In the wake of the London bombings, who better than La Fallaci to focus our minds? In the face of her own terminal illness, she confronts the illness of Europe as no one else. Thanks to Mystery Achievement blog for offering a translation of Oriana’s latest from Corriere della Serra. Part One begins:
Now, I ask myself: “What do you say, what do you have to say, about what happened in London?” They ask me face-to-face, via fax and email; often scolding me because up until now I have remained silent. Almost as if my silence were a betrayal. And each time I shake my head and murmur to myself: what else should I say?!? I’ve been saying it for four years–that I fight against the Monster that has decided to eliminate us physically and, along with our bodies, to destroy our principles and values. Our civilization. For four years I’ve been talking about Islamic Nazism; about the war against the West; about the death cult; about European suicide. About a Europe that is no longer Europe, but Eurabia, and that with its feebleness, its inertia, its blindness, its servitude to the enemy is digging its own grave. For four years, like another Cassandra, I’ve been shouting until I’m hoarse “Troy is burning! Troy is burning!” and I despair of the Danaids for whom, like Virgil in the Aeneid I weep for a city entombed in its torpor. [A city] that, through its wide-open doors receives fresh troops and joins complicit parties [inside]. For four years I’ve been repeating to the wind the truth about the Monster and its accomplices; that is, the accomplices of the Monster who, in good or bad faith, open wide the doors–who, like [those] in the Apocalypse of John the Evangelist, throw themselves at his feet and allow themselves to be stamped with the mark of shame.
I began with “The Rage and the Pride.” I continued with “The Force of Reason.” I followed [those] with “Oriana Fallaci Interviews Oriana Fallaci,” and “The Apocalypse.” And in each one I preached, “Wake up, West! Wake up!” The books, the ideas, for which in France they tried me in 2002, accusing me of religious racism and xenophobia. For which Switzerland asked our Minister of Justice to extradite me in handcuffs. For which in Italy I will be tried for vilifying Islam; that is, for an offense of opinion. (An offense that carries a sentence of three years in prison; none of which will be served by the Islamist caught with explosives in his cantina). Books, ideas, for which the “Caviar” left, the “Fois Gras” right, and even the “Prosciutto” Center have denigrated and vilified me, putting me in the stocks together with all who think as I do. That is, together with the sensible and unprotected people who are defined by the radical-chic in their frivolous talk as “the riff-raff of the Right.”
Right on, sister! Oriana, not Arianna! Part Two here.
Powerful stuff. Churchillian in many ways.
My prayers are with you, Ms. Fallaci.
You are needed now more than ever.
A view from Norway, Bjorn Staerk.
Aw hell, might as well make an allusion to Cassandra. Someone’s got to do it. It might as well be me…
That lady has guts. Isn’t amazing how often it requires real courage to speak on obvious truth?
She is so clear and erudite, so classically and historically grounded that she makes the rest of the apologist screechers sound like rubes-come-lately to the world. May she live long enough to see a shift in her nation’s convictions. May her predictions, as intelligent and reasonable as they are, fail.
Maybe Hugh Hewitt and Glen Reynolds should read this and get a better understanding of who the enemy is. From Instpundit “AT HIS NEWLY-REDESIGNED BLOG (finally!) Hugh Hewitt delivers a righteous Fisking to Rep. Tom Tancredo’s latest “nuking Mecca” piece.” Follow url with post
The Troy analogy isn’t exactly right. If the Trojans had behaved like today’s Europeans, they would have thrown open the gates and invited the Greeks in – no need for the deception of the wooden horse. The Trojans would have announced that the Greeks can make themselves at thome, that the Trojans welcome their diversity, and if any violence results, well, the Trojans had provoked the Greeks by kidnapping Helen from Menelaus and therefore deserve it.
Oriana Fallaci’s column is profoundly moving; her reason and instincts are undiminished.
As if to underscore every her every word, I submit this voice of jihad published in the Sydney Morning Herald (via Lucianne.com).
Excerpts:
Although Mr Doureihi says [ Hizb ut-Tahrir] espouses non-violence, he warns Australia to “stop interfering in Islamic land, stop enforcing rules over Muslims and allow the Muslims to assume their own political destiny ÔøΩ If we are really serious about protecting the lives of the people in Australia, if you want to remove the possibility of these actions occurring within these countries, then remove the original injustice.”
[Snip]
He does not believe Muslims can co-exist with Western society. Asked, then, why he chose to stay in Australia, he said: “I was born in this country. I don’t choose where I was born ÔøΩ I consider myself as a Muslim first and foremost.”
Churchill was classically grounded too, but he didn’t have so much trouble getting to the point.
Less talk, more action. Hewett and Reynolds have succumbed to the “talk” side of things, too. Phooey. Remember that old WW2 poster, “The M1 does MY talking!” Short and to the point.
Smittyhere – With all due respect, Hewitt and Reynolds – and Mark Steyn – are right and Tancredo is wrong. The goal is to move the Islamic world down a path that will make it more like us – more open, more liberal, more diverse. (Yes, these are liberal terms; but ours is the liberal side – as contrasted with the leftist reactionaries who play footsie with tyrants and murderous religious lunatics.)
