Tom Tancredo's Final SolutionMeet the biggest fool running for president.
Posted Friday, Aug. 3, 2007, at 5:17 PM ET
Wouldn't you know it. The Weekly World News announces that it will cease publication (it will retain its presence on the Web), and within a week there surfaces irrefutable evidence that space aliens ate Tom Tancredo's brain. Addressing 30 people at the Family Table restaurant in Osceola, Iowa, the presidential candidate and Republican House member from Colorado outlined his highly original position on homeland defense:
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StumbleUponIf 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. Because that is the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they would otherwise do. But as I say, if I am wrong, fine. … I would be happy to do something else. But you had better find a deterrent or you will find an attack. There is no other way around it. There have got to be negative consequences for the actions they take. That's the most negative I can think of.
A cynic might wonder whether Tancredo's proposal to take out the two holiest sites in Islam is a pathetic bid for attention by a candidate whose support among Republican voters is stuck at 1 percent, below Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, and Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback. If you listen to the audio, you'll observe that people in the restaurant had begun talking rather loudly among themselves when Tancredo brought this Mecca and Medina idea up (and, amazingly, scarcely piped down as he discussed it).
The problem with this hypothesis is that it wasn't the first time this imbecilic bigot displayed an inability to distinguish the relatively small group of active Islamist terrorists (numbering at best in the thousands) from the significantly larger group of people who are Muslims but do not intend to attack the United States (approximately 1 billion, representing about one-sixth of the world population, a few million of whom live here in the United States). Tancredo caused an uproar two years ago when he leveled the same threat on a talk-radio program in Florida. In a July 2005 op-ed, Tancredo answered his critics thusly:
Many critics of my statements have characterized them as "offensive," and indeed they may have offended some. But in this battle against fundamentalist Islam, I am hardly preoccupied with political correctness, or who may or may not be offended. Indeed, al-Qaeda cares little if the Western world is "offended" by televised images of hostages beheaded in Iraq, subway bombings in London, train attacks in Madrid, or Americans jumping to their death from the Twin Towers as they collapsed. … Until "mainstream" Islam can bring itself to stop rationalizing terrorist attacks … this war will continue. As long as this war goes on, being "offended" should be the least of anyone's worries.
Tancredo is, of course, right that many mainstream Muslims have rationalized terrorist attacks against the West. But (at risk of belaboring the obvious) many mainstream Muslims have not. How destruction of Islam's holiest sites could possibly represent appropriate punishment even for the trash-talkers is not immediately obvious. More prosaically, how exactly do you win a war against the world's second-most-popular religion? We tried it during the Crusades. It was a really good effort, but it didn't work. True, now we have nukes. But they have nukes, too, congressman. Ever visited Jerusalem? If not, I suggest you take the wife and kids there soon, because you won't have the opportunity after you put your homeland defense plan into action.
E-mail Timothy Noah at .
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Remarks from the Fray Editor:
The Clash of Civilizations comes to Chatterbox Fray! Pacifists, cover your eyes.—G.A.
Remarks from the Fray:
Although Tom Tancredo stated that he wasn't being politically correct, by threatening the Muslim holy sites instead of the Muslim people, he did blunt the sharp point of the message. It shouldn't be the "cities" that are destroyed. The message should simply be, "For every American that dies by the hand of Jihadists, 10,000 of you will die" That might just get their attention. I have no doubt that they would test our resolve to carry out such a threat. After the example is made of the first 10,000 perhaps that would be the time to reopen negotiations. Either we subjugate them or they subjugate us. Based on everything that we've seen so far I can't conceive of any other possible outcome at this point. We don't need nuclear weapons for this. Conventional laser guided ordinance or chemical weapons are more than adequate to make this a "credible" threat. Lest anyone think this is a bigoted or radically extreme position to take, just ask yourself what they would do if they had the capability. But we already know the answer to that, don't we?
--drlease
(To reply, click here.)
Seriously is not the same as literally, Mr. Noah. We do have to watch out that folks like Tommy Boy don't get their hands on sharp objects let alone nukes. However, your article's brand of Alterman-esque hyper-literal ball-busting is not the tool for that job. In fact it's a big part of why we lose eminently winnable elections. We spend outsized time and energy in, yes, reactionary outrage against the right's "bad cops" while the Keystone Kops in real power stumble and bumble their way rightward -- good thing they're largely incompetent. We can certainly dismiss moronic ideas like Tancredo's, but the larger "war on terror" is moronic and can't possibly work. We need to control the debate, not simply froth on cue.
--badgolf36
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Was it irrational or immoral to train the USA's nukes on the entire population of Moscow or the great cathedrals of Leningrad during the Cold War? The answer is NO, it was not really a very 'moral' thing to do, but it was a powerful, effective deterrent. And that's Tancredo's point, the U.S. needs a deterrent that is meaningful.
And while it would be a failure of humanity if it came down to destroying Mecca, and while it would be an unfortunate 'punishment' for a lot of innocent Muslims, the group of reactionary suicide bombers would be deterred.
The whole point is not to carry out the deterrent threat. Do you really think even the most hawkish general in the pentagon wanted to nuke every single woman and child in Moscow? The point is to deter bad things from happening anywhere. The US was victorious in the Cold War with that same morally questionable strategy.
--riccardoGSB
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That photo on the homepage associated with this article is not of Mecca. It's a photo of the Badshahi Masjid (mosque) in Lahore, Pakistan. I know - I'm from there.
Just goes to show how little most Americans really know about the Islamic world and Muslims. How many of you hate-mongers here who would blithely incinerate millions of people and destroy a 1400 year old religious tradition actually know any Muslims on a personal level?
People like Tancredo and the fanatic Islamist fundamentalists/terrorists are just two sides of the same coin. They each would randomly attack innocents for perceived injustices. This is just revenge - not justice. Who was it that said an eye for an eye will just leave everyone blind?
The only solution to extremism in the Muslim world is education and economic development. And the U.S. needs to stop sucking at the oil teat by becoming energy independent. Bombs are not the path to peace. Peace IS the path.
--sfdenizen
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The idea of nuking holy sites is one that will come up over and over as the zealots of the world try to darken our future. They worship the past and false ideas about false gods. Basically, the Muslims who worship Mecca and the Jews who worship Jerusalem and the Christians who worship Rome are idolaters. They know nothing about worshiping or following God. That is how they can believe that suicide bombers go to heaven, or that clinging to a certain patch of land will preserve their people, or that the pope is infallible. The rest of us, who believe in God or not, need to understand that it is the future they fear. They long ago lost touch with the Deity who doesn't even make snowflakes alike, much less people. They crave conformity to their superstitions more than the freedom of divine enlightenment. We will have to protect ourselves against the religious fervor that destroys their souls, but trying to do it by demolishing their security blankets will only make them more frenzied.
--Telemachus
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