Feds wonder: If jihadis nuke us, who do we nuke in return?
posted at 10:09 pm on May 8, 2007 by Allahpundit
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Three levels of uncertainty here. First we’d need to figure out who did it. AQ? Hezbollah? Or the dreaded Serbian white supremacists Hollywood has been warning us about all these years? Then we’d need to figure out where they got the bomb components from. The UN doesn’t have specimens from every extant nuclear program, per the Times, so finding a match for the atomic fingerprints isn’t a sure thing. Finally, we’d need to make a best guess about whether the material was stolen from someone’s poorly secured nuclear stockpile or whether it was willingly supplied by a state sponsor of terror. Retaliation against the latter is easy; retaliation against the former is iffier (and, in the case of a state like Russia or China that’s armed with nuclear ICBMs, impossible). Combine all that with post-Iraq skepticism about the reliability of our intel on enemy states’ WMD programs and you’ve got a humanitarian and ethical nightmare in the making. And/or one hell of a PC strategy game.
The Times thinks it’s unlikely we’d nuke anyone in response, partly because the attack would probably involve Russian bomb material and partly because they’re expecting a multiple-bomb scenario where we’d be scrambling for other countries’ cooperation in finding the other bombs before they went off. That’s nuts, of course. If a mushroom gets planted on U.S. soil, rest assured public opinion will see to it that a bigger mushroom gets planted somewhere else. If worse comes to worst and we really can’t ID the culprits or the sample — or even if we can identify them but it turns out they’re all from un-nukeable areas, e.g., a cell of Iraqis with a bomb from the Russian arsenal — then the feds will simply insist that AQ’s responsible, at which point planet earth will be bidding the Pakistani tribal areas a fond adieu. Then the next ethical nightmare would present itself: whether to retaliate covertly against Russia or whoever the state supplier is by handing their own insurgent enemies a little tit-for-tat package. That decision would probably turn on our assessment of whether the nuke here had been stolen or willingly supplied.
Like I say, awesome PC game. And I know just the company to design it.
In other news tonight, the UK’s International Institute of Strategic Studies says not only can AQ Khan’s illicit nuclear trafficking network be reconstituted given the number of members who are still at large, and not only has organized crime penetrated the nuclear black market, but apparently the CIA knew about the Khan network for years — and didn’t pay them enough attention.
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Nobody in the world is going to complain if we use tactical nuclear weapons to take out the Islamic nuclear infrastructure. Not the Russians. Not the Europeans. Not the Chinese. The world would be understanding and thankful because at the point it will be a real, undeniable threat to the whole world….
TheBigOldDog on May 8, 2007 at 11:40 PM
We will just have to agree to disagree. Many have suggested an all out nuclear assault and that is where my point about China comes in. We might win the battle but well lose the world in terms of being a pariah.
Like you I hope it doesn’t happen and our leaders are wise enough to deal with it after considering all angles.
Bradky on May 8, 2007 at 11:41 PM
ok guys, got to have dinner. I’ll get my rubber suit and my Geiger. Hope is not raining too many ashes. See ya!
Ropera on May 8, 2007 at 11:41 PM
Excuse me? I’ve been civil with you. I expect the same in return.
Slublog on May 8, 2007 at 11:42 PM
Romeo13 on May 8, 2007 at 11:40 PM
McVeigh is dead and not likely to do anything – just an example. Dear Leader is not quite all there and may not care about such things. But to ignore the possibility is foolish.
Bradky on May 8, 2007 at 11:44 PM
Nuke, fluke.
The United States Army Air Corps destroyed more than 51% of 19 Japanese cities using between 300 and 350 B-29s dropping napalm bombs.
Matter of fact, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the only two cities left in the pristine, that’s why you know those names.
Gen. Curtis “Bombs Away” Lemay was in charge.
.
The Machine on May 8, 2007 at 11:44 PM
Great question AP! I have wondered this very thing for a while. Lets hope folks who can really do it are having the same conversation. We have become almost too civilized for our own good. I don’t want anyone to die for this effing jihad. But they started it. Despite what the left thinks. We have always had the ability to destroy islam big time, but not the will. They have the will, but not the ability. They know when they catch up, we’ll still lack the will. They know a nuke will be answered with a nuke…and then some. They won’t do it until they have multiple bombs. But we will agonize over all the innocents who will die, and innocents will die. Total War on Islam. If we want to win. If not, we can wring our hands.
Buck Turgidson on May 8, 2007 at 11:47 PM
Bryan is right, we did not bomb religious sites during WWII, and that was good decision making on the part of the commanders. However during WWII, we were not at war with Shinto or other religions of Japan or Germany. But today WE ARE AT WAR WITH ISLAM, and we need to wake up to that fact.
Enemy identification is real important in war. And just like the point that Robert Spencer has made time and again, we are not at war with terrorism, that is a tactic and not the enemy. After being nuked by jihadis I don’t think we would have a problem with identifying anyone as the enemy that identified themselves as Islamic. But I hope we don’t have to get nuked to adopt that policy.
Maxx on May 8, 2007 at 11:47 PM
In the event of a nuclear terrorist strike on the United States, both Mecca AND Medina MUST suffer a nuclear strike in retaliation. It is the ONLY reponse that makes sense. Not only would it be necessary to nuke those cities, but it would ONLY be a sufficient response if the “dirtiest” nuclear device in the U.S. inventory were utilitized in the strike. By “dirty” nuke, I mean a device that would make their two “holiest” sites completely uninhabitable (certain poison to human life) for the next 10,000 years. The nuclear contamination MUST be THAT severe.
Okay. Now. WHY?
Because it is the ONLY way to STOP the violence. The total, complete, and eternal destruction of their “holiest” sites would END Islam, once and for all. Islam is a system of “works”. The fanatic element responible for the violence is trying to perform “works” (on Allah’s behalf) that will secure a guarantee of eternal reward (in paradise). One of their required works is that “at least once in their life” they must make a pilgrimage to their holy sites. If they can not make their pilgrimage, they can not complete the “works” required to secure their “salvation”. By their own stupid rules, outlined their “holy” books, if Mecca and Medina were unapproachable, then ALL muslims all doomed to eternal damnation.
So what effect would this have? Simple. It would completely destroy all incentive…to do ANYTHING. There would no longer be ANY point in being a Muslim, because there would be no possibility of ever being able to do the “works” required by Allah to secure eternal reward. Within a generation, Islam would disappear from the face of the earth.
Game over. (Game, set, match, actually).
CyberCipher on May 8, 2007 at 11:48 PM
Robin Quivers’ idea from the 9-11 Howard Stern show seems sensible – even cooler knowing she was a former Air Force nurse:
I say attack everyone and the ones that surrender don’t get bombed.
Good Lt on May 8, 2007 at 11:50 PM
The 200 million arren’t going anywhere soon. 9/11 was not a blip in history. We can either fight this war to win or lose our major population centers to Sharia.
We would have internment camps before we lost another population center to a nuke.
Valiant on May 8, 2007 at 11:50 PM
I try very hard not to think about a nuclear weapon taking out an American city, but I fear it will definitely happen in my lifetime.