Threatening nuclear war against the heart of Islam to counter the actions of a movement of renegades is crazy. (Are they renegades? If they weren’t, we’d be confronting millions of suicide bombers, not just the handful we are now.) As Steyn put it, it’s like threatening to nuke the Vatican in retaliation for murders commmitted by pro-life extremists. Tancredo belongs in the hall of shame with Lyndie England and the others who, through their zealotry or corruption, have worked against our victory in the Global War on Tyranny.
Brown Line,
“Are they renegades?” It is about time we applied Lenin’s questiom “Who,Whom?”
ìSmittyhere – With all due respect, Hewitt and Reynolds – and Mark Steyn – are right and Tancredo is wrong.î
Congressman Tom Tancredo is talking like an idiot. He must be severely rebuked by the Republican establishment. How can anyone with half a brain seriously contemplate the annihilation of Mecca? Tancredo has unwittingly aided the terrorists. We cannot afford to cut slack for a leading political figure who argues for directly targeting the innocent. If he does not soon apologize and change his tune—this man must be removed from office.
Roger:
Hewitt’s problem with Tancredo is not a call to non-violence. If, in the Tancredo scenario, a nuclear device was used in America and it turned out that Syria , for example, was behind it, Hewitt would have no problem taking out Damascus. He is against Tancredo ,IMHO, for 2 reasons.Anouncing that you are going to take out Mecca would bring more Muslims into the battle. Almost all of them. If Tancredo had said that any country that was involved would have there Capital eliminated and there government taken out I don’t think Hewitt would complain. He is not claiming the military action is a mistake, he is just saying you want to do it with a brain.
The myth about the war in Iraq is that our fighting Terrorism is causing it to increase and if we hadn’t removed Saddam all this would not bhave happened. But as a war tactic bombing Mecca would make the Iraq myth true. Bombing Mecca would bring every Muslim everywhere into the battle. Nuking Damascus in retaliation for a nuke on Chicago would scare the crap out of any government that was coddling the terrorists.
Hugh can speak for himself but I have heard him enough to know that he is not for understanding the terrorists, he is for killing them. He doesn’t shy from considering the need to invade other Muslim countries if it is called for. But bombing Mecca is just a stupid war tactic. It would not make the Muslim radicals stop. It would take whatever small percentage of moderate Muslims that are left and turn every single one of them into a suicide bomber. Take away the most important thing in their life and they will have no reason to live. Surrender would be impossible. I have no problem with a aggressive war plan and after a nuked American City I would have no problem nuking any capital of any country that was involved in any way. But unless you are planning on killing a billion and a half Muslims and killing every single one of them, don’t mention Mecca. And by saying he would Tancredo plays into every Islamo fascist propaganda minister over the entire world. Could it ever come to that? Sure, in a worse case scenario. But there is no need to say it.
Just for the duration, would it be possible for us to have politicians breathalised befrore they speak?
If not we are going to have to shut the bars.
My own fantasy is to move the Ka’bah and the black stone to the back side of the moon. This would give devout muslims something positive to work for that would benefit all mankind.
ìHow dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities – but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.î
óSir Winston Churchill, from The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=16780_What_Sir_Winston_Really_Said&only
Not much has changed for Muslims in the last 106 years. They all own their women. Again
“A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men”
Can’t we all just get along.
Or you can read this and see what it takes to win the GWOT
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/140009741X/qid=1122238345/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-6222865-1186504
Christ Almighty! Is she really serious here?!?! Specifically, “The books, the ideas, for which in France they tried me in 2002, accusing me of religious racism and xenophobia. For which Switzerland asked our Minister of Justice to extradite me in handcuffs. For which in Italy I will be tried for vilifying Islam; that is, for an offense of opinion. (An offense that carries a sentence of three years in prison; none of which will be served by the Islamist caught with explosives in his cantina).”
Trials, extraditions, prison time? For espousing an opinion??? Has Europe degenerated THAT far already? Methinks that rumble I just felt under my feet was Eric Blair (fifty points if you know who he is) turning over in his grave…at about 10,000 RPM.
I read an interview with Ms. Fallaci many years ago in Playboy. Even though she had the usual young European intellectual’s flirtation with communism, I came away from that article with the feeling that after she had interviewed such Islamocommie thugs as Muammar Khadaffi and Yasar Arafat (bearing in mind that back in those days neither of these worthies went to the little terrorist’s room without Moscow’s OK), among others of that ilk, she had received something of a wake-up call.
It grieves me to hear that she is terminally ill, as not just Europe, but the world needs her clarity of thought right now (although based on the above, it is clearly too late for Europe).
And regarding Tancredo’s remarks about “nuking Mecca”, I think it would behoove those of you in such a snit over his remarks (and this includes Hewitt, Reynolds and Steyn) need to get over yourselves. And why is this?
Because this topic is the elephant in the living room that nearly everyone is studiously ignoring. Because if the Muslims use WMDs on us, and most especially if they go nuclear, ALL BETS ARE OFF. If you think America was royally pissed off after 9/11, wait until we get nuked.
All it will take is just one, let alone several, and there will be such a howl raised for vengeance against Islam for such an atrocity, it will make the US reaction to Pearl Harbor look like a Sunday school picnic by comparison.
