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 Ka’aba 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.
TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: islam; islamicagenda; islamisevil; islamisnotareligion; islamists; mecca; muslim; nukemecca; robertspencer; tancredo; terrorism
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To: mc6809e
If you want to shake the confidence of Muslims, show them that their god is powerless to stop the destruction of his most holy city. Scepticism in Islam would be the most important check on Islamic terrorism. People that lack complete faith in Allah don't kill themselves in his name. I don't think so. Think of whatever place/symbol means the most to you, and then consider your response if it should be destroyed by a nuke.
Are you going to be "shaken," or are you gonna go looking for blood?
My money is on the latter. And so is bin Laden's.
21
posted on
07/28/2005 9:59:57 AM PDT
by
r9etb
To: mc6809e
If a site produces a good article, at least give them a chance to earn some $$$ as a reward.If you like it, click on it. There's nothing stopping you.
22
posted on
07/28/2005 10:00:10 AM PDT
by
rdb3
(You'd PAY to know what you REALLY think.)
To: rdb3
I do not agree with the author.
Let's have a little bit of comparative religion class. Christians don't scream (usually) about it when a church is destroyed. Not like muslims do. To Christians, the church is a group of people. Where they meet is not particularly important. If my church burns down tomorrow, that's unfortunate. But we'll just build another one. If 100 terrorists were holed up in my church, they had no hostages, and the goodguys choices were a) Storm the building and take them out in close combat, suffering casualties in the process or b) blow up the building with a bomb, I have to say that I would blow the building up with a bomb. It's just a building. It's concrete, brick, mortar, and steel. Nothing holy about it. We'll put together our funds as a church and build a new one. This attitude among christians was witnessed when PLO terrorists seized the Church of the Nativity. They tried to turn Christians against Jews by making the (true) claim that Israelis had fired on the church. But it didn't fly with christians at all.
Muslims aren't like this. If you touch one of their holy sites they go into convulsions of rage. I think if we can make islam believe that we willd rop a nuclear warhead on Mecca, and turn it into a radioactive crater, they will sit up and take notice. However, if we formally make the threat, we can't make it and them not believe it. If we do, things will be worse for us. If we make the threat, and they really do believe it, it may help us out (as long as they don't come to disbelieve it at some point).
23
posted on
07/28/2005 10:00:46 AM PDT
by
JamesP81
To: Bommer
What is the proper response to Muslims nuking Washington DC or even the Vatican? Your question is so imprecise as to defy any rational attempt to answer it. Please clarify what you mean by "Muslims nuking Washington DC...." Which Muslims?
24
posted on
07/28/2005 10:01:32 AM PDT
by
r9etb
To: rdb3
I find his refutation of the proving-Islam-wrong-by-destroying-Mecca argument to be insufficient. The caliph, and the caliphate, are restorable; no permanent damage was done to their beliefs by its abolition. The destruction of Mecca would be a one-way trip and not reversible.
To: mc6809e; rdb3; dubyaismypresident
We needn't nuke them. Load B-52 bomb bays with pigs and drop from 30,000 ft on to Mecca (especially during the Haj), Medina (their second "holiest site"), and the Mosque of Omar (Jerusalem). This might just do the trick. Who would they ever get to clean it all up, I wonder?
Pig fat dipped bullets for the leaders and resisters would also be a finishing nice touch. I'm sure we could wrap the task into the Agricultural price-support budget and share the line item expense with the military.
26
posted on
07/28/2005 10:01:49 AM PDT
by
Agamemnon
(Intelligent Design is to evolution what the Swift Boat Vets were to the Kerry campaign)
To: rdb3
A reasoned argument. However, it might not hold up so well should an 'American Hiroshima' were to ever happen as ol' Uncle Binny has threatened.
To: JamesP81
The worst thing we can do is to take any option off the table.
28
posted on
07/28/2005 10:04:20 AM PDT
by
chris1
("Make the other guy die for his country" - George S. Patton, Jr.)
To: RichardW
Obviously no American president can withstand the vaporizing of NYC and tens of millions of Americans. Something will have to be done to respond in kind.Perhaps nuking the Afghan/Pakistan border area where Bin Laden is hiding. Of course there are 2 problems with this:
1. We'd be relying on our famously unreliable intellegence community and more importantly
2. Pakistan has the bomb too.
There are no easy solutions.