It’s at least heartening to learn that most of you would retaliate quickly and in kind; maybe there’s hope for the next generation.
Sad that it will have to come to that before the rest of the country wakes up.
And with these terrifying thoughts filling my head I am off to sleep, perchance to dream.
IrishEi on May 8, 2007 at 11:50 PM
I think the more likely reaction would be a reinterpretation of the Koran in which “Even if for 10 millenium we cannot see Mecca, we must stay true to Allah”
To make a comparison; If someone blew up the vatican would the catholic church dry up and go away?
Bradky on May 8, 2007 at 11:51 PM
Jihad doesn’t emenate from Mecca. Jihad emenates from the ideology embedded in the Koran. Mecca is just a symbol, and attacking that symbol would do precisely what attacking such symbols has always done: harden the resolve of those we’re fighting against.
No religious site has intrinsic strategic value. If there was to be a hypothetical nuclear response, it would only make sense to target sites the elimination of which would, presumably, reduce or eliminate the odds that another such terror attack could ever be conducted again. And in lieu of a clear indication of which nations were involved, either directly or indirectly, I would hope that “reasonable suspicion,” not reasonable doubt, would be enough to designate what those targets would be: if you’re on the list of candidates, we have to assume that you might be guilty, and treat you accordingly.
I imagine some of the targets would be the capitals of nations, more of them military facilities and critical pieces of national infrastructure–particularly, of course, those related to any type of nuclear production. There’d be no need for armaggedon; obliterating entire populations and producing vast swaths of global fallout wouldn’t serve any purpose. I’d think a measured but precise and aggressive response could ensure that no similar technological threats emerged from the regions in question anytime for multiple decades to come.
I suspect that doing just enough to eliminate the military-technological threat would send a sufficient deterrent message to others across the globe as well.
Blacklake on May 8, 2007 at 11:52 PM
What was the Madd Mag motto? Who me worry?
sonnyspats1 on May 8, 2007 at 11:52 PM
As the episode in NJ showed it is not that easy to tell the players anymore. Do we put crescents on the believers to differentiate them? Starts to sound a little .. well Third Reich to me. We stop being the country we are now at that point
Bradky on May 8, 2007 at 11:53 PM
Haven’t seen too many pictures of Germany after the bombings have you? have you ever heard of Monte Cassino? On February 15, 1944 the monastery, high on a peak overlooking the town of Cassino, was destroyed by American B-17, B-25, and B-26 bombers.
TheBigOldDog on May 8, 2007 at 11:54 PM
No, in Christianity the body is the temple of the Spirit. A trip to the Vatican is not required for salvation. A trip to Mecca is for a muslim.
I agree, they would have to temporarily rewrite the rules until they were able to rebuild afer several half-lives of radioactive decay.
Valiant on May 8, 2007 at 11:55 PM
The Vatican does not retain the same level of significance for most Christians (as the “holy” cities do for Muslims). In fact, the Vatican does not even retain THAT level of significance for most Catholics, I suspect.
CyberCipher on May 8, 2007 at 11:56 PM
AP,
I don’t think we’d nuke anyone. Had 9-11 been nuclear, maybe then. But I think we’ve been seasoned to the notion that another severe attack is imminent, and when it comes won’t be as shocking. But if we want to hit back hard after such an attack, and be reasonably selective about targeting, the plan should be to demolish the notion among sympathisers that the Islamist’s vengeful Allah is superior to the power this nation is capable of projecting.
This means bringing a level of misery and inconvenience to the street that forces Muslims to deal with their own extremists. That doesn’t require nukes, but instead something like a blitzkreig that rolls through cities and exits immediately with no fortifying, no pause, no pattern of behavior that a terrorist could exploit. Just as terrorism is an offensive weapon that’s hard to defend against, so would the US military be hard to defend against if used as primarily an offensive force.
Defeating terrorist would work better if they were on defense because their comparitively small, and finite, numbers of suicidal soldiers combined with the need for strategic, as opposed to opportunistic, attacks would make jihadists useless against an ever-advancing army. How exactly do you position a truck bomb to repulse an advancing column that is lead by air and tank support? In truth, once national defenses were all but destroyed, an American military constently on the move within a nation’s borders would do so virtually unopposed. We wouldn’t have to leave ever, or we could leave anytime; and better, we could draw down forces without being seen as running away, since there’s likely to be no one chasing us out. That is, until we dig in somewhere and make of ourselves a target.
It’s that kind of power that needs to be taught to this generation of Islamists sympathisers, not death-from-overseas bombs sent by people who seem unwilling to voluntarily sacrifice the lives of their own. That’s harsh, but that seems to be the price of admission.
shuzilla on May 8, 2007 at 11:56 PM
That is what this thread is about. We can cease to exist or get ugly.
Valiant on May 8, 2007 at 11:57 PM
Addendum to previous post. Click on lower right! Who me worry?
sonnyspats1 on May 9, 2007 at 12:01 AM
I HAVE considered this. I believe that there COULD be a remnant of Muslims that would remain loyal with a new “revelation” of this kind. But I think for most, the loss of credibility for Islam would be devastating for the “faith” of most “believers.”
CyberCipher on May 9, 2007 at 12:02 AM
The Japanese troops on Iwo Jima were surely “radicalized” by a proactive US Navy & Marine Corps. A very, very few de-radicalized themselves. The rest died.
Radicalized Muslims have the same capability.
I hope we give them the same choice.
I believe Fred! is made of stern enough stuff.
Lately Rudy has been showing his weasel-wordiness.
There is such a thing as too much nuance.
Stephen M on May 9, 2007 at 12:03 AM
I agree with you, AP, that unless the attack were directly traced to the Saudi government, we should not do anything remotely close to Mecca… the first time. I do have a few ideas, though, given the fact that we “will not distinguish between terrorists and those who harbor them.” I got the impression that Bryan was looking for a list of ideas, so here goes:
1) That troublesome tribal region of E Afghanistan / NW Pakistan.
2) Tehran along with any other Iranian city with a nuclear reactor.
3) Damascus and maybe the next couple of largest cities in Syria.
4) Mogadishu and maybe the next couple of largest cities in Somalia.
5) Khartoum and any other Islamic strongholds in Sudan (think Darfur).
6) Nablus and a few other West Bank cities. (Perhaps Israel could do this instead?)
7) Gaza City. (Again, perhaps Israel acts instead?)
8) Just to send a greeting, any vacation home of Hugo Chavez.
As these events start to unfold, non-nuclear strikes simultaneously occur on the media headquarters of al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya, and any other non-sympathetic major media outlet of the Islamic world.
As much as I’d like to include Pyongyang on that list, I think China would unload on us if we hit North Korea without a more direct claim, as deserving as they are anyway. Or, better yet, maybe at that point China would take care of Pyongyang for us?
It wouldn’t surprise me if, while we are doing this deed, Putin in Russia sends a few nuclear greetings down to the Chechnya region just to be sure he can have some fun, too.
The only possibility that makes me poop my pants, as long as these scenarios unfold, is what happens from India regarding Pakistan. Pakistan has been just good enough to us that I wouldn’t add Karachi and Islamabad to that list, but India might not think so.
