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.
Muslims apparently believe that men can destroy their most holy book, the Koran.
The true God has protected the bible over the centuries, and it is not man who protected it.
Nuking Mecca is a much more effective threat than actual tactic - for one thing you can only do it once, for another it is a deliberate insult that absolutely solidifies a fight with all Moslems at large. If, by then, that is what we face then it isn't invalid, IMHO, but it is entirely symbolic.
Of course, taking the city, establishing a defense in depth, and putting the stump grinders to work - that might do the job. Or setting up a subway turnstile and charging them for the Maypole dance around the rock...
Then what would be an appropriate response if terrorists vaporized a couple of large American cities with nukes? Look for the 'bad guys'?
Come on, we've been looking for OBL for quite some time, and thanks to his Islamicist buddies, he's got plenty of hiding places.
The response to such a deed has to be swift and strong. Spending years looking for an 'aloof' someone who would then have to be 'tried' is not appropriate.
I agree. They must change within if they are going to save themselves.
According to that one British survey, 1 in 4 muslims over there sympathize with the terrorists. The other 3 need to educate the others, as they know that their future depends on it. I don't understand why they aren't more public and active about it. Their silence and indifference says a lot to me.
I would also like to mention that I don't really relish the idea of using nuclear weapons. I don't even like to think about all the women and young children living in or near Mecca that would kill. I am not bloodthirsty killer. But putting forth the use of nukes as an option may make islamists take pause. In that, alone, saying such things have their utility.
It isn't just "not exactly the same". It's radically divergent.
Spencer makes a 'straw-man' argument here and argues beside the point as well.
I suppose a few of us may think we should just strap Slim Picken's body to a hydrogen bomb, as in the movie `Dr. Strangelove', and drop it on Mecca. Following this article and others by conservatives, the question remains unanswered: what do we do if the unthinkable becomes reality? (Below)
If I were a reader for al Quaida, my understanding of this article would be,
"If we were to strike them in such a manner, they would not respond in kind."
I'm sure we have contingency plans, but our leadership should make the salient thrust of those plans clear to the enemy, and that would be that our response would be nuclear strike against an Islamic target. (Spinning the wheel . . . although I suppose even at that stage there would be some who would argue, "Gee, but won't that make them mad?")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_bomb
I wonder how in love with death they would be after this:
was applied to this:
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.
So exactly how is it that a religion with this as its goal, can be called a "Religion of Peace".
Best Regards
Sergio
P.S. By the cryptic comments in some of the posts, I gather you have been a bit under the weather lately. Glad to see you posing and hope you are feeling better. Best wishes for continued health.
How do you feel?thank you
Your answer seems to be "kill 'em all, let God sort them out." Not unexpected, but sadly lacking in any rational or moral content.
If Christians or Jews were running amok all over the world murdering thousands in the name of Jesus or Moses, every man's hand would be set against them.
But somehow, the Muzzies get a pass when it comes to serious, catastrophic consequences for the population as a whole?
Bullsh*t.
As far as I'm concerned, if rank-and-file Muslims refuse to PUBLICLY CONDEMN the jihaddists, and proceed to clean out their house, they can suffer any consequence that comes their way. What's that I hear so far? Dead silence?
Just in case you think I arrive at this point of view easily, I don't. I also don't like thinking that maybe, just maybe, the Muslim guy my wife works next to may someday wear the latest in terrorist fashion chic to work and have a real blast.
I've simply had e-damned-nough of the pap that "most Muslims are peace-loving" while we're clearing away the bodies from the latest homicide bombing. If they're not publicly supporting the effort to destroy Islamic terrorism, then they're either complicit or they tacitly approve of it.
It isn't Swedish grandmothers setting off IED's in Iraq, or blowing themselves up in Israel or London. It's Muslims, every single time. And it's Muslims who had better become part of the solution PDQ, or the demand for vengeance is going to outweigh the restraint of politicians, especially if New York or LA disappear in a nuclear flash.
Screw Mecca. My give-a-damn's busted.
1) Capture a terrorist, or insurgent...
2) Hold him for a few weeks... (insert tracking mechanism into him)..
3) Track him like we do animals..
4) Spread the news(leak) that he will be released after finishing CIA school.. paiseing him for good grades..
5) Collect his (and his familys) bodies for burial..
6) Go To 1)...
I haven't seen anybody say that as long as the wall stands, so does the religion.
The wall, important as it is, is just a wall. To the Muslims, the black rock is Allah.
A point that will go over the heads of most posters, I fear.
If NYC was a glowing crater, we'd need to figure out what group was responsible and who backed them. However, randomly nuking a Muslim city would accomplish nothing, other than killing more innocent people.
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