Some statements cannot be ignored.



The source of this quote is not important, as we deal here with ideas rather than individuals.

I am flabbergasted.

Would dropping a nuclear weapon on Mecca be an effective method of fighting Islamic terrorism?

Not even considering the ethical questions, it seems to me that such a strategy would have the exact opposite effect of what was intended. It seems likely that nearly the entire planet would turn against the USA, and do what it could to destroy it.

I am guessing that, yes, it would have the complete opposite effect than the one anticipated by the original poster. The USA would find almost no support for it's actions in the international community and would radicalise the whole body of islam against it. Where previously the USA had at least reasonable relations with some Arab nations there would be a wholesale revulsion at the action.

Direct terrorist activity against the US would escalate rapidly and previosuly friendly nations would distance themselves quickly from the actiosn taken. NATO would break down. The UN would pass resolutions against the US and find them vetoed in the Security Council. Multiple nations would threaten military action.

Ultimately you might have the most powerful military force in the world but it cannot fight a massive and intensive terrorist campaign. It cannot fight multiple protracted wars in several different theatres. And the entire basis of the nuclear deterent is exactly that - a deterent.... at the point you use it in the modern world you are going to suffer every single "dirty war" trick anyone can come up with, chemical and bacterial and no longer will it be some obscure terrorist groups backed by one or two rogue nations, but entire peoples involved.

What a mess....

This is a stupid idea. Saudi Arabia is a strong ally of the USA. And we need all the friends we can get in the middle east. That's why we should cultivate our relationships with the Saudis, the Turks, Kuwait, Dubai, UAE, and the new Iraq government.

If we're intent on using nukes, we should only target die-hard Anti-American regimes who possess WMD's, nuclear arms, and who have a track record of arming our enemies, the terrorists, and who work tirelessly to both undermine and subvert the USA at every turn.

In other words, we would be better off nuking France.

And, I doubt the rest of the world would attempt to destroy us as a result.

When the WOT becomes the Final Crusade this will make sense. Not before. When Christian Nations join together to fight Muslim Nations then you can nuke Mecca.

That's not a plan BTW it's the answer to your rhetorical question.

The irony... the irony...

I suppose the statement regarding nuking Mecca is a belligerent threat made by some one with no authority rather than an actual proposal of immediate action by some one with a finger on a big red button. Its hard to judge what is meant without a given context. The net is full of such belligerence after all. I come across many people who share this brain wave quite often and in my more darker moments I am apt to make similar statements of aggressive fatalism. Usually these are exclaimations of desperation with what seems to be an impossible situation brought about by a confrontation with people who are themseves even more belligerent than we could ever hope to be, often it seems impossibly belligerent. Like the character of Col. Kurtz, confronted with such an overwhelming, primitive stupidity, one finds oneself crying out in anger and frustration. Exterminate them all. Drop the Bomb!

Such frustration is brought about by the seemingly impossible situation we face. Opposing us are people who seem to care nothing for the sanctity of life, nor for the concept of innocent civilians. Indeed their religious ideology rules out such a concept. For the enemy, we are all valid targets and they do not hesitate to tell us so. Then compare this vulnerability with the morality we lay claim to and its not hard to see the imbalance we face. Our moral perspective places us at a distinct disadvantage.

Now consider our knowledge regarding our enemy, and how great an intelligence of them we have. Our own world is wide open, with vast swaths of knowledge and possibilities made readily available. Our schools are available, our technology is available, even our governments are available. We share much of who we are, constantly. The enemy however does not share anything at all. Indeed he has very little to offer at all. Under the guise of orthodoxy, he coverts everything and hides himself away. There is contact and even charity and empathy between the two sides, but it is wholly one way with the enemy and his sympathisers taking full advantage of our character, knowledge and technology and gradually reaching for our most powerful secrets in order to turn these against us also.

The enemy not only uses our own technology against us, but also our laws, our morality, our codes of conduct and our civil servants. In return, we have no such levers to pull upon. The vast majority of Muslims do not side against the extremists in their midst and every indication is they never will. We stand alone against this enemy but we do not stand in unity. Amongst us are those who defend the enemy, for myriad reasons, some noble, others less so. The bottom line however, is due to our internal divisions, we cannot make a unified stand against Islamic terrorism. Even our worst defeats are belittled by our own whilst our triumphs are often disregarded as irrellevent. Or worse, as overt aggression.