Having made a list, here’s how we sell it to the lefties. They’re all in a fuss over global warming, right? Most of these places are hot deserts. What happened when we tested our nukes in the deserts? We made glass. Glass reflects, not absorbs, sunlight. If the ground can’t absorb the heat from the sun, it can’t be warmed as thoroughly. We’d be taking some of the warmest places on earth and turning them into glass, thereby ending any semblance of global warming.
flutejpl on May 9, 2007 at 12:03 AM
Ahhh.. but the words of the Prophet can NOT be changed. That is one of the basic tenents of Islam. Its one of the problems that “moderate” Moslems have… the explicit reading of the Koran supports the Jihadists.
If they have to “reinterprete” the Koran, the eventual reformation would follow…
And its also just like the Islamic religion is so set on keeping the Jewish Temple from being rebuilt. As long as the Temple is not, then they are right, the jews are wrong, as the prophecies of the coming cannot come to pass.
Its a combination religious, and political warfare… we in the West no longer really believe (as a society) in such things, and so cannot really comprehend the mindset… but that is how they think.
Nuke the three or four top Islamic sites… and the foundation of their beliefs HAVE to be rewritten, as many of their “prophecies” can no longer happen…
Romeo13 on May 9, 2007 at 12:05 AM
125 posts before Fred! was uttered — must be some kind of record
Bradky on May 9, 2007 at 12:06 AM
Heh. Don’t you mean “invoked?”
Slublog on May 9, 2007 at 12:07 AM
They weren’t napalm bombs in the familiar sense, they were small incendiaries dropped in rather large quantities (I’ll admit I don’t know that the “incendiary” part wasn’t napalm, or something similar, but the bombs weren’t the large fireball-producers we typically associate with images of napalm drops).
Against Japanese cities this worked particularly well because the buildings of the day were constructed almost entirely from traditional wood and paper. I don’t believe the stone, concrete, brick, and steel structures of the Muslim world are quite so accomodating to the generation of city-consuming firestorms.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki did indeed suffer less damage than Tokyo (as well as fewer deaths). But it’s worth noting that today we do remember the name of Tokyo, and not because of the damage it did or didn’t receive, but because it was and is one of the world’s major cities. Conversely, we only recognize “Nagasaki” and “Hiroshima” precisely because they were the sites of the two nuclear strikes.
Blacklake on May 9, 2007 at 12:08 AM
LMAO
Valiant on May 9, 2007 at 12:08 AM
We will just have to agree to disagree. It is an interesting discussion but I don’t really believe that any elected leader will go for an all out assault if we were to be hit by terrorists that had no country to tie them to. And that goes for Republicans as well as Democrats.
Bradky on May 9, 2007 at 12:09 AM
I wonder what Fred position is on this issue?
Maybe that tool Chris Matthews will ask this very question at the next debate. It couldn’t any stupider than the questions he ask at the last debate.
CyberCipher on May 9, 2007 at 12:11 AM
Damn, you’re good.
Buck Turgidson on May 9, 2007 at 12:11 AM
Out of respect for Fred! fans I do genuflect when I type his name.
Bradky on May 9, 2007 at 12:13 AM
Every muslim is required to at lest once in his life go to Mecca. So its importance is more than just geographical.
William Amos on May 9, 2007 at 12:14 AM
Not only that, but if all the sand were turned into glass, it’d be a lot easier to see where we should drill for oil,
right?
CyberCipher on May 9, 2007 at 12:15 AM
Come on BigOldDog… you know what I mean. I knew I should have couched that properly. We did not make a habit of intentionally bombing religious sites when they had no military value. Monte Cassino was occupied by Nazi forces and we still belabored the decision to bomb it. Generally speaking… we did not bomb religious sites…. how’s that?
Maxx on May 9, 2007 at 12:16 AM
Because it was filled with armed fighting Nazis, not because it was a religious site! The discussion is about targeting a religious site out of spite, not because it’s actively being employed as a nigh-impregnible fortress on a conventional battlefield!
(Not that there aren’t lessons to be learned there. We’re all painfully aware of the myriads of occasions when, in Iraq, mosques have been used by insurgents as fortresses, but nevertheless not attacked out of respect for Islamic sensibilities. I won’t pretend to understand the entire picture in those cases, but from here they certainly seem like madness.)
Blacklake on May 9, 2007 at 12:17 AM
I would argue for the vaporization of many capitals and population centers. Iran and NoKo would be on speed dial, as it were. Pakistan might want to launch its own attack on the so-called tribal areas or suffer the consequences.
I’d also argue that the Supreme Court could enforce its latter day Korematsu case with the guns it brings to bear. There truly would be concentration camps and the like, domestically. The borders would be shut. Overseas flights would be stopped. We’d have national ID cards and domestic surveillance and Hillary! and her ilk would be leading the charge.
Any politician who argued the Nonfactor line, above would be impeached or voted out of office ASAP. Any POTUS that didn’t respond with nukes would find articles of impeachment rendered post haste.
And the Loose Changes morons would get to kiss their sweet a$$e$ goodbye.
birkel on May 9, 2007 at 12:25 AM
Participation in the Hajj is not a hard requirement. It’s only expected of those “physically and financially capable” of making the pilgrimmage.
Presumably, if Mecca no longer existed, no Muslim would be “physically capable” of pursuing the Hajj. They would, however, be quite free to continue reading their Korans, and use the indignity inflicted upon them collectively at Mecca as a rallying cry for their war effort.
Using strategic weapons against non-strategic targets is nonsense.
Blacklake on May 9, 2007 at 12:26 AM
Ok, I quoted you so I’m holding you to it.
If an Islamic group took claim:
I would first declare that Islam is the enemy and if you don’t covert you are considered an armed combatant per Surahs 2 and 9.
I’d then nuke: Mecca, Medina, Tehran and pretty much everything else there in that region. Literally turn it into a toxic cess pool.
I’d then drop a JDAM on the Dome of the Rock and tell Israel, they better move the Palestinians the hell out, because I don’t want them ever complaining about suicide bombers.
I’d then start a bombing campaign against mosques. I would invade Saudi Arabia and and require everyone to convert to one of the following: Christianity, Atheism, Buddism, Hinduism or what ever else they want to convert to.
I would openly explain to the population that if they attack US soldiers city will be destroyed. Oppressed Jews and Christians in the region would then be given the oil fields and the remaining habitable land would go to them to create a Republic much like ours, but Muslims (even converted ones) would be excluded.
Harsh? Yes. Impossible? No, we basically did it with the American Indians and those who did it are now American Heroes.
It also has a very long history throughout the world. Hell, it is only practicing what Muslims have done for their conquered lands: Oppress, Convert, Destroy.
Would Civilization be harmed? Absolutely not. Was Civilization harmed by the utter destruction of Nazism? Then why complain if it is done to its philosophical brother?
Tim Burton on May 9, 2007 at 12:29 AM
Weren’t they already supposed to be doing that after 9/11?
Good argument. Their war effort wouldn’t be squat unless a nuclear power aligned with them. I’ll sleep on it.