And why “Islam” as a whole? Because everyone (except the usual brain-dead leftists who secretly want us to get nuked, because we “deserve it”) who has been paying attention knows that by and large, Islam as an entity has been resounding in their silence regarding the terror murders being committed in it’s name, except for whining about the dirty looks they sometimes get here and there, and the usual “it’s all the Jews’ fault” idiocy. By it’s silence, Islam is giving it’s tacit approval for such acts of barbarity as we have seen.
And THAT, boys and girls, is why you could have someone like Tancredo make such “hypothetical” statements as he did.
A scary thought? You bet your collective ass it is. But so is having one or more nuclear bombs set off in American cities. Bombs that, if they can get their hands on them, the Muslim terrorists WILL use. Deal with it.
TigerHawk has an excellent analysis of Al Qaeda’s deep philosophical roots and Muslims.
http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2005/07/al-qaedas-deep-philosophical-roots.html
Where Tancredo is truly wrong is that America is the “shining city on the hill’. We are the Christian example the world looks to for moral behavior, we do not target and kill innocent civilians. That is what makes Durbin’s comments on Gitmoís so absurd.
Smittyhere:
I went to the link and noticed that the author was a fan of Israel and the way they fight. Me too. But notice they have not blown up the Al-Aqsa mosque or torn it apart. When we were at war with Italy in WWII we did not blast the Vatican. Why not? The Israeli’s know that they are at war with the Palestinians and in WWII we had no problem dropping bombs. They didn’t and don’t do it out of any sense of wimpiness. They don’t do it because it is stupid. It would not help the war effort.
I recognize that Islam has not had it’s reformation and I do know it’s aggressive nature in some of it’s radical wings, and that it’s moderate wing has a tendency to rationalize and even sympathize with the sub-human tactics that the Terrorists use. But saying that you would bomb Mecca is just stupid. I will ignore the morale implications. It’s just plain dumb. Tancredo is just getting headlines. He may be good on other issues but this outburst eliminates him from national office until he repudiates this.He has become the McKinney of the right.President Bush has made some errors and in certain aspects a more aggressive attitude could have helped. There is aggressive. And then there is Pickett’s charge. Admired for it’s bravery and elan but it sealed the fate of the South. I don’t want a glorious defeat. I want to win.This is a war and I am not talking about a Kerry-Kucinich dept. of Peace P.C. drivel. But ask the IDF if they think taking out Mecca would be a smart tactic. If they thought it would help they would have already done it.
Kevin Peters
Smittyhere:
Sorry! My aim was wrong.
Oriana Fallaci is a gift to our side. I still, from timew to time, reread The Rage and the Pride her essay written after 9/11.
As for the nuking Mecca business. No… the terminal target, the homeland of the Whabbis, sits some hundreds of miles to the east of Mecca. The province Mecca is in was seized by the Whabbists. I believe Jordan has been flying a gigantic Hashamite flag across from Sharm El Sheikh for a year or so. The Hashamites lay claim to Mecca and Al Medina, and the financial bounty those cities represent.
At any rate, tribal wars are always all about divide and conquer. Even though we cann’t mention it in polite society, we know how to fight these types of wars. Set one tribe against the other and hope they butcher each other in large enough numbers to make the burning of their villages by us unnecessary.
Tancredo is probably tragically right. In consideration of say, the nuking of NYC and DC, decapitating our government and killing perhaps 3-10 million people. I say this with pure horror in mind.
ANY reaction to something as horrific as that would be even more escalated. ALL conflicts escalate, until one side breaks logistically, politically, or emotionally. France in May 1940, Germany in April 1945, Japan in August 1945.
There was no strategic or tactical reason to firebomb Dresden, or Tokyo, or many other strategic air attacks in March 1945 against Germany or July-August 1945 against Japan, except the grim logic of constant escalation. We were determined to break those enemies and we did.
THAT is what Tancredo has probably butted up against.
Look, the US has nuclear missile submarines, strategic bombers like the B-1 and B-2, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles. We have in our power the ability to kill EVERY Muslim three times over if we actually wanted to. It is my considered opinion that if the President, nearly all the Cabinet, Congress, and national leadership were dead, along with something in the neighborhood of 3-10 million people, America’s reaction would be horrifying to behold.
We WOULD use our strategic nuclear weapons on perceived enemies, and kill hundreds of millions of people. Non use of nuclear weapons during the Cold War did not happen by magic, or the tooth fairy. Much of it was mutual deterrence. We now face an enemy that is a diffuse ideology spread about the world that violenty rejects our very existence because we are the emblem of the modern world, and have signalled over thirty five years we will not hit back substantially.
If Beijing was nuked by Islamists, no one would doubt for a second that Mecca, Medina, and most of the Islamic capitols would vanish in a heartbeat. This is well understood and the principal reason Islamic terrorists leave China alone excepting the Uighur terrorists who conduct low-level bombing campaigns. That Al Qaeda has NOT conducted attacks against Shanghai or Beijing while doing so against Moscow is telling. Real power and perception that the opponent will use it has results.