And then there is our greatest weakness. Fertility. Our greatest strengths are already being undermined but our greatest weakness is not even being addressed. On the contrary, the drop in our population figures is often used as a reason to bring in more Muslims to bolster the work force. Eventually, if things continue on their present course, there will come a day when we are no longer the majority in our own countries. This problem is far advanced in Europe but is also beginning to take place else where. Even larger well populated countries like India are seeing a dangerous increase of the Muslim population and the USA is not beyond this problem either.

This all builds up in the mind of a pessimist until it over flows and one gives way to frustration. Nuke 'em now and be done with it one thinks. Why wait until we are too weak to fight back? What is to to be gained in waiting? There is no sign that we can overcome this enemy who's anti human perspective seems to offer so little to us yet apparently so much to its followers, so what options are available?

Continue to struggle as day by day as the nuclear advantage gradually shifts against us? How hard would it be to put a nuclear weapon on a merchant ship, sailing out of India and into New York harbour, or San Francisco, or any number of other western cities, or even several at once. Imagine a nuclear first strike carried out by al qaeda against London and New York. How would we react to that? What options would we have? Retaliation? Against whom? Iran? Would that put a stop to al qaeda?

And do we believe the enemy is capable of carrying out such an attack against us? No, not yet, so we still think of a nuclear attack against Mecca, a mere symbol, as astounding. Something unspeakable.

Here's another mind numbing thought. Would the Holocaust have been such a big deal if the Jews had carried out mass terrorist attacks against the Germans first? What if the Jews had made constant threats against Germany and had even begun to develop and brag about, say for example; their mustard gas factories...?

No one in the West is going to nuke Mecca and its probably not a good idea to threaten to do so either, but the fact is such statements are born of a frustration that see's no end to the violence being done against us and the longer that set of affairs continues, the greater the likelihood of a violent backlash becomes. It probably won't be a nuclar attack or another nazi scale Holocaust, but it may well be a civil war in Europe with subsequent mass killings if the animosity doesn't soon settle. It won't take many more terrorist attacks to start a radical change in the European political landscape and then we may well be the one's whispering in the dark to ourselves about The Horror.

I think we should drop porn and booze instead of bombs.

Get the Islamist radicals all hooked on an Islamic version of "American Idol" and "Deal or No Deal". Get them fat and stupid from sitting on their growing back-ends, watching TV, surfing the internet for porn while they drink Budweiser and eat fat-laden McDonalds Big Mac's with Supersized fries.

We have the most effective media/advertising arm ever seen in the history of the world. We should start using it. It's managed to unify our country in a distorted type of way. It's destroyed, for the most part, regional differences and managed to foist a version of morality to the masses that would seem foreign to our ancestors. If it worked on the pioneer spirit of the USA, why not the Jihadists? Our technology, and the money that goes into advertising, TV, movies, etc, makes them a highly effective propaganda weapon.

And anyone who's ever seen one of those homemade Islamist videos or who's watched Al Jazeera knows that these people are used to production qualities that would embarrass an inner city high school's TV production club. We're talking 1950's vintage home-movie quality made with super 8mm.

Unleash Madison Avenue on their stinkin Jihad.

That is one weapon that may prove even more destructive to their vision than any surge of military units could ever hope.

It is however exactly this vision of the USA that the Jihadists use against the west; the images of degredation , deprivation and decadance that allows their propoganda to prosper. The frontier spirit and apple pie goodness have significantly more in common with their agenda than it does with the Hollywood vision of modern life....

Coca-Cola is after all well known to be the favourite beverage of the great Satan

If they use it against us, then we should EMBRACE it and Edited to remove inflammatory comment

Use our technology to LAUGH at people like Bin Laden, not pump them up like the second coming of Mohammed.

The FACT of the matter is that our society offers people a far better way to live than what they do.

Subvert their culture. Don't embrace it. Undermine their values. Don't prop them up. Laugh at them. Don't fear them openly.

Hey, I as much as anyone on this AD board think that the Jihad is a real threat. I don't agree with Jaime that it's a bogeyman for the right like "global warming" is for the left.

But, I'm offering a different strategy for defeating them. Bombs seem to be playing their game.

I say change the rules of the game and focus on what we do best.

Taking formerly motivated and ambitious people and reducing them to overweight and lazy slobs who are hooked on TV, fast food, drink, drugs, and simplistic hedonistic pleasures.