Valiant on May 9, 2007 at 12:30 AM
The same as it is on every issue.
Bla bla bla (not gonna announce) Bla bla bla (maybe I will maybe I wont) Bla bla bla (Reagan used my words in a speech) Bla bla bla.
BTW, what ever became of pinky? Did he get a permanent ban?
csdeven on May 9, 2007 at 12:30 AM
I’m not even sure if a WMD qualifies as a strategic weapon. The weapon is not necessarily meant to cripple the ability of the enemy to make war. Nuclear weapons are used to demoralize the population. That is precisely the eay that they were used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
CyberCipher on May 9, 2007 at 12:31 AM
Tim Burton on May 9, 2007 at 12:29 AM
You forget one thing. The propaganda video.
This is where the U.S. President addresses the entire world via satellite link-up. The essential, crux sentences in the speech:
“Allah is dead.
We, the people of the United States, have killed him.”
CyberCipher on May 9, 2007 at 12:35 AM
Blacklake… two points…
It would not be targeting a religious site for Spite… but for the very real effect it would have on that religion.
Fact is that the west has not fought a religious war in modern times. We are ill prepared for it. We have wonderfully destructive weapons, but won’t even use Propoganda in our own interests, let alone those weapons.
I truly believe the very THREAT of nuking Mecca would cause moderate Moslems to slow down the Jihadists from nuking America. Its phsycological warfare on a grand scale, using their own belief system, to modify behaviour.
Right after 9/11 no one in the moslem world had a clue as to how much we would loose our temper… and hmmm… Pakistan became an allie… Khadafi gave up his wep research… Saudi Arabia was more cooperative… and we got even more cooperation from Kuwait and Baharain… no one wanted to gamble on our anger…
But now… we’ve shown restraint… and the Moslem world sees it as weakness.
Romeo13 on May 9, 2007 at 12:38 AM
It appears so.
Buck Turgidson on May 9, 2007 at 12:38 AM
You do realize that nuclear weapons can’t somehow remove a location from the space-time continuum? So even if you put down as dirty a ground-burst as is technically possible, the crater will just mark the same place on the map. It might be centuries before anybody could go there and survive again, but in the eyes of the believers that would only mean the fruition of the prophecies has been delayed, not rendered impossible (remember: prophecies absolutely thrive on being delayed).
Blacklake on May 9, 2007 at 12:42 AM
It is not a question of if, but when.
And don’t wonder about the U.S. response. We will not stand up for ourselves. This country doesn’t have the will to fight. A nuke will begin the end of us.
unamused on May 9, 2007 at 12:48 AM
The hysterical groups that tell us now that our CO2 exhalation is going to boil the planet are the same ones who have convinced us for 40+ years that our nukes are planet killers.
They aren’t. They’re just big bombs– but not that big.
Like the astonishment at the battle of Verdun, when 1,000,000 shells prepared the battlefield, and yet soldiers still popped up in torrents from the smoking craters, the nukes will not be the deus ex machina we believe.
The question is not whom do we nuke, but what happens afterward, when the realization sets in that there are not enough nukes in the world to kill all of those who need killing. That is when the real war will start. And it will be bad.
a4g on May 9, 2007 at 12:51 AM
The city is revered by Muslims for containing the holiest site of Islam, the Masjid al-Haram, and a pilgrimage that involves an extended visit to the city is required of all able-bodied Muslims who can afford to go at least once in an individual’s lifetime.
Hey… if they wanna bow a bunch of times a day to a radioactive pit… more power to em… if you can’t see the symbology behind this… I can’t explain it to you.
So, by your own logic, since this place would not be removed from the space time continuum, then they would have to continue making a pilgrimage to a glass covered plain…
I could live with that.
Romeo13 on May 9, 2007 at 12:51 AM
Actually, if Christianity is a valid indicator, I’d say that prophecies thrive on being fulfilled. The excitement and buzz in the Christian community is that very nearly all the predictions made by Daniel in the Old Testament, and by St. John in the New Testament have now been fulfilled. Many are convinced that “the end is near.” I suspect that this has actually drawn MORE people into the faith.
Keep in mind, that historically, religions come and go. No one believes in the Greek and Roman mythologies anymore. Zoroastrianism and many flavors of paganism have essentially disappeared. Even some sects of Christianity have disappeared, including Gnosticism, the Cathars, the Millerites… and the list goes on.
CyberCipher on May 9, 2007 at 12:54 AM
I’ve seen those arguments, but as I’ve explained, I don’t see how it would have any affect on the religion, other than to make its adherents even more angry and determined to wage Jihad (and, worse, to push many of even the most apathetic and/or moderate Muslims into the active Jihadi camp).
If the pragmatic arguments simply don’t hold up, and people still insist that it’s the thing to do, the only motivation I can find that’s left standing is spite. (And, frankly, I suspect the reason it even crosses most minds in the first place truly is spite, not some strategic analysis based on flawed theology. That just smells like rationalization.)
Blacklake on May 9, 2007 at 12:54 AM
Folks,
As one who made his living performing exactly these types of exercises and wargames for several years, I must explain that I believe you are all wrong. None of you can imagine the panic in America if one nuclear device explodes in a major city and eliminates up to 4 million American citizens (that’s over 1% of the population of the country). What? 4 MILLION deaths doesn’t seem like a serious threat to you from only ONE thermonuclear explosion? Imagine eight or so which the Islamists could certainly obtain.
If one device explodes, I can assure you that the panic will be exceedingly widespread. Cities will become deserted in weeks and starvation will run rampant in the countryside. Riots will kill millions. Does anyone remember that within 4 hours of the collapse of the World Trade Center #2 that most every building above 20 stories in America was evacuated because people were too scared to remain in them and were either ordered or decided to go home, all based on uncertainty of further attack? America was almost a ghost town in the cities business establishments.
Should an attack of unknown origin occur, our nuclear forces would immediately be brought to DEFCON 1 and made ready for immediate launch. Nothing could stop them. I say again, nothing. Once the Presidential authority decided where to strike (as an example to the rest of the world…and I mean Presidential authority, which may have devolved to the General Officer on the alert command structure, not even a memeber of the Cabinet or Congress in the first few hours), those targets would cease to exist in 30 minutes. I say targets because to eliminate further provocations from the jihadists, more of their brethren must die to deter them from attacking again. If you think 250 miilion Americans aren’t going to be screaming for massive Islamic death in the aftermath of the obliteration of NYC, you don’t understand human nature and self preservation.
Once the rattlesnake has bitten your child and killed it, you are unlikely to allow it and its family nest to continue to exist. And the analogy is a perfect one because we have the ability to exterminate Islam from the face of the Earth, no matter how intermingled it is with other cultures. Eliminate the majority homelands, and then inter all remaining Muslims until they convert, renounce jihad, or die of starvation in prison. Hey it works when they do it to us! Their will power is no different than ours when enraged.
Any sentiments that Western civilization isn’t that brutal will fly out the window just as they did within the months after 9-11 when retaliation was mandated as a wellspring response from the average American citizen. You all forget your history even though it is only 5 yrs old.