We have an awesome power to destroy the world, essentially, it is held in check by our moral constraints. Those constraints are not forever, and can and would be gone in a nuclear attack killing millions and destroying our leadership. Much of the Islamic world, both Al Qaeda and those neutral, helpful, and opposed to it, forget that we have these weapons and only our moral balance prevents them from being used against weak enemies. I say this with horror. I do not wish to see America transformed into Hulagu Khan, who killed 300,000 people in Baghdad after the Arabs resisted and assassinated his envoys. Terror has it’s real limits and this is it. The Islamic world is in denial about the limits of terror in power.
If America is attacked in such a horrific nuclear attack, it is my belief that the death of so many, and the loss of political leadership, would lead to a national consensus developing rapidly that yes, Islam is the enemy and the solution is to simply kill all Muslims. Given our frightening power it is my opinion we would see Hiroshima squared to do just that.
I do not want to see that world. I believe these are the stakes we are playing for and the hundreds of millions of innocent lives at risk justifies hard measures to save them.
This horrific reality means to me that we MUST do whatever we can to avoid this. We will save not only millions of our own people but hundreds of millions of people who are not our enemy but would be killed in an inevitable nuclear escalation. If we lose NYC and DC it will be too late.
Denial of the reality is not a strategy. That just as it was important to yell “Stop” in nuclear posturing and escalation in the Cold War, it is important to discuss our real power and the fragile moral checks on it, so that both our real enemies and neutral parties understand the horrific dynamic of escalation, and the need to cut that short by preventing nuclear attacks on the US. This means being honest, not wishing or wanting in any way to kill innocent people but noting that a mass casualty nuclear attack would simply destroy the Muslim world and end Islam.
For thirty five years we have been Charles Atlas in a dark alley, pretending to be a little old lady. This is a recipe for disaster. It is important that Teheran, Riyadh, and Islamabad realize the gravity of the situation. Despite our posturing when it comes down to it, we are not different from Beijing and will do even worse if we lose our capital and NYC.
What I am is confused. On one level of course I do not believe that Islam is all evil seed and bitter fruit. It has experienced times and places in which it was as mellow as Marin (Al-Andalus 10-11 centuries). On the other hand I’m not seeing or hearing what I would consider normal outrage coming from Muslims. With every bomb blast the usual organs print out the usual paragraph of condemnation but it is not enough; and it usually contains the oily out-clause (…and let us also condemn the large scale violence of armies that enrage Muslims, etc…)
What I mean is, if a group of Killers for Jesus started killing innocent people with bombs you can bet I would nominate myself head of Stomp out Killers for Jesus. I don’t see the heads of any Stomp Out Murder for Allah groups speaking out with concomitant ferocity of the perpetrators.
I’m confused because I don’t think any of us know what to do. Are any of us wllling to offer up one more innocent to feinds who have scoured all humanity from their souls? No, yet our leaders sit around and moan, “oh, it’s ineveitable, it’s going to happen here,” or “it’s going to happen again,” or “you can’t prevent it from happening, etc.” How do we stop this, right now, today?
Das,
We don’t stop it right now, today. All we can do is try to minimize the number of people killed by this insanity.
Das,
“It has experienced times and places in which it was as mellow as Marin (Al-Andalus 10-11 centuries).”
You may want to read more about Al Andalus. The ancient equivalent of Marin County it was not. There were pogroms against Christians and Jews as well as their own fancy dancy Muslim Inquisition centuries before the Spanish Inquisition.
They don’t do it because it is stupid. It would not help the war effort.
Or, in the case of Kyoto, because Sec. War Stimson spent his honeymoon there in 1926. Sometimes the personal comes into play.
Lindenen: now you got me curious about Al-Andalus. Can you recommend any good histories by title and/or author?
“Because this topic is the elephant in the living room that nearly everyone is studiously ignoring. Because if the Muslims use WMDs on us, and most especially if they go nuclear, ALL BETS ARE OFF. If you think America was royally pissed off after 9/11, wait until we get nuked.”
Cave Bear is right, you know.
What was 9/11, in regards to advancing the Islamist agenda?
A pathetic act of pointless barbarity is all. No great statement. No staggering strategic blow against our ability to wage war, or conduct our business as a nation. As far as scale goes, it was just a few hundred normal days in the life of jihadis and their victims compressed into a particularly pristine fall morning.
They stole the weapons they used, of course. They had to to get noticed for more than a news cycle.
Ms. Fallaci is sobering reading where Europe is concerned, and we do have our vociferous and well-entrenched Left here, too. Our own main media and intelligentsia is solidly behind denying any threat at all. Just as they trumpet wage disparity in the world’s leading economy, hint at the looming theocracy because this president isn’t a visual joke stepping out of a church, and decry racism while assassinating the character of Rice, Powell, Estrada, etc, they seem incapable of extending their outrage to persons and movements that are in fact direct and lethal threats against their persons and communities.
Tancredo erred; but only in light of his position as an elected official and the fact that his words can reasonably be construed as policy. He’s a pretty straight up guy from what I’ve seen, and he’s much, MUCH more in tune with the bulk of the American Street than most of his peers.