Then they, like us, will be no real threat to take over any other society using force.

Would dropping a nuclear weapon on Mecca be an effective method of fighting Islamic terrorism?

Was dropping two nuclear weapons on Japan an effective method of fighting Shinto imperialism? Only as an end strategy to keep a worldwide war with millions of casualties from continuing to burn through human life (or more bluntly, American lives). If the WoT ever gets as intense as WWII, many people all over the world will be begging for someone to end it, with nukes if necessary. They might even get the UN to authorize it.

Obviously, we're nowhere near that point yet, so the idea of nuking Mecca seems like the worst form of anti-religious bigotry. Nukes this early and with that target evoke the natural baby-bathwater, nose-face, fly-sledgehammer reflexes. True, nuking Mecca at any forseeable point in the future would more likely spark worldwide carnage than end it.

Because this particular sugggestion to nuke Mecca cites no source, I doubt any sane person is seriously suggesting America should nuke Mecca. The only high-profile figures I can think of that would suggest it are the talking-head entertainers like Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Ingraham, Malkin, or Savage who make their millions through exaggerated polemic. Air America tries to entertain its audience with similarly extreme rhetoric from the liberal viewpoint. "Nuke Mecca" is essentially a rephrase of "line 'em up and shoot 'em", which has recently become a mainstay suggestion of liberal bloggers on how the new Congress should negotiate with the Bush administration. Such "hot air" is usually just empty bluster to express depth of anger through violently-worded hyperbole, not a call to action.

Maybe someone should revive the "Defending the Indefensible" topic I ran across in the archives the other day.

Next item for debate:Is drowning lawyers a legitimate method of implementing tort reform?

The new congress is being encouraged to "line 'em up and shoot" the republicans by the far left who championed their elections.

And, they've loaded the magazines of their rhetorical guns with blanks called "non binding resolutions" that misfired when faced with a GOP filibuster.

These new democrats couldn't lead a horse to water or Michael Jackson to a cub scout camp.

With respect to Mecca, Seamus, I was with you until the end and the comment on lawyers. Now you have me thinking......

It was actually a direct quote from someone in this forum, a quick google search rendered an answer as to where it comes from.

Why is this absurd topic being discussed, to demonstrate the abominable ignorance and insanity of some of the advocates here? The moderators should bring this obnoxious and highly offensive "debate" to a halt.

With my apologies to Bikerdad, a Google search for "nuke Mecca" currently returns about 29,400 other results, many of them indicating the entertainers I listed have also discussed the idea, so he is not alone.

Not a bad idea. My own intent was not to call anyone on this board or in the media insane, but merely less than serious about going through with such a threat any time soon.

Sorry I should have been a little clearer, I took the first few words of the quote and stuck them in google.

"Fly 12 B-52s over Mecca"

That search returned just one response.

You have a choice not to participate in any debate that does not interest you.

I'm not a fan of censorship. I'm for the exchange of ideas performed in a free and open way.

I can offer you a suggestion. If you don't like a topic, don't participate in it.

If you find a poster or certain ideas obnoxious and offensive, don't read their comments or engage in debate with them.

These are just suggestions. I don't feel I have the *right* to tell you how you should think. I can only agree with you or disagree with you.

I disagree. The questions were thoughtfully posed and frankly this is exactly the type of thing you might hear at a party or a BBQ and you might gain insights in this reasoned discussion that you could use in the screaming match you're about to get into by the punch bowl.

Would dropping a nuclear weapon on Mecca be an effective method of fighting Islamic terrorism?

Geez. Depends on how you define effective, I guess.

I can see surviving Muslims clamoring to strap bombs to their backs, dirty and otherwise, and attacking Israel and the United States in retaliation. Could the person who made this suggestion justify this kind of attack on Muslims while knowing that the "[brown fallout] would hit the fan" in Jerusalem and other Israeli sites? Would it be worth it then?

Muslims and Muslims, and Muslims and Jews have been at each other's throats for longer than any of us have been alive. Has retaliation produced anything other than more retaliation?

Dropping a nuclear bomb on Mecca would not destroy all Muslims any more than dropping a nuclear bomb on the Vatican would destroy all Christians, or even just the Catholics.

This is a very disturbing suggestion, and one that I would not expect to hear from anyone other than a wild-eyed zealot. It actually makes President Bush's ideas seem rational in comparison.