As for the targets, you follow Wretchard’s treatise on the Three Conjectures. You begin striking targets continuously, announcing them as we go, until all of Islam surrenders. If you think that the jihadis won’t stop and surrender, you are mistaken. They are no braver or harder men than the “apostates” and “infidels” they continuously threaten with beheading or conversion to Islam through their use of the sowrd of intimidation. If you think the vast majority of Muslims cannot be made to turn out, destroy and behead the jihadis or their entire civilizations will be destroyed utterly, then you do not understand human nature and nuclear war. If fear keeps them from rising up against the jihadis, then a greater fear will make them eliminate the jhadis. Such a greater fear is the extermination of Islam through thermonuclear weapons, which we own in large numbers.
And anyone who says it isn’t a religious war of extermination, after nuclear weapons have been exchanged, is a fool.
Arguments about whether it is right or wrong to kill 1.4 BILLION Muslims (who ultimately threaten the existence of 1 BILLION Westerners) in exchange for the lives of 300 MILLION Americans who hold the key to Islamic extinction in their hands, are silly once you realize that self preservation is the ONLY ACCEPTABLE thing worth killing for in American attitudes. We 300 MILLION will kill every single other person in the world if it means we won’t be killed instead. Otherwise, all of you would march right down to the recruiting center, sign up to be minefield fodder or cannon fodder because the situation was hopeless and you felt you would die anyway if you did nothing. Just give up our lives so that 1.4 Billion Muslims will be happy? Not on your child’s life!
The Hell This Ain’t The Most Important Foxhole In The World…..
…I’m In It.
The professionals would take these decisions out of your hands and begin exterminating Islamic cities until every Islamic nation in the world surrendered or placed themselves under our authority. As for whether we would blow away the rest of the world despite it reducing our economies back to Stone Age economics, remember, our lives would be intact. Think about that the next time you wonder whether you could sit down in a burning building and just accept your fate. Hundreds on 9-11 found they would rather jump to their deaths than burn alive. And each of you would do anything you could to save yourselves, your families, and even your fellow citizens. Including kill 1.4 BILLION Muslims.
And not a one of you would blink if it meant the deaths of innocent people who happen to live under jihadi rule and law. It is either you or them. Anyone who picks them is lying to himself.
Subsunk
PS, Allah, I don’t give a tinker’s damn if you ban me. Just because you won’t allow logical and valid human nature to enter into the discussion doesn’t mean this scenario couldn’t happen. Those who won’t allow these thought processes eliminate any possibility the jhadis will get the message and self regulate their miscreants. For 50 years Americans lived under the threat of nuclear war and survived precisely because the other side understood EXACTLY what the consequences of allowing such a war to begin would mean and lived in utter fear of loosing that genie on Mankind. Until the jihadis hear from grassroots America that we would support killing every single one of them if they tried to eliminate our country, they will not get the message. The Kremlin got that message crystal clear. We told them, and showed them, enough times that they had great fear of extermination due to our nuclear prowess. But they understood that prowess explicitly. Jihadis are too stupid and arrogant to understand the consequences. And we aren’t telling them loud and clear. That is the mistake being made. When you ban those thoughts, you make the nuclear exchange more and more likely.
Do what you must. My comments stand.
Subsunk on May 9, 2007 at 1:03 AM
The question too is “What is the price of Clintonian style inaction?” If we do nothing, then the Islamofascists will nuke another city and then another. Hey, why not?
If Iran, Syria, and Gaza were simply anhiliated in the event we were hit, then the next Muslim who wants to join that big Arabian strip-club in the sky might think twice.
Mojave Mark on May 9, 2007 at 1:09 AM
In that case I’ve no doubt they did demoralize the population, but that isn’t precisely why they were used. Rather, they were used to demoralize the Japanese leadership, who were still holding out hope (and reasonably so) that they could mount so strong a resistance to what seemed an inevitable ground invasion of the home islands that the US would be forced to negotiate conditional terms for the cessation of hostilities.
The use of the nuclear weapons demonstrated that, in fact, that is not how things were going to play out, and that Japan’s only two options were unconditional surrender or, essentially, total national annihiliation. Fortunately for everyone involved, Hirohito was sufficiently impressed, and he proved to be enough.
Blacklake on May 9, 2007 at 1:12 AM
/breaks into applause….
Well said!!!
And as a Cold Warrior meself…
SALUTE!
USN (Ret)
Romeo13 on May 9, 2007 at 1:22 AM
>They weren’t napalm bombs in the familiar sense
Both napalm and oil were used.
>the bombs weren’t the large fireball-producers we typically associate with images of napalm drops
Correct. They seemed to have been more effective at getting things burning in a bit slower manner than the big whoosh! of later napalm application.
>Against Japanese cities this worked particularly well because the buildings of the day were constructed almost entirely from traditional wood and paper.
It also helped (us, not them) that the buildings in urban areas were so close together.
>Conversely, we only recognize “Nagasaki” and “Hiroshima” precisely because they were the sites of the two nuclear strikes.
And if it hadn’t been so cloudy over the primary target on the day of the second bombing, we would be talking about Hiroshima and Kokura, and nobody would know anything about Nagasaki.
Doghouse on May 9, 2007 at 1:22 AM
Perhaps my greatest fear is that you are exactly correct in everything that you have just stated.
Not much left to say after Subsunk’s post, is there?
CyberCipher on May 9, 2007 at 1:23 AM
Damn you Subsunk.
I haven’t experienced THAT chilling sensation since the Cuban Missle Crisis of October 1962.
CyberCipher on May 9, 2007 at 1:30 AM
I misspelled missile. I guess that means we are all still here (and alive), right?
CyberCipher on May 9, 2007 at 1:31 AM
And, if they threaten, as an Ummah, once Mecca is gone, then Medina.
Blacklake-
If it came to this level of hostilities (the advance guard of imperialist, fundamentalist Islam, the jihadists, nuking a U.S. city, and then Mecca being vaporized in a pre-warned-retaliation- for Muslims having failed to stop their co-religionists), then 1.2 billion angry people who are outgunned 10,000 nukes to 100 (more or less) is a reassonable war gamble from our part, assuming we have to will to win the survival of our civilization.
Mecca has to be on the table, and should already have been announced, sub rosa, to all Muslim leaders, as a dreadfulstimulus for them to help us stop this escalation. And stop the terrorists in their midst.
If they continue to fight after Mecca, then Medina.
Islam is a faith based on Koranic irrationality and Arabian superstition, and both are heavily and fatefully linked to these sites.
If they will not stop the jihadists (who are well known to the upper eschelons of the Ummah, obviously, since they are shielding and/or funding them, surreptitiously or more openly, like Iran and Syria), they will have to suffer some consequences.
We could give them 48 hours to evacuate the city.
Being decent folks that we are, even after being nuked.
And, if they still wished to fight on, then they would have to be given the same answer as Nazi Germany,, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy: unconditional surrender.
At some point, survival forces serious choices.
For us. And them.
profitsbeard on May 9, 2007 at 1:53 AM
This should be topic one in the presidential debates. They were all over Tancredo when he commented about this a few years ago but no one will criticize him about that now because to do so would require everyone to take a stand. Asserting that we would try to trace some untracable nuclear material is not an answer that will make Americans feel real secure.