Tancredo knows exactly what a WMD attack on this country will mean – and he knows that it won’t be the calm and measured hands of some fictional class of elder statesmen (like the current roster of trough wallowers could produce anything remotely Jefforsonian or the like of John Adams) who determine our response, either abroad or here at home. I’ve said it here before, and I’ll say it again:
When the important calls have to be made, the people as a whole make them. It might take an election cycle – but in the case of a mass casualty event measured in the tens of thousands or God forbid millions of lives, I don’t think so.
Somebody up there said something about “Reformation”. I would respectfully point out that the Kaiser never had a reformation, nor the Nazis, nor the Imperial Japanese Empire, nor the Soviets.
They got beat. Finally.
The muslims of the world, and most importanly here in the west, have had almost five years now to choose a side. Silence is no longer an option. Americans who scratch millimeters beneath the media line know that CAIR, and like organizations, are propaganda organs actually abetting the barbarians in their campaign of using the West’s own civilized mores against it.
9/11 cost over three thousand lives and tens of billions of dollars. And we still can’t seem to get it, as a nation, that there is no other option, no other solution available short of victory.
The most frightening thing to me is to ponder exactly what form the tipping point will take.
Our current policy of democratization might still work. Even with a large minority of our elected political caucus striving to sabotage the effort for short term political gain (o.k. – survival – they have nothing left to work with) the taste of freedom we are able to give might well take root; it’s powerful stuff. It’s impossible to impose freedom, of course. It’s up to the citizens of Iraq and elsewhere to do the work to see the process through. It’s not like we aren’t helping, though; hundreds of lives and billions of dollars…
But I don’t have much hope for that any more. Our democrats are out and out insane, and too many of republicans are turning out to be spineless.
I don’t agree with Tancredo on nuking Mecca in the aftermath of a WMD. It would be a waste of resources. The enemy attaches excessive strategic importance to gestures. We won’t be making any gestures – we’ll be killing. Anyway, we’ll need all our nukes and more, for China, if we don’t resolve the Islamic threat soon.
The last time(s) Islam was hit hard enough to crawl back into the desert it was as close to a world war as the available capital, technologies, and politics could make it. Some haven’t accepted that that’s what it’s going to take this time, too.
Once we take another hit that dwarfs even 9/11 we will finally cease trying to apply our templates of tolerance and restraint where they illicit nothing but contempt for our weakness.
The road to victory will start on our streets and in our neighborhoods; that’s sad, but we’ve blinded ourselves to the depth of the threat. If they will not CHANGE to become neighbors, we will bury them as barbarians.
Tancredo was interviewed the other day on Fox News about his remarks. He claimed he did not call for the “nuking” of Mecca. He said instead of the US sitting around waiting for the next attack it should make it known to the Islamists before hand that if there is a nuclear terrorist attack on the US Mecca could be “bombed” in response. This he thought might be better deterrance than threatening them with death (which they embrace) and it might make the Muslim world finally do something about its extremists instead of issuing meaningless half-hearted condemnations after each attack.
TmjUtah on Tom Tancredo – He’s a pretty straight up guy from what I’ve seen, and he’s much, MUCH more in tune with the bulk of the American Street than most of his peers.
He’s certainly more in tune with the American street on the illegal “immigrant” invasion. If there is another major terrorist outrage in the US and it turns out they crossed the Mexican border Tancredo will be in a position to say to Bush and his supporters “I told you so”. Bush’s refusal to defend the country’s border with Mexico and his pre-9/11 directive to the airlines against the profiling of Arabs and Muslims seem a lot worse to me than what some relatively obscure Congressman says on an Orlando talkshow.
Roger:
I am not making a argument for any kind of measured response to a WMD attack. I am all for letting the dogs of war out if that tragic event happens. If Tancredo had answered the question by saying that in response any country or government that had any conection to terrorist groups like Al Queda would feel the full force of our military and that no weapon would be off the table I would have cheered. But by mentioning Mecca he basically declared war against every Muslim in the world, even the ones who have no connection, sympathy, or interest in the Islamo fascists
It is good that someone reminded those members of the Muslim World who might consider doing so, that if we are struck that hard our response will be without pity. But by mentioning Mecca he stops nothing and harms our efforts to stop the Islamo fascists. Even the loyal Muslims who are fighting in our Army, who would have no problem leveling Tehran or Damascus in response to a WMD attack, would recoil at the destruction of Mecca. Once again, I am not advocating a kindler gentler response. Just a smart one.
Kevin Peters
Lindenen is right ñ those Marinites do get awfully militant when you question their laid back ways (ha); re: Al-Andalus I was thinking of the Cordoba reign of Hakam the last of the Ommayid rulers who seems to have been more interested in books than extending boundaries ñ the point being I donít believe Islam is the virus but it has definitely caught the fascist virus; now what?
I was surprised by Hewittís shocked reaction to Tancredo who simply made public a conversation many of us have held in private even if only with ourselves. The Jihad murderers after all are the ones forcing everybody into thoughts apocalyptic and ultimate. TmjUtah is probably on point but my question is ñ how can we prevent getting hit (the hit that dwarfs 9/11) again? Does it have to be? Can’t we, the sane world, take a stand ñ not one more innocent life goes into this maw? How do we do that ñ what do we do?
