Despite Hugh’s strong admonition and best hopes, Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo won’t back down from his irresponsible and increasingly infamous “bomb Mecca” comments. He demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of our enemy and what strategic objective could be accomplished by even floating the idea as a potential deterrent:
In an interview, Tancredo said he did not intend to offend moderate Muslims, whom he calls the “best hope” of bringing terrorists to justice.
“When we bombed Hiroshima, when we bombed Dresden, we punished a lot of people who were not necessarily (guilty),” Tancredo said. “Not every German was a member of the Nazi Party. You do things in war that are ugly.”
He stressed that he was not advocating an attack on Islamic holy sites, but that counterattacks had to be considered – and perhaps telegraphed ahead of time. That way, he said, both sides would know the stakes under a worst-case scenario, much as they did under the Cold War theory of “mutually assured destruction.”
But we bombed Hiroshima and Dresden because they had strategic military value – it was a completely different calculation. Unless your only goal is to escalate our current conflict against Islamofascist extremists into an all-out clash of civilizations, I’m not sure what could be accomplished by bombing Mecca.
Not only are you making yourself beholden to a fringe minority, Congressman, you are drowning out your ideas for immigration reform. You can bring an end to the media controversy. Apologize.
The Tancredo Option
According to Mout Virtus Tancredo has not backed down from his remarks. I cannot say that I follow suit with Stones Cry Out in calling Tancredo an idiot or a redneck, I live in his district and if you visited