Perchant on May 9, 2007 at 1:53 AM
Perhaps we could start now by dropping leaflets with this printed on mecca.
Buck Turgidson on May 9, 2007 at 1:54 AM
Subsunk, you sunk the Nonfactor, for now. I can’t wait for his reply.
Entelechy on May 9, 2007 at 2:01 AM
Let me speak to the capacities of people who don’t like pre-emptive strikes: I hate them much more than you do. I hate them so much, I’m willing to strike first in order to stop them. Those people are despicable who are so confused or milquetoast in their opposition to pre-emptive strikes that they’re willing to let an enemy make one. Those who claim to oppose pre-emptive strikes but won’t pre-empt them would be wholly transparent in their fraudulence, were it not for the possibility that they might be stupid.
Kralizec on May 9, 2007 at 2:02 AM
This is what we call Psychological Egoism.
The use of conjecture and fallacy is so rampant in this post I seriously can’t even begin to break it down; I will, however, start on the main points but this post won’t be too long as I’m going to go to bed in a little.
Point 1 – There will be fear after a nuclear explosion in a U.S. city
Obviously, but everything else is simply assumption on your part. You basically think we will turn into a fascist state after one city is attacked–this might be true, but it also might not be true; convincing arguments can be made either way (your side would think Americans are a frightful bunch, while other sides would think the Constitution is strong enough to not allow America to turn to fascism).
This is contradictory. In this hypothetical (where we are unsure of the attacker) you think the President would launch an attack on any nation (in your words) “as an example,” but then you state that the nation this nuke will be launched upon is a home to jihadists. Do you mean that if an unknown nation attacked us (it could be China for all we know) we would automatically launch a nuke against a Muslim nation “as an example” to the rest of the world? You really think that’s practical or even sane? Pitiful.
I really thought there would be more points in your post, but the rest of your response sounds frighteningly totalitarian. To act as if the United States would kill 1.4 billion people (a million of whom are U.S. citizens) because we were attacked by some person or group or country that pretends to act in the interests of a religion is ludicrous. Of course, if you have any proof to the claim that we’d commit genocide as an act of retaliation I’d gladly take away my last comment.
P.S. Psychological egoism is almost as insane as the thought that the U.S. government would kill a million of it’s citizens (and more than a billion more across the world) because they share the same religion as a person/group/government that attacked the United States.
Nonfactor on May 9, 2007 at 2:38 AM
Of course you do, as the effort implied by your subsequent twelve lines shows quite well. Calling the host out so rudely and in such a transparently false way was pointless. Understand, it’s not even so much the rudeness or the falseness I’m deprecating, as the transparency and the pointlessness. As for your estimate of the probable events following on a nuclear strike by muslim terrorists, it’s unobjectionable–to me. But if I had responsibility for decisions about membership, I’d tell you to either keep a civil tongue toward Allahpundit or leave and not come back.
Kralizec on May 9, 2007 at 2:55 AM
Thank you Sub, you just saved me a lot of typing.
This remeinds me of a James Bond movie, where the Ruskies are gonna set off a nuke at a U.S. Air Force base in W. Germany. Bond says to the Soviet general “What happens when America retaliates?” The general says “Against WHOM?”
I say nuke Mecca and Medina and every major muslim city with more than one million residents. That will cause all muslims to join the jihad against us making them all rightous targets. We then use chemical weapons on every islamic population center with over 100,000 residents, use heavy strategic bombers to carpet bomb any city with over 50,000 and use tactical fighters to attack towns with over 25,000 residents, helicopter gunships on villages with over 10,000 and unmanned armed aerial drones on anything smaller than that.
All Western countries will have to round up their muslim inhabitants. Does that sound ‘third reich’? The Jews never attacked Germany.
I hope I will not be banned for this, but there it is.
Tony737 on May 9, 2007 at 2:57 AM
I used to think that ‘muking Necca and Nedina’ would be a good idea. But now I don’t.
Here is my thought now: Convince ‘them’ ahead of time, that ‘Necca’ and ‘Nedina’ will be ‘muked’ with the use of any WMD on American Soil or Israel.
Now, when that inevetibly comes anyway, we must obliterate completely those two places that ‘they’ hold in greater esteem than anything or anyone on this plane of existence. (If we fail to do so, they will know us for the ‘paper tiger’ that they believe us to be now.) However, we can and should do it with ‘conventional weapons’, not ‘mukes’.
Make it Official, NOW, with a BINDING resolution by the House and the Senate, that if any WMD attack on American Soil (including American Embassies abroad or American military bases abroad) are determined to have been perpetrated by ANY muslim, (Radical Islamists, Al Quaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad etc. or run-of-the-mill SJS individuals) that ‘Necca’ and ‘Nedina’ will be ‘obliterated’. Put it on THEIR heads. Let the 80-90% of their ‘moderate’ members of their ‘religion’ police their own if they want to keep their ‘holy places’ intact.
FURTHER: Make an Official ‘Binding Resolution’ that if there are ANY attacks, (even the shooting of one person or a bomb with no casulties,) on any American or Israeli targets in retribution for ‘muking Necca’, one mosque in America will be chosen completely at random; bulldozed and defiled with pigs and dogs.
When you are dealing with people who have no value or respect for their own lives or those of their families, the only way to to prevent them from doing bad things is to convince them that the very few things that they do care about will suffer if they ‘break the rules’. And that also has the benefit of putting the onus of their bad acts on their ‘moderate brothers’ to control their ‘radicals’.
And if it should happen that we determine that there is a State sponser of a WMD terrorist act, their capital city will be ‘muked’ without warning.
I don’t really like to say things like that above. It isn’t the “American Way”. But then America really hasn’t had to face an enemy that can honestly say: “We worship death” before.
Until now, all of our declared enemies have basically and rationally wanted to live and to prosper above all else. So, we have been able to fight according to certain rules. But you can’t successfully negotiate and have treaties with someone who values your death more than ANYTHING else.
LegendHasIt on May 9, 2007 at 3:24 AM
(Subsunk on May 9, 2007 at 1:03 AM) goes too far, but I think he’s closer to the mark than anyone else here. I would substitute conventional arms for most of his nukes, save those which were strategically necessary. As for the end of Islam as an ideology he may be very close to the mark by the time the war was over. The problem is not the nuked American city itself, it’s what it portends for the future.
If the jihadis have one on our soil, they likely have more on our soil. The smart play for them would be to detonate one and demand we submit. When we respond militarily, detonate the second. If we continue to respond militarily, they continue to detonate nukes in major population centers until the DNC offers to make a seperate peace. It wouldn’t last more than six nukes before half the country was ready to shout AllahuAkbar and bow to the east five times a day. That’s why Subsunk’s scenario doesn’t play out the way he thinks it would. But he’s closer to the truth than anyone else here, of that I’m sure. This is a scenario (a nuke in an American city) that would change the course of World history, not just American or Islamic history. It would be a completely different ballgame.