I feel bad for Tancredo putting himself in the position he did, if he has stayed away from Paul Williams, the kooky moonbat who wrote "Inside the Vatican" he'd never have got the now infamous question as he would not have been on that call in show.
29
posted on
07/28/2005 10:04:45 AM PDT
by
NeoCaveman
(Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Federalist Society?)
To: r9etb
Are you going to be "shaken," or are you gonna go looking for blood? They're already "looking for blood." The more innocent, the better.
Besides all this, what wrong with Holy payback for blowing up the giant Buddhas in Afghanistan? In Judeo-Christian belief, this kind of attachment to physical objects borders on idol worship.
30
posted on
07/28/2005 10:04:58 AM PDT
by
Cyber Liberty
(© 2005, Ravin' Lunatic since 4/98)
To: r9etb
Which Muslims? The cuddly kind that live in the gumdrop woods near the chocolate river of love.....OH AND THEY HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS! What does it matter? If you have a family of rats living in your attic, do you discern the good rats from the bad rats or kill them all?
31
posted on
07/28/2005 10:05:25 AM PDT
by
Bommer
To: rdb3
Do you know about the plan to use Yukka Mountain in Nevada for nuclear waste? Um, I have a better idea......
USE MECCA!
32
posted on
07/28/2005 10:05:27 AM PDT
by
TheForceOfOne
(The alternative media is our Enigma machine.)
Comment #33 Removed by Moderator
To: rdb3
No way does this convince me. Nuking Mecca should be the first order of business if Muhammad worshiping lunatics detonate a nuke or two here or somehow unleash some terrible bio/chem agents on us. Mecca Medina Qom is how you do it right. Just effin' waste them if the Jihadist mutants push it too far.
34
posted on
07/28/2005 10:06:26 AM PDT
by
dennisw
( G_d - ---> Against Amelek for all generations)
To: jan in Colorado; SheLion; knighthawk; backhoe; Salem; Dark Skies; USF; Fred Nerks
35
posted on
07/28/2005 10:06:40 AM PDT
by
EdReform
(Free Republic - helping to keep our country a free republic. Thank you for your financial support!)
To: dubyaismypresident
I tend to agree with the author.I don't, because he starts his position with a false premise, to wit:
"Tancredo’s idea, of course, is based on the old Cold War principle of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)."
Not true. The Muslims, for the time being, do not have the capability and Tancrdo's hiding behind this statement is backpedaling. The essence of a USA nuclear retaliation for any further terrorists attacks is simply:
"YOU DO THAT AGAIN, MOHAMMED, AND WE'LL KICK YOUR NUTS OFF!"
It's nothing more than a simple masculine threat that conveys to the thuggish mind that we mean business. Nothing more. It's ridiculous that anyone would perceive it otherwise. It's not worth the controversy that its attracted.
36
posted on
07/28/2005 10:08:11 AM PDT
by
elbucko
To: rdb3
Start at 200km. One terrost attack = 1 bomb. Go to to 150km and repeat every 50 klicks for every attack (car bomber, subways, etc) until they get the point. Simple.
The Muslem "community" must start to police their own or risk their holy site.
37
posted on
07/28/2005 10:08:12 AM PDT
by
llevrok
(Semper Conservitatus)
To: thoughtomator
We need to cut the conventional nonsense and cut the throat (no pun intended) of Islam itself so that it bleeds to death. Whether it be peaceful or militarily, we all know the violence will continue so long as Islam is a major religion.
38
posted on
07/28/2005 10:08:28 AM PDT
by
chris1
("Make the other guy die for his country" - George S. Patton, Jr.)
To: rdb3
Way off the mark. Spencer accuses Tancredo of suggesting a pre-emptive strike. An absolute falsehood. You call that a "fair take?"
39
posted on
07/28/2005 10:08:32 AM PDT
by
takenoprisoner
(illegally posting on an expired tag)
To: Bommer
"But for the anti-Tancrado crowd: What is the proper response to Muslims nuking Washington DC or even the Vatican?"
Well you know how it would go......"it's only the fantatical few who have done this; Islam is a religion of peace and this does not reflect on all muslims......"
I swear it would be exactly that way......
40
posted on
07/28/2005 10:08:44 AM PDT
by
Dazedcat
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