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Tom “Take No Prisoners” Tancredo
By Bill | August 9, 2007 | Email This Post
You probably heard, Tom Tancredo wants to nuke Mecca the day he’s sworn in as President.
Well, not quite. What he actually said was that he would consider “[taking] out [Muslim] holy sites” in response to a nuclear attack on the United States, after it had been determined that “extremist, fundamentalist Muslims” were responsible. Apparently unsatisfied with the reaction his statement caused (Pssst. Tom. It’s because nobody’s taking your candidacy seriously) he went on to reaffirm his support for the idea, extolling the great deterrent value he believes the threat has.
I understand the impulse, really I do. I think we all do, on some level. If America were to suffer a nuclear attack by terrorists, I think we’d all like to go just a little bit ape. And I do believe there would be some benefit, at such a time, in reminding everyone just who the only damn superpower left on the planet is, thank-you-very-much.
But seriously. Nuke Mecca? Let’s leave aside that we would be committing an act of terror ourselves. And also that it more or less belongs to our ostensible ally, Saudi Arabia. As others have pointed out, nuking Mecca would be tantamount to Iranians nuking the Vatican, for crying out loud. But if we did, then what? The terrorists will still be there, and we will have just made Muslim radical out of the entire Islamic world. If Armageddon is what he’s after, he’s arrived at a quick way to get it.
Sometimes you’ve got to pull your punches. Anyone worth being President ought to know that.
Topics: Republicans, Tom Tancredo |