Ten Better Ideas Than Tancredo's

I was driving a lot yesterday, so I got earfulls of Tancredo and had no way to write about it. Blogging while driving, even in Southern California, just isn't done.

As wrong as it was for Tancredo to voice the "nuke Mecca" option, he did capture America's frustration with the elusive, non-governmental enemies in the War on Terror. His careless comment also served the purpose of forcing America to confront the important question of appropriate retaliation for nuclear jihad on our shores. After all, if we don't discuss it, the terrorists won't know we're discussing it.

I thought about the Mecca option myself about a month ago during a brief comment exchange with Bookworm (see comment below) and quickly saw one tier of flaws with that argument: what Hugh referred to as the mistake of attacking Islam instead of Islamic terrorists. A more plausible target would be "Wahhabi University," i.e., the training grounds of the Wahhabism-driven jihadists. But the target would not be the point; winning the war would be.

To win the war after such an event, we would have to neutralize the ongoing threat Muslims would pose to our country . We can't, shouldn't and wouldn't attempt to nuke a billion Muslims out of existance, so what are our other options?

Option one would be any wrong option, like nuking Mecca, that would turn Muslims against us in very large numbers. Minimizing enemy combatants is an important principle to winning wars.

The better option is to consider what the Muslims would be thinking when hearing the news that some people professing faith in Allah had just killed 20 or 30 million innocent people. Here's what I think they'd think: There's something dreadfully wrong with my religion.

If we were to "do a Tancredo" in response, that thought would quickly be replaced with their own outrage towards our religion, and an increase in Muslim combatants arrayed against us. But a more measured, anti-terrorist but not anti-Islam response would make possible the only way for us to win this war: Forcing a reformation of Islam into a truly peaceful religion.

Rolling over wouldn't do it; it would only fuel the terrorist wing of the religion. But a series of thoughtful, powerful and humanistic responses would force Muslims to compare the awful thing done in the name of their religion and the much more reasoned response of the world's leading Christian nation.

Here, in no particular order are some more measured responses:

1. Recover from the horror quickly. It would be so important to display such a show of strength that Washington must be focusing on game plans for just such an event. This should include, I deeply believe, immediately moving the capitol to a less exposed, inland location.
2. With a hat tip to Hugh on this and #3, give the Syrian goverment one week to dissolve itself or face a Husseining.
   
3. Give the House of Saud one week to dissolve itself and outlaw Wahhabism or face a Talibaning.
4. Use tactical weapons to take out over known school of Wahhabist jihadism on the planet.
5. Using whatever kind of ordinance will get the job done, take out one Iranian nuclear facility and give them one day to renounce their nuclear program before we take out the next one. No deal, and another one bites the dust.
6. Point out to Pakistan what we just did to Iran.
   
7. Use NATO troops to secure all former-Soviet nuclear weapons in former Soviet Muslim nations.
   
8. Demand that every major Islamic scholar/leader issue a fatwa prohibiting any zakat (alms giving) to go to Wahhabist or jihadist arms of Islam.
9. Use electronic warfare to destroy the finances of anyone who doesn't go along with #7.
10. Pass a Sedition Act immediately prohibiting jihadist speech in the U.S. and promptly prosecute and imprison anyone using such speech (no reason to delay on this one; do it tomorrow).

I pray this is all a meaningless drill. But drill we must.