The elephant in the room here is that Islamism is warring against muslims as much as against the West.
The Guardian’s attempts at understanding and including Islamist views in some pathetic show of fairness and objectivity is abjectly stupid. It hurts muslims as much as the fear of alienating young muslims ignores the relief the rest of the muslim community would feel if the Islamists were expelled from their midst.
Hispanics in America want our borders secured against the entry of terrorists just as the non-Hispanic Americans do. They are Americans too and would suffer as much from an attack as anyone else.
Leftist thinking, as all extreme thinking, lumps individual realities into one mass of humanity and creates a labeled cause which has nothing to do with the individuals so lumped. Not all poor are poor for the same reasons and not all poor are equally poor. And not all poor are even poor.
PS…I HATE typekey.
Darn!
I thought I had copied the message I was posting but had the message I posted in another thread still in the buffer.
I added the bit about hating typekey without reading what I pasted into the message box.
So I will say with double emphasis I HATE TYPEKEY.
Man, I want to scream SHUT UP. LOL
CALM DOWN.
Actually, let’s NOT discuss the Mecca ‘option’..AT ALL. What our opinions of it are, don’t matter. If the Koran in a toilet caused such a stir can you imagine what would happen if our discussion of nuking Mecca got big play over there?
I think we should just drop it..for now, anyway.
Ray, Most of what I’ve read about what took place in “Al-Andalus” has been from different articles in newspapers and journals and blogs that I’ve read on the internet. I guess I would suggest google. Does anyone know of any specific books that discuss the history? I know Bat Ye’or and Robert Spencer have both written about the treatment of oppressed peoples under Islam, but I haven’t specifically read their stuff. I need to. It’s on the list.
Ray Zacek:
“Can you recommend any good histories by title and/or author?”
Try Montgomery Watt’s A History of Islamic Spain, Thomas Glick’s Islamic and Christian Spain and Kenneth Wolf’s Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain
Jim Thompson,
If America is attacked in such a horrific nuclear attack, it is my belief that the death of so many, and the loss of political leadership, would lead to a national consensus developing rapidly that yes, Islam is the enemy and the solution is to simply kill all Muslims.
It is my belief that this event will cause most people to say that Bush had it coming and to call for better and clearer ways to talk with the bombers. It will be said that the hard way has been tried; now it is time for the soft way.
Jim Rockford,
Sorry. Brain fart.
Syl -
“What our opinions of it are, don’t matter. ”
I disagree. I disagree respectfully but vociferously.
A few thousand barbarians scattered through palaces, caves, and madrassas across the globe are hijacking the lives of a billion people. They are busily writing checks and issuing orders based on their own political ambitions cloaked in mystic bullshit, and even if the vast majority of that billion people never strap on a bomb or kill an apostate or an infidel, they are NOT acting to prevent the actions of the barbarians.
John Steinbeck was right. You shoot your own dog.
Here in America, and in other civilized countries, it is unambiguously incumbent on each citizen to express his or her judgement of what political course we wish our government to take. It should be a duty – not an option – but even without compulsion to participate enough citizens do recognise it is in their direct interest to exercise their franchise. We express our opinions in debate, and in voting, because the government we end up with does act in our name, and we are responsible for its actions.
There is no dictatorship here. There is no unaccountability. And in the end our national policy reflects the will of the majority of the people, tempered by constitutional limits.
In times of peace and plenty we may ignore the more foolish machinations of government – and we can for the most part, because our system works well enough to restrain the most blatant abuses of power. Most of us are truly more interested in our own pursuit of happiness than in running anybody elses lives, much less babysitting the world.
We choose our country’s path. And we unconsciously expect that other populations exercise that same responsibility. They do, too – if not by participating in the process, then by acquiescing to the actions of their leaders.
When those actions translate into unspeakable barbarity on an industrial scale, the object of our retaliation cannot be defined by individual mailing addresses.
We’ve been stung badly, and are employing a miniscule fraction of the force at our disposal in a measured and conscientious strategy to do basically just that – kill the “bad” muslims while attempting to bootstrap the “good” muslims into a level of civilization that permits us to coexist with them.
And time is running out. I don’t see many “good” muslims out there. If that number of a billion was truly indicative of a powerful force for opposition or positive change, after five years they might have been expected to pick up the slack and act in their own interest where the acts of barbarians bring the threat of retaliation down on them.
They have not.
If we have to shoot their dog, we won’t be Atticus Finch standing calm in the noonday street. It won’t be one shot, one dog.
That’s my opinion. And my opinion counts, and if the “good” muslims feel threatened by my attitude they had better clean their own house before we are forced to raze it to the ground.
More hate from people like Tancredo who believe “Muslims” are at fault. I HOPE HUGH will attack this hate speech. SPEAK UP HUGH !!! Dont just attack those that are convenient.
