On Bombing Mecca
Campbell: Worst-case scenario: If they do have these nukes inside the borders and they were to use something like that, what would our response be?
Tancredo: What would be the response? You know, there are things that you could threaten to do before something like that happens and then you may have to do afterwards that are quite draconian.
CAMPBELL: Such as?
TOM Tancredo, Congressman of Colorado, gadfly seeker of Republican nomination for President: Well, what if you said something like – if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites.
Pat Campbell, talk show host: You’re talking about bombing Mecca.
Tancredo: Yeah
TANCREDO: Yeah. I mean, what if you said, “We recognize that this is the ultimate threat to the United States, therefore this is the ultimate threat, this is the ultimate response.” I mean, I don’t know — I’m just throwing out there some ideas because it seems to me, at this point in time, or at that point in time, you would be talking about taking the most draconian measures you could possibly imagine. Because other than that all you could do is, once again, tighten up internally.
That be the discussion our esteemed gadfly Republican presidential candidate be seeking.
Bombing Mecca was the province of the imagainations of plenty of folks in the wak of the 9/11 attacks. The desire to do such a thing pretty well died down, Ann Coulter insisting on “invading all their countries and converting them to Christianity” notwithstanding. (This attitude persists in some corners, and I have seen the TBN shows to prove it… the Christians that actually live in the nations America has invaded are pretty weary of.)
I heard a radio talk show host bemoan the idea that Americans aren’t “into” it the way they used to, insisting on the bombing of Mecca. It’s a curious pathology.
As for Tom Tancredo, the celebrator of the “Minutemen Project” of amature border patrollers on the Mexican border (and a person who I predict will get a good showing in the early 2004 primaries)… I can’t decide whether the Congressional district he represents means anything (with respect to topes of Violent Urgings) or if its doesn’t.
It encampasses some Denver suburbs, including that of Littleton, Colorado.