Posted on 08/02/2007 6:30:59 PM PDT by Flavius
WASHINGTON: Republican presidential hopeful Tom Tancredo says the best way he can think of to deter a nuclear terrorist attack on the US is to threaten to retaliate by bombing Islamic holy sites.
The Colorado congressman on Tuesday told about 30 people at a town hall meeting in the state of Iowa that he believes such a terrorist attack could be imminent and that the US needs to hurry up and think of a way to stop it.
“If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina,” Tancredo said at the Family Table restaurant.
“Because that’s the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they otherwise might do,” Tancredo said in comments recorded and posted on the Web site iowapolitics.com.
A Washington-based Islamic civil rights and advocacy group responded in anger on Thursday, calling Tancredo’s statement “unworthy of anyone seeking public office in the United States.” “Perhaps it’s evidence of a long-shot candidate grasping at straws and trying to create some kind of a controversy that might appeal to a niche audience of anti-Muslim bigots,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenews.com.pk ...
:D
Wholeheartedly
The more likely response would be to sacriface any moques that are in this country if Heaven forbide there is another 9/11 attack. Remember Americans are armed to the teeth bigtime and anymore attacks in the USA will create a hugh angry and violent backlash against all things Muslim.
“Any major attack on our soil - nuclear or otherwise - perpetrated by Islamists should be met with the annihilation of Mecca, Medina, and whatever other sites those cultist freaks consider “holy.””
Well if you’re doing them in order, the third most holy city in Islam is Jerusalem. Still as enthusiastic?
Point taken. Mecca and Medina would be sufficent.
As to the suggestion that this parallels Christianities survival: not true in any way. Christ SPECIFICALLY states that there is no such thing as a central church. That any church/site is irrelevant to the religion. Islam SPECIFICALLY states that Mecca MUST BE VISITED. THIS SITE’S EXISTANCE IS INTEGRAL TO THE RELIGION ITSELF.
But please, stick your head back into the sand and keep believing islam is not the cause and solution of this war. Better to live in blissful ignorance than come to terms with the fact that we are using our military as a mercenary army to support the spread of islam, to support the creation of islamic democracies (can you say oxymoron) in the middle east.
The sooner we free the 4 billion adherents of islam from their religious slavery, the better. Like these people are not already trained to hate us from birth to death anyway.
Do you have any examples (other than protecting pedophile clergy) where the Catholic church did not immediately kowtow when confronted by a difficult situation?
Islam cannot exist without Mecca. It is the Achilles heels of all Achilles heels and it needs to be in play.
Well said.
This is typical Tancredo insanity and many people go along with it. Apparently the theory is that if we nuke Mecca, the Muslims will wilt and give up. Anyone who believes that belongs in an insane asylum.
At best, it would accomplish nothing. At worst, it would turn all one billion Muslims against us - and many live right here in the USA.
Has anyone noticed than no other Republican is going along with this? However, I wish some of them would jump up and say, “SHUT UP, TOM!”
“They’d go stark raving crazy.”
I’ll vote for your solution!
“Do you have any examples (other than protecting pedophile clergy) where the Catholic church did not immediately kowtow when confronted by a difficult situation?”
Pope John Paul II. Pope Benedict XIV. Not exactly “touchy feely, new-age Popes.”
But this has nothing to do with the Church but more with the average Catholic laymen. If an ideology destroyed the Vatican, that group just made itself the enemy of every Catholic alive, more than a few of them willing to pick up arms and go after others of the same idea.
“Islam cannot exist without Mecca. It is the Achilles heels of all Achilles heels and it needs to be in play.”
Please. Without the Vatican my faith would still stand. It’s doubtful that Muslims will just go, “Welp, no more Mecca. I’ll try some other religion instead.” Two things are going to happen in the event of this war crime (and yes Virginia, dropping thermonuclear devices on an occupied Holy place is a war crime):
1) Muslims will embolden their resolve after a naked attack at the very foundation of their beliefs. The lapsed will become religious again and those who are religious will become even more so.
2) The rank of the hirabhists will swell as we demonstrate amply that EVERY UTTERANCE BY BIN LADEN ABOUT THIS BEING A WAR AGAINST ALL ISLAM, A WAR OF GOOD AND EVIL IS TRUE. Congratulations, the WOT just went into genocidal overdrive as we face a BILLION STRONG army and not just a bunch of idiots being taken down left, right, and center.
