Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo said on the radio that the United States should "take out" Islamic holy sites if Muslim terrorists attacked the U.S. with nuclear weapons, according to the Chronicle News Services.
"You're talking about bombing Mecca," talk show host Pat Campbell replied.
"Yeah," Tancredo responded.
Tancredo has a 100% rating from the American Conservative Union. He was just talking about meeting an ultimate threat with an ultimate response, he said.
Muslim leaders want him to apologize. "I have nothing to apologize for," Tancredo said. "I'm not suggesting we do it."
This is an old idea, obliterating the symbols near-and-dear to your enemy, in this case a few terrorists, as compared, say, with the billion or so other Muslims who aren't threatening to nuke the U.S. but let's forget about that for a moment, shall we?
The suggestion came up to nuke Jerusalem and then there would be no more fights over the Holy Places any more, right?
Wrong, said one Jerusalemite.
We'd be fighting over the holy hole in the ground.
Just because the symbol is temporarily gone from standing on the ground doesn't mean that it doesn't exist in people's brains. In fact, ruins make better symbols than actualities. Take the Parthenon, for example, a ruin. Do we stop visiting it? No. Why? Because it is a symbol of a beginning point of our civilization, the Ancient Greeks, or Athenians at least.
Venus de Milo. No arms. Still at the Louvre. It's the suggestion that counts. Shi'ites revere Ali, the murdered grandson of the prophet Mohammed. His physical presence is gone. Jesus is gone. But their spiritual presence is felt strongly among adherents today.
Destroying the symbols of your adversary makes them stronger.
Tancredo has it backwards.
If the U.S. is nuked by Muslims, the really scary threat that will make those terrorists think twice before dialing the cell-phone detonator should be to open McDonald's Mecca, featuring the new McPorkburgers.