The Apologist on May 9, 2007 at 3:50 AM
>But then America really hasn’t had to face an enemy that can honestly say: “We worship death” before.
That could be the problem with muking Necca right there. Since they believe that they get to go to Disneyland in the sky if they die killing infidels, we would have to threaten to huke Neaven. If we muke Necca, then they still have Neaven to go to, which is what they really want anyway, but if we huke Neaven, or at least vuke the nirgins, we would be taking away what they really care about.
Doghouse on May 9, 2007 at 3:53 AM
Doghouse: Since it is impossible to convincingly threaten to destroy ‘heaven’ or defile their celestial virgins, the only thing that ‘they’ value on this earth, the only thing that we can convincingly threaten with destruction ARE their ‘holy places’.
And you ignore the equally if not more important part: By making it official, in advance, that their ‘holy places’ will be obliterated if they are bad, their own ‘moderate’ people will be more likely to restrain them.
OK, maybe it won’t work, but can you (anyone) come up with something else that the radicals DO value? Threatining to take away something that they really don’t care about is useless. (About like if my parents threatened to take away my brussels sprouts for punishment when I was a kid.)
If there is nothing that you can convincingly take away from them to make them behave, then you really only have two options:
“Kill them all and let God sort them out.” which is impractical to impossible physically and definitely impossible politically and socially.
Or surrender now, get your prayer mat and become one of them.
LegendHasIt on May 9, 2007 at 4:41 AM
Negative. I’d bet 2% of Democrats and only 55% of Republicans would be for a retaliatory nuclear strike in the event that we are hit first. This country has become the land of the wussies that want to do NOTHING to ensure our survival.
mojojojo on May 9, 2007 at 4:47 AM
Blacklake,
You have made many valid points throughout this thread. Unfortunately it seems that for some the idea of killing off every Muslim on the planet is a noble goal and everything else is immaterial.
The same kind of thing is what would fuel a homegrown person driven by blind hatred of an entire religion to set off the nuke themself, as they would see it is a mission from god.
kind of the Tonkin Gulf way to get rid of people you hate….
Bradky on May 9, 2007 at 5:14 AM
I realize that I’m coming late to this party.
Wretchard at the Belmont Club dealt with this in October 2003 in an essay.
The problem, as he saw it was identifying the jihadists “command and control” element. As he said, there is no “red phone” to call and no way to defuse the issue. And you’re right, AP, the American people will be calling for blood, major blood and won’t care WHOSE blood it is.
The essay is titled “The Three Conjectures.”
Conjecture number two (Conjecture 2: Attaining WMDs will destroy Islam) goes like this: Any jihidist use of a nuke on American soil will end up, eventually, in Isam ceasing to exist. Why? No red phone, no way to call off the war. No way for use to even surrender, if we wanted to.
Or as he put it:
One fifth (or more) of the human race would cease to exist.
A million residents of the United States would be imprisoned or worse for the crime of “being Muslim in a time of war.” Muslims in western Europe and Canada would be expelled — or else we would strike them next.
Any sane human being must shudder at this outcome as this discussion leads to genocide.
The problem is that THEY,the jihadists, are not sane by our standards.
So, regardless of what I think of it in abstract, no matter how horrifying, I personally see no way to respond to a nuclear attack on one of our cities (or any city of an ally), without total war on (1) the terrorist states who sponsor these terrorists, including Syria, Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea (and possibly indonesia), and (2) follow on strikes on parts of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia and the Sudan.
And if the strikes continue after our round of retaliation, then Wretchard’s estimate muslim casualties of 1 x 10E09 (or extermination) will result.
As to Russia and China? They will sit very quietly, like mice afraid to attract the attention of the cat.
One final prediction: America’s left wing will be silenced once and for all. All it will take is ONE “anti-war” protest and America’s patience with them will be gone.
God help us all, is the only think I can say about this thread.
georgej on May 9, 2007 at 5:15 AM
Allah is right: you don’t nuke Mecca. It’s called MAD people, and far, far, far smarter people – like those who invented game theory – figured out how you win a limited nukclear war – you don’t play. You go all in. If the Russkies nuked 1 Western city we were going to launch EVERYTHING. Sear every square inch from Poland to Kamchatka.
The threat isn’t that we’ll drop 1 bomb on Mecca, since that could be a worthy tradeoff for Israel or becoming the Caliph (”Paris is worth a Mass” ring a bell?). Our 1 and only reaction to an Islamic bomb is to nuke EVERYTHING from Morocco to the Moros. Tit for tat is a dumb game to play when you don’t want to play. You promise utter and complete annihilation so that the other side cannot win. At best you both lose, but since the Islamists can’t annihilate the West, or even Israel, it doesn’t pay for them to play.
In the case of a nuke attack, 5th columnists would be treated as appropriate and their previous words and efforts would be taken into account. Some people really have no idea how real humans behave when threatened.
libertarianuberalles on May 9, 2007 at 5:42 AM
MAD only works as a deterrent when both sides are basically rational people; when the leaders and the people who push the buttons for the missiles and drop the bombs care about the future of life on earth.
To paraphrase the great Golda: “there will be no peace until Islam loves their children more than they hate everyone else.”
The Islamicists who are capable and willing to use a WMD on an American city not only don’t care if we kill them and all their family and friends
LegendHasIt on May 9, 2007 at 6:27 AM
Crud… nevermind… Trying to do this with a stylus on a handheld was a big mistake, and my hand is too cramped to try again.
LegendHasIt on May 9, 2007 at 6:32 AM
problem Legend is that these people believe in bringing Armageddon, because they want the end times to come, very hard to have MAD when the other side don’t care.
djohn669 on May 9, 2007 at 6:58 AM
Djohn, That was part of the points I was trying to make when I missed the points. (the point on the virtual keyboard with the point of my stylus, that is.) ;-)
LegendHasIt on May 9, 2007 at 7:22 AM
Instead of nuking someplace, why not take over and annex Saudi Arabia? It’s a sparsely populated country we should be able to overwhelm quickly using conventional military means. Plus their money and Wahhabist beliefs have greatly fueled the jihadi problem.
Hold Mecca and Medina as hostages against further attacks. Pump their oil until we had received reparations one hundred times over. Anyone trying to enter the country without our permission would be an easy target as they trekked across the desert.
cool breeze on May 9, 2007 at 8:01 AM
Nuke Mecca. Make it radioactive for the next 500 years. Do it now, why wait.
doufree on May 9, 2007 at 8:16 AM
I should not have stopped. In fact, I’d hope Ms. Pelosi would volunteer to ride the nuke in, a la Slim Pickins. Maybe she could do an environmental impact study. No more Mecca, no more pilgrams (I guess they could still go if they want to).
doufree on May 9, 2007 at 8:21 AM
My favorite post on this thread!
IrishEi on May 9, 2007 at 8:26 AM
Do any of you really believe that nuking Mecca would not bring the entire world, not just every Muslim, including American Muslims, against us? Do you not believe that such an act would cause world war with countries that are not predominantly Muslim as well? MAD indeed.
Seriously, I’m a hawk, but come on: Some of you advocating genocide as a conventional means of warfare.