Would dropping a nuclear weapon on Mecca be an effective method of fighting Islamic terrorism?






Yes.

As the "abominably ignorant and insane" individual who's post has been so generously quoted, I feel it is incumbent upon me to respond.

First, all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence teach that it is part of the responsibility of the Muslim umma (worldwide community) to wage war against unbelievers in order to impose Sharia upon them.

In the modern era, the non-Islamic world has been under repeated attack by the Islamic world since 1948. Initially, the attacks were focused on Israel, but that soon changed, in part due to the surprising resilience of the Israelis. (You'd think that if Allah was really on the Arab/Palestinian side, they might have actually won one of those wars agains the Israelis, eh?)

However, that is only part of the reason for the widening of the attacks. In just the last 3 months, Islamicists have carried out religiously motivated attacks, both as state actors, and as "freelance jihadi", in or against the citizens of the following countries:

Afghanistan
Algeria
Bangaladesh
Chad
Chechnya
Dagestan **
India
Indonesia
Iraq
Israel
Jordan
Lebanon
Pakistan
Phillipines
Thailand *
Somalia
Sudan
Syria
Turkey
Yemen

* In Thailand, over the last three months, more than 100 separate attacks, killing more than 160 people. What, pray tell, has Thailand done regarding Israel? How large, pray tell, is the Thai contingent in Iraq or Afghanistan?

** Where the heck is Dagestan?

Since 9/11/01, on the 6th of February, Islamicists have killed 57 people in 8 different countries, not even counting Iraq or Afghanistan. These are verified attacks, reported in the news, motivated by their religion.

Islamicists, waging jihad, have come from Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Canada, the Netherlands, the United States, Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon, Morrocco, Phillipines, Afghanistan, France, Germany, Algeria, Nigeria, Thailand, Indonesia, Libya, Chechnya, Turkey, England, ...

They have been European.
They have been African.
They have been Asian.
They have been Arab.

They have been poor.
They have been rich.
They have been middle class

They have been female.
They have been male.

They have been illiterate.
They have had PhDs.

They have attacked atheists.
They have attacked Christians
They have attacked Jews
They have attacked Hindus
They have attacked Buddhists
They have attacked other Muslims.
They have attacked Animists.

They have attacked airports.
They have attacked synagogues.
They have attacked movie theaters.
They have attacked nightclubs.
They have attacked busses.
They have attacked churches.
They have attacked office buildings.
They have attacked homes.
They have attacked schools.

The single common denominator is their religion. That is the thread that binds them all together.

And that is why we must consider attacking their religion. The most direct and effective means of doing so is nuking Mecca. Giving them 7 days notice is a heck of a lot more than was given to the folks in the Tube, or the Twin Towers, or the children in Beslan.

edited to respond to ...
And this would be different from the present situation how? Seriously, in case you haven't noticed, they are already strapping bombs on their backs and attacking Israel, the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Spain, etc...

Again, how would it be any different than currently? Setting asid the matter of prevailing winds (which blow Idontknow which way), are Muslims going to suddenly start attacking Israel out of the blue? Oh, right, its already happening.

This isn't about the Jews. Wha have a Buddhist schoolteacher or an African animist goatherd or a Russian schoolchild done that warrants them being killed? Nothing, aside from not submitting to Allah or dhimmitude.

Duh..., unless we got really lucky and they all flocked to Mecca in the seven days for matrydom. Unlikely, eh? maybe not so unlikely... If my objective was to kill all Muslims, or even lots and lots of Muslims, do you think I'd suggest carpetbombing Mecca with warnings to get outta town?

OK I'm with you so far, and I am looking for a link to subscribe to your newsletter as I see you have many intriguing ideas... BUT...

How does nuking Mecca (even on a 7 day time delay) fight Islamic terrorism? I can see you're for it and I like all peace loving Dagestan fans want to win the fight against Islamic terrorism but how does this achieve that goal?

Again, Bikerdad, it depends on what you consider to be "effective".

If the damn terrorists can't be killed on one fell nuclear swoop on Mecca, what's the purpose of doing it?
Bloodlust?

And the "brown fallout" I was referring to was your common garden variety of excrement when it hits the fan.