Here is the punch line:
“For four years, much of the western world behaved like Bryant. Bomb us, and we agonise over the “root causes” (that is, what we did wrong). Decapitate us, and our politicians rush to the nearest mosque to declare that “Islam is a religion of peace”. Issue bloodcurdling calls at Friday prayers to kill all the Jews and infidels, and we fret that it may cause a backlash against Muslims. Behead sodomites and mutilate female genitalia, and gay groups and feminist groups can’t wait to march alongside you denouncing Bush, Blair and Howard. Murder a schoolful of children, and our scholars explain that to the “vast majority” of Muslims “jihad” is a harmless concept meaning “decaf latte with skimmed milk and cinnamon sprinkles”
Read it all at:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16034303%255E7583,00.html
TmjUtah:
I don’t think Hugh or anyone else is saying that there would not be holy hell unleashed if we were attacked with WMD. It would be all out war. But what are the targets. Tancredo says we will go after Mecca. I would think there would 20 to 40 more important targets then Mecca in this war. You targeted a religous shrine with a bunch of people on their religous mission.
Ah, but if we state that we are going to do this it will make them stop. Bull. They probaly believe the allah will block the bombs if they show the proper religous devotion by killing enough infidels. Announcing that Mecca would be the first target is bad propaganda, bad war tactics. It does nothing to stop the attacks, it puts our soldiers in Iraq and afghanistan in more danger then they already are and it achieves absolutely nothing. Announce that Damascus, Tehran, and any capital that supports terror will get knocked off and he would have achieved much more.
I’m with Herman Kahn. We need to be thinking the unthinkable.
Let the enemy consider that we may be some crazy mofos. That we might do anything. Nothing is off limits.
It might give the rational ones pause.
The crazies are already crazy. What are they going to do? Hate us twice as much?
BTW I very much like the phrase – Islamic Nazism.
Kevin -
My response to Syl was based on the imperitave need to make the other side of this conflict – both the terrorists and the majority morass of apparently apathetic muslims understand the stakes here.
The jihadis are intent on forcing a showdown. They kill infidels, they kill muslims, and they interminably publish their intent to continue their campaign with whatever weapons they can lay their hands on until they meet their objective of a world ruled by sharia.
What profit is there in waiting for them to accomplish their direst threats?
Tancredo didn’t say nuke – he said “bomb”. I think it was a mistake. Nothing said publicly will have any effect on the true loons, and I’m sure that (as has been mentioned elsewhere) there have been explicit back channel warnings passed on to what passes for governments in the arc of nations that harbor terrorists.
The issue is that terrorists, and narrow minded idealogues here, ignore who ultimately pulls the trigger on our national arsenal. Remember right after 9/11? The anthrax attacks? All those democrats falling over each other to pass Patriot, invade Afghanistan… until they figured out that they could exploit the certain complexities, mistakes, and failures inherent in war to atone for their actions to their base, and the general absence of public rage at Clinton for allowing OBL to live after multiple opportunities to take him in custody, or merely take him out?
What if anthrax or something like it is used here again, but doesn’t fizzle? We’ve been attempting democratization in Iraq for going on three years, and keep on killing high numbers of Saudis, Palestinians, Pakistanis, Syrians, and others while engaged in the process.
What price must we pay – in the lives of our citizens, in the billions of dollars we are spending in the hope that freedom will “take” in the muslim culture – to end the threat, when we have in our arsenal tools that will stop the flow of murderers to our shores or the battlefields we have chosen as the sites of nascent Arab/musliim democracy?
That price will not be defined by statesmen. It will be signaled by the actions of voters exercising their franchise in order to affect our policy.
An enemy that strikes us with the full measure of power they possess should expect no less than the same from us.
They should count on it.
Hijacking a billion people? No.
About 50% of the people of the Muslim world support the war on the West. Now admittedly not all of them wish to be active fighters. Still.
In Britain about 25% of their Muslims support the war on the West. They support the London bombings.
This is not an isolated “radical fringe”. It is a mainstream opinion. Now of course it would be good to reduce those numbers before it is too late. The question is: is it too late?
Arafat’s Godfather (Arafat called him uncle), the Mufti of Jerusalem raised two divisions of Moslem SS storm troopers to help with the final solution.
Abbas was close to Arafat and is a Holocaust denyer.
Did I mention that I really like the phrase “Islamic Nazi”? It fits.
We should show them the same mercy we showed the previous gang of Nazis.
TmjUtah:
I am not talking about mercy or understanding.I am talking about what the most effective tactics are, propaganda wise, and if it comes to it, war. stating that Mecca will be the first target in response to a WMD attack is not going to get the moderate Muslims to reign in the radical Muslims. As I stated above I don’t buy into the leftist myth that the war in Iraq is causing the terrorism we see today. But announcing ahead of time that Mecca is our first response will cause the reponse that is being blamed on our Iraq policy.
The new governments in Iraq and Afghanistan, which will never be models of perfect western democracies but could develop into countries that are not reflexivly anti American, would be gutted if President Bush adopted the Tancredo policy in public. Every moderate or just plain apathetic Muslim all over the world, the ones that don’t care about restoring the caliphate and just want to feed their family, would rally to the cause of the radicals, not the moderates. Plus the destruction of Mecca will become the never ending rallying cry for the next 900 years for all Muslims.Saddam’s demise will fade as a sore point in 10 years. When we leave Iraq and a reasonably democratic government is established the ‘occupation” issue will fade a bit and not be used to get the young and indifferent to think of maybe joing the explosive tuxedo bunch. Level Mecca and there will be no alternative but to begin a 100 year Western v Muslim war of intense brutality. Even when we subdue the Muslim governments and terror groups there would be no ending of the guerilla operations from inspired muslims.