Al Qaeda and the hirabhists are losing. Their are only two ways they can possibly win:
1) The Treason Party force us out of Iraq.
2) The majority of Muslims ally with them.
Blowing up Mecca would accomplish number two in spades.
“Well said.”
Thank you. There are two ways to lose the war on terror. You could kowtow to them or treat everyone as the enemy. The extremes on both sides are doing their utmost to ensure this happens.
“Apparently the theory is that if we nuke Mecca, the Muslims will wilt and give up. Anyone who believes that belongs in an insane asylum.”
Yeah, just look at 9/11! Americans immediately adopted Islam and Pres. Bush surrendered his Presidency to Rep. Keith Ellison...
Ooops.
“At best, it would accomplish nothing. At worst, it would turn all one billion Muslims against us - and many live right here in the USA.”
FReepers keep citing that Quranic passage about if Mecca disappears, Islam is a lie. Well, what if you nuke it and it didn’t disappear? What will be the next step, genious? Islam is not a lie and you just convinced 1 billion people to join Bin Laden.
Considering what DBrow (customary ping) said about the Qaa’ba being formed by a meteorite, its survival despite a thermonuclear strike, scientifically, is not so far-fetched.
“Has anyone noticed than no other Republican is going along with this? However, I wish some of them would jump up and say, “SHUT UP, TOM!”
That’s probably why Karl Rove told him to “Never darken the WH’s door again.”
I never said that Islam, that Muslims, particularly “radical “ Muslims, were not the problem. In keeping with the running joke here, it ain’t the Amish, now is it?
My point is that destroying the site that they must visit will not make the many Muslims in the world quit their religion.
My parallel with Christianity is that the Romans attempted to remove the leader through very public humiliation and torture. Rather than achieving their goals, Christianity gained strength from the brutal act, and is defined by it; to this day people wear an ancient torture device around their necks to commemorate it.(... For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures; )
I don’t think that the Muslims of the world, deprived of their prime symbol, would just quit any more than Christ’s disciples quit. Perhaps a new “must do” tradition would arise in which each living Muslim must kill 100 infidels until they are all gone (by then the thermonuclear crater would be cool enough to visit). But they won’t go away any more than nuking Golgotha would make Christians quit.
It might just get their attention...
That’s not quite what I was getting at, pardon me for bad writing.
The stone in the silver receptacle in the K’aaba is stated to be a meteorite itself, but analysis shows it to be a piece of the fused crater of a strike. Somebody picked it up and put it in the K’aaba, I don’t remember when, but it was revered as a “stone from the sky” (they were a bit ahead of Thomas Jefferson, weren’t they?).
It won’t survive a Big One at all. Pika-DON! and it’s gone.
The point I was making is that since they already have a piece of fused sand in their reliquary, making a big disk of fused glass where the old one was revered may be an event easily integrated into their legends.
Just for fun:
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0284287.htm
Ah, thank you for the additional info. What I don’t get is is it just that one meteorite that is regarded as Holy, or is it the whole black square that is given reverence?
The rock inside is a holy object like the legendary Holy Grail or some other artifact is- a sacred thing as opposed to a sacred place.
I don’t really know the details and don’t really have time to look it up, and they won’t let me in to look for myself unless I make certain concessions which I am not wont to do.
I agree with DBrow and Killborn, who said everything that needed to be said, and better than I probably could.
I like Tancredo on a lot of other issues, particularly illegal immigration, but he is wrong on this one. Bombing Mecca and Medina will unite ALL Muslims against us. It will fulfill the prophecy of al-Malhamah al-Kubrah — it will be seen as the beginning of the Great War.
Bad idea.
I think that the intention of what Tancredo is suggesting is to threaten retaliation against the one thing that seems to matter to them as a means of deterring an attack against us, not simple retaliation after the fact.
How do you deter people who are willing to kill their own children in the course of trying to kill you? If their faith is the only thing that matters to them, then threatening to take away the ability for Muslims worldwide to fulfill one of the pillars of the faith might be one of the very few means to get their attention.
“and they won’t let me in to look for myself unless I make certain concessions which I am not wont to do.”
LOL! I hear ya. I’d love to drop by for a visit but the requirements are a bit much. :) It’d be cool if we could drop in like the Vatican or the Wailing Wall. Thanks for the info.
Thanks for chiming in. Good to hear another voice of sanity.
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