SouthernDem on May 9, 2007 at 8:31 AM
The best post on this thread.
Deserved to be repeated here for all the morning people who probably don’t have the time to read through this whole thread.
IrishEi on May 9, 2007 at 8:32 AM
Sadly, and scarily, the whole MAD concept that worked quite well with the Soviets fails utterly with people who are mad. The soviets wanted our lands and resources; the jihadists want our souls. Threatening any particular piece of real estate that they may hold dear at any given moment will have no deterrent effect whatsoever.
Mr. Bingley on May 9, 2007 at 8:39 AM
With years and years of it being beat into us how awful nukes are (for some, even going back to Hiroshima/Nagasaki), I somehow doubt even a majority would be for nuking any country, even in response.
Of course, it’s not the public’s choice either.
eforhan on May 9, 2007 at 8:55 AM
No. A rational, controlled response to a nuclear attack on our soil, even if nuclear, would be supported by the vast majority of the civilized world. They know they would be next in line for attack.
Valiant on May 9, 2007 at 9:00 AM
The problem is there’s no such thing as asymetrical surrender. That leaves you with few options, one of which is genocide.
Buck Turgidson on May 9, 2007 at 9:02 AM
…though Subsunk does have good points. It’s easy to take the moral high ground before any attacks were made.
eforhan on May 9, 2007 at 9:11 AM
Excellent post Subsunk, truly excellent. One question, do you think Mecca should be/would be nuked…. or would that target be irrelevant ?
Maxx on May 9, 2007 at 9:15 AM
All this anxiety over a threat that may not exist. Maybe we should relax and order a pizza? (sarc)
Buck Turgidson on May 9, 2007 at 9:23 AM
RE: everyone advocating nuking Mecca and/or total war against Muslims, typefied by comments like this:
I’ll make several points:
1. Polls have consistently shown that – despite other depressing aspects to the same polls – the majority of Muslims do not approve of terrorist attacks that kill innocents. These numbers would flip rapidly if you explicitly make war on a religion.
2. Explicitly making war to subjugate over a billion people, when only handful perpetrated a very damaging low-tech terror attack on us on 9-11, is not exactly as, uh, clear-cut or easy as you think. It’s a hopelessly diverse target spread across the globe.
We’re not really that powerful, especially when inflicting enough damage to actually succeed winds up screwing up the world (geography, economy, etc) enough to do us terrible harm as well (famine, fuel supply, remaining nation-state war over scarce resources).
3. Nuclear deterrence relies on rational actors. You are advocating pissing off all of the rational actors in that 1 billion, while the already actively violent minority are already irrational, thus unaffected by the deterrence.
4. A Muslim translator in Iraq who worked with American troops told me how he loved America, considered it a “dreamland,” how he rejected violence, cried over the death of a US Marine he worked with, and explained why he thought elements of the Koran were like the US Constitution, because they instructed him to be fair to all people, regardless of religion, race or anything else. And he considered himself a Muslim, but was won over by his exposure to and love for the United States.
What do you think his reaction would be to the destruction of Islam’s holiest shrines?
BillINDC on May 9, 2007 at 9:37 AM
All the talk of nuclear retaliation here so far has been of the total annihilation variety. “Dirty nukes”, 20,000 year radioactive zones, etc.. A subtle question, but if a dynamic was slightly altered, what would the overall effect be?
In short, whatever happened to the nuetron bomb?
tomk59 on May 9, 2007 at 9:39 AM
Subsunk’s comment might have some merit to it when he describes the level of panic and disturbance over nuclear detonation in the US. But then …
… just doesn’t make sense. If there was a threat that could be identified which would eradicated by neatly killing 1.4 BILLION Muslims, then sure. I have no doubt that human nature would drive a survival response and some pretty cold decisions.
But this isn’t about being ruthless enough, it’s about being rational.
Those 1.4 BILLION are spread across a major portion of the globe, and many of them live in Westernized countries. Total nuclear genocide of Muslims not only is morally uncomfortable – throw that out for a second – it’s also simply impractical.
A. It doesn’t effectively target the acute threat.
B. Regarding his prioritization of survival instinct: Do you think America would fare better or worse after such a disaster by immediately plunging the rest of the world into chaos, economic meltdown, civil unrest in every country where Muslims live and subsequent nation-state war over resources?
Tabling moral considerations, it’s so impractical as to be irrational.
And Americans get pissed and have resolve, but we’re not irrational, and neither are our leaders.
BillINDC on May 9, 2007 at 9:47 AM
Of course the world would be with us if something like this would happen. But some here are advocating Mecca as a target, no matter the specifics, as a form of retaliation, even going so far as wiping out all Muslim holy sites. If AQ set off a dirty nuke and we retaliated by bombing every single holy site on the globe, the world would turn against us in an instant, including our current allies. Some of you may not care about that, but if you don’t then you’re not living in the real world.
SouthernDem on May 9, 2007 at 9:54 AM
Subsunk and georgej pretty much sum things up.
georgej’s post actually leads into the question of whether or not we nuke Mecca and Allahpundit’s post:
Mecca will end up nuked. The only question is the timing. The main reason nuking Mecca would be a bad idea is because 3% or more of most Western countries populations are Muslim.
I think most people imagine nuking Mecca several hours after a bomb detonates here in the United States and then imagine millions of Muslims in France, Great Britain, the United States and the rest of the Western world turning on their host countries. Civil war and chaos would be the immediate result of nuking Mecca, in that type of scenario. But that scenario assumes everything remains peachy between the Muslims and other citizens.
Subsunk’s post pretty much sums up what will happen to Muslims in other countries, internationally.
I think that same quote also applies to what would happen here in the United States, Canada, Australia and across Europe internally. In the least bloody of the scenarios, Muslims in all of these countries are rounded up and put in detention centers while the bombing of other Islamic states commences. If the Muslims rise up in any of the Western countries, it will be ‘in self defense’ since IMMEDIATELY after the United States city is nuked the citizens of all countries will work to contain and eliminate their own Muslim problem.
Mecca will be nuked. It will be nuked though after:
1. Western governments, like Canada with small Muslim populations, have already dealt with their Muslim populace and have many or most of them in detention camps or away from the public with isolated fighting.
2. The battles are already being waged in the streets of France and other countries with high Muslim populations. The host country trys to detain as many Muslims as peacefully and quickly as possible. Due to high Muslim numbers, war is waged in the streets.
The goal will be to give governments as much time to peacefully separate the Muslims from the population until the point where the widespread fighting breaks out. With most contained and fighting already being waged in each country, there is no downside to nuking Mecca.
Good discussion all. Thanks!
Canadian Infidel on May 9, 2007 at 9:54 AM
At the point a nuke is set off, it is all in. Forget holy sites. As Subsunk pointed out, Islamic cities are going to be hit almost immediately. At that point, any Allies, are going to be either working to separate their Muslim citizens from the general population or are already going to be fighting them in the streets.
An AQ detonated nuke gives everyone the permission, or forces everyone, to take care of the big elephant in the room no one is talking about.
Canadian Infidel on May 9, 2007 at 10:04 AM
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