It will take a long time but if we operate with wisdom and aggression we can make the radical wing of the Muslim world into a fringe group. And I do not think this will just be down with police actions, that our armed forces will be involved and that possibly more countries will have to be occupied like Iraq. I am not a Kucinich surrender monkey and I think that radical Islam must be eliminated , not appeased. Bombing Mecca will do no good. The entire Muslim world may not like the west cleaning up their mess but in the long run Saddam will become a faded memory. The act of bombing Mecca would live for eternity, we would become completly isolated, not even Britain or Austarlia would not stand by us, and it seves no tactical purpose, militarly or for propaganda purposes.
Kevin Peters
We agree more than we disagree, Kevin.
My point was that our response to a genuine WMD attack will transcend any petty gesture – no matter how stupid and counterproductive public utterance suggesting said gesture appeared on its face.
The issue to me is not that we would alienate the Islamic world by bombing Mecca. It is whether or not there will be anyone left inclined to pray toward Mecca in the aftermath of a WMD attack on us.
If I were going to bomb an Islamic religious shrine it would be the Mahdi’s Tomb in Khartoum. The Mahdi was a proto-Islamist in the 19th century who formented a rebellion and captured the Sudan. He’s the one who killed ‘Chinese’ Gordon. The has been a Churhill quote floating around the web lately from his book The River War. The book covers the Anglo-Egyptian campaign to overthrow his version of an Islamic Kingdom on Earth. Interestingly enough, descendents of the Mahdi are still very active Sudanese politics.
About twenty cruise missle into the Tomb, and then the U.S. being kind enough to clean up the mess they made by plowing the rubble left into the Nile, seems a proper message to me. Don’t attack Islam itself, attack its Reformation in the form of a strict fundementalist attempt to recreate the imagined 7th century Islam.
When, or if, widespread war breaks out then mobilize and build bombers. Bomb them for days, week, months, years. Let them dwell — not on the superiority of Western weapons they’ll need to get — but on the extreme disaster the Islamists have brought down upon their heads.
Darkly stated, Moslem arrogance is something that is going to be beat out of them one blow at a time. Like I’ve said before, this can only really over when their are churches, synagogs and temples built in Mecca. Just think of the implications of that thought.
CAIR , interviewing CAIR to prove Tancrado wrong? Does Hugh Hewitt not know who CAIR is? In case you don’t have a look here http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6176
Smittyhere:
Hugh has ripped CAIR for years. He had him on, he set him up for the callers and he exposed him with the question of Israel’s right to excist. His answer of Jews and Palestinians being allowed to live together is code speak for the one state solution which will end up with the Jews living in a dhimmi state. He backtracked later but his first answer was the real answer.
The Muslim world is not unified. There is far too much support or rationalzation to the terror attacks within it. But bombing Mecca would unite the vast majority of Muslims behind the radicals like no other act could. What would happen? A complete oil embargo. The collapse of all Muslim governments, some of whom are fairly rank and have the possibility of double crossing us, that at this point are helping us somewhat in the fight against OBL. I can’t predict what would happen in Indonesia but I think every middle east government in the ME would be taliban style governments and that would be a dissaster.
I just see too many negatives and I can’t see it stopping any of the terror activities. I will give up because I am just repeating myself.
Kevin you are being perfectly logical and reasonable, there are far too many negatives.
What strikes me as odd though, is the idea that if we were to retaliate against major government/military/population centers, that that would somehow ‘not’ cause a general uprising of muslims around the world. That it would in some unknown way (to me) be accepted by the muslim world as ‘normal’ in the tit for tat of war/terrorism.
But if, OTOH, we were to destroy a black rock in the desert, muslim fury would be without precedent in the history of the world. So, what we have, are many millions of dead and many more millions horribly injured vs. the indignity of losing a rather large rock. As I said, odd, to me. Well, history is filled with examples of people dying for their religion, shall it ever be I suppose.
Luther:
Although the muslim community tends to be more sensitive to any slight to any Muslim government, there were many, especially the Kuwaiti’s, who did not feel outraged by Saddam being reduced to spider hole living. Mecca unites every Muslim from every country all over the world, the pilgrimage being a requirement of every Muslim.
Even secular people can become attached to symbolic non-human things. Of course any attack on American soil is going to cause every American to be outraged I feel it would be more intense if,for example, two park rangers were killed in a detonation and destruction of Mt. Rushmore in comparison to 75 people being killed in a Mall bombing in Lodi.
Kevin Peters
Kevin, I don’t really think there are any material objects in the USA (maybe the originals of the constitution) that American’s would not trade for the lives of millions. Rushmore could be rebuilt, the Capitol, the White House, etc., the same. I don’t disagree with your assessment of muslim sensitivity’s. That’s my point. Symbolism to excess.
And Kevin, not many accolades said here, but I must say I admire you for your constant ‘on topic’ focus, for your commonsense but highly thought out responses and thoughts to Roger’s posts.