There’s been a lot of talk lately from both left and right in response to Congressman Tom Tancredo’s remarks that the “ultimate response” to WMD attacks on multiple U.S. cities by militant Islamists would be to destroy Muslim holy sites. This isn’t an original thought; fellow Waterglass blogger Morgan has suggested it, on occasion, as have many other pundits, bloggers, and commentators. Initially, I was pretty horrified at the thought myself, but after doing some thinking and considerable reading on the subject, I’ve come around some. Jeff at Protein Wisdom has an interesting discussion and plenty of links, all of which are worth following.
Francis W. Porretto asks the important question:
How does one deter an Islamic terrorist with access to weapons of mass destruction? Not with threats to his own life; he’s willing to die if in so doing he can inflict sufficient harm on a gaggle of us “infidels.” Probably not with threats to a political entity either, for his political allegiance, like his religious faith, is to Islam and its “Caliphate.”
As I’ve said in this space many times before, the enemy we fight doesn’t fear death, injury, or imprisonment. All he fears is failure. When faced with an enemy like that, the only measures that can be taken in order to effectively defend oneself are, by their very definition, extreme. Porretto notes that during the Cold War, the Soviets were deterred because, at least in part, they didn’t want to die either. So, what to do? Jeff says it succinctly:
…it doesn?t matter to me whether or not the US actually would unleash such hell on Muslim holy sites. What matters to me is that our enemy knows that no military response is ever off the table. The US has done?and continues to do?enough good in this world that it need not constantly strive for the kind of cheap grace that comes from loudly and publicly eschewing pragmatic analysis about our military response options for the sake of placating those who have every reason to fear us.
Wouldn’t that inflame the all-too-inflammable “Arab street?” Fuck the Arab street. There’s nothing anyone in the West can do to satisfy the ever-outraged Arab street’s perpetual whining, so why bother?
Wouldn’t we be punishing the millions and millions of Muslims that love peace? Well, yes. Isn’t nuking Mecca overkill? What about the innocent casualties? Well, what about them? Imagine New York City as a smoking, unlivable hole for centuries to come. Or L.A. Or Boston. Or all three, with Philadelphia thrown in for good measure. Imagine hundreds of thousands of American lives lost, and millions more maimed and made gravely ill from nuclear fallout. What response to that would be proper? How much restraint is required in the face of thousands and thousands of your own countrymen murdered by Islamic militants?
Ultimately, I might be convinced otherwise. Discuss, and keep it civil.
Is nuking Mecca overkill? Absolutely. Was dropping a bomb on Hiroshima overkill? You bet!
When I suggested that Mecca be threatened with destruction, this would be the retalition for the most extreme terrorist act. We have to let them know that this would be on the table. Someone has to say out loud that if a Muslim extremist walks a dirty bomb into Philadelphia and detonates it, the Muslim world would be worshipping a smoking hole five times a day.
Our enemy doesn’t care about themselves or their people. The only thing they value is their religion and its symbols. Mecca is the ultimate symbol representing the radical Muslim side in this holy war and therefore a valid target. It’s a variation of the Mutual Assured Destruction of the Cold War.
Do I want to see Mecca destroyed? No. I believe Mecca is a priceless cultural treasure and I hope it exists until the end of the world. However, I also want to protect this country and its people. If that means threatening a holy site, then so be it.
problem is that by nuking mecca you in reality wage war on all of islam, giving credence to the grievences of al queda et al. they see american action as a war on all islam, when in reality the only war is between the fundamentalist islamists and the rest of muslim society. the rest of muslim society does not have a problem with the u.s. the way that the fundies do, but by nuking mecca you will succeed only in turning the entirety of muslim society and what little is left of your allies against you.
Greg echoes my sentiments on the matter. I would add a moral component to it; by engaging in the kind of warfare used by terrorists, we become terrorists ourselves. This is a dubious moral right position because we become the same evil as they. There is no moral justification for killing innocent civilians. Once we engage in evil, our moral high ground is lost.
Hiroshima was not overkill, whatever the modern day revisionists say. The Japanese had four million men under arms and were schooling the civilian populations from kids to grannies on fighting techniques ranging from suicide bombers to wooden spears. They weren’t going down without inflicting an estimated 1 million US casualties. And of course many more Japanese would die in the fighting. Many reading this blog wouldn’t be alive because fathers or grandfathers would not have survived. Ask any WWII veteran how he felt when the bomb was dropped. The 120,000 who died at Hiroshima was a cheap price to pay, cold hearted as it may sound. As to the innocents at Mecca, give them time to clear out. Thirty days or so, say. If this understanding was in place, do you figure a people who riot over a Koran in the terlet are going to go through with whatever act of mass terrorism they might have in mind?
What is being forgotten here is, essentially, the entire history of warfare. For example, the bombing of Dresden undoubtedly killed hundreds of innocents: did that make the Allies no better than the Nazis? Does the killing of one innocent person in the course of fighting a war automatically place one in the terrorist camp? What happens when your enemy, after deliberately perpetrating a horrific act of mass murder, hides himself among the civilian populace? Do you not retaliate? What’s a proportionate response to a nuked New York City that allows us to hold the moral high ground while making certain that Islamic militants are never able to engage in such warfare again?
I’m not saying that an automatic response to a WMD attack on Washington D.C. would be to nuke Medina or Mecca. However, it shouldn’t be off the table. At what point does it become the responsibility of the rest of “muslim society” to, for the sake of survival, loudly and without stint, denounce the outrages committed by the militant Islamists? If “muslim society” numbers among its representatives the anti-semitic organization called CAIR, then I must admit that I don’t feel too poorly about turning it against me and “what little is left of my allies.”