You know, there's already a world filled with apocalyptic visions, and they aren't restricted to fundamentalist or evangelical Christians. There are a lot of Muslims who believe that a glorious time of rule by Allah will be ushered in when enough violence takes place, i.e., when enough infidels are killed. All they need is a sign, like the infidels bombing Mecca, to signal the time for their push for mass killings and martyrdom.

So you want to feed into this? Riiiiight....

Well in fairness - should the Final Crusade come to be - where it's Judeo/Christians vs Muslims the JCs are going to mop the floor with the Muslims. I mean seriously - I know there are a lot of rocks to throw and cars to blow up but verses the kind of fire power the Western world brings to the table - I mean come on.

So if Bikerdad's intention is to "bring it on" well then nuking Mecca is THE THING to do!

That's cold, BA.

I wonder how many here would really go for that idea if it was their decision to make. Let us remember that Mecca is situated in a country that is supposed to be on our side--Saudi Arabia.

And with all the firepower and well-trained military at our disposal--how's it going in Iraq and Afghanistan?

There's more at stake here than wiping someone off a game board, or even the world map! Remember Hitler and his "final solution"? Please tell me exactly how the idea of indiscriminately nuking people because they are predominantly of one religious persuasion is different from the genocide carried on by the Nazis?
There are innocent Muslim men, women and children who would suffer and die because of a desire to take vengeance on the terrorists. That's not right.

Sorry, this "what if" situation is waaay out there.

VS:

You are entirely correct in your brief assessment [though I suppose that you might have been more diplomatic in your run-up to the question for debate, though I also suppose that some will say, who am I to talk]. The proposal would otherwise indeed be the absolute worst thing that we could do, as it would send the message that we cannot win the battle of ideologies on the merits and so seek to eliminate the one holding the ideology instead, and such can only operate to confirm any preexisting notion on their part that their opposing ideology is and must be correct.

But we could have a piece of the stone sent out for testing, though no surprise really when the test comes back confirming that it fell to earth from space and so is really no different than Artemis of the Ephesians. And also no surprise their reaction, as it will be just like those at Ephesus, to wit, they'll be chanting for hours, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians! And not preaching to you here, just trying to win that war that I have with them over the ideology/theology. I mean, for insane, what reason can you see to trample each other to death just so that one might touch a rock from space that fell to earth? But Great is Artemis of the Ephesians! And so some get trampled...

With all due respect to Victoria Silverwolf, while I agree that "some statements cannot be ignored," I believe this statement should be. At times the best response to a repellent statement is to starve it of any further life.

Debating ideas is what we do here on , but those ideas should be intelligent, viable and grounded in reality. Debating a radically extremist idea dripping with xenophobic bloodlust does not advance anyone's knowledge. It only adds an air (in this case a odor) of legitimacy to a ruinous and homicidal premise.



I agree with Vladimir. The debating of one highly inflammatory and hateful comment is counter-productive to the character and spirit of .

nighttimer.

Alas, thats exactly why the problem ought to be debated. If you suppress then you apply pressure and sooner or later, pressure will out.

It doesn't take a genius to understand that a radically extremist idea dripping with xenophobic bloodlust may be a ruinous and homicidal premise, but that doesn't mean it won't happen. See here for further details of one such radically extremist idea that did.

Nuking Mecca is a ridiculous idea, but the problem with humanity is, we're addicted to ridiculous idea's. Especially if they have the added allure of being easy. Debate is one of the few tools which can be used to bring understanding, though sure enough you can't reach every body. Sometimes though debate, dialogue, discussion, is what changes the world.

If some one proposes something so absurd and predictably disastrous, then they should be spoken to, reasoned with, not ignored so that their concerns continue to fester until they erupt.

Regards a ridiculous idea being alluring because it is easy, the journalist H.L. Mencken shot that one down ages ago when he said, For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and they may feel obliged to share it with the rest of the world. But let's not kid ourselves that every crackpot opinion and half-baked idea arrive in the marketplace with equal weight, value and worth. Some ideas are misguided, deluded, dangerous and abhorrent. You might be able to reduce global terrorism by forcibly sterilizing every Muslim female and castrating every Muslim male, but the simplicity of such an act does not make it any less insane. An act of state-sponsored terrorism will not end terrorism. To indulge in great evil to counter lesser evil brings us closer to the devils than the angels.

There are enough dark, moldy corners of the Internet where vile, hateful and abhorrent idea and opinions fester like a virus. This board should not become yet one more unflushed toilet of rancid thinking.