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Bruce Feiler: Should We Bomb Mecca? The New GOP Litmus Test - Politics on The Huffington Post

(A)long comes Tom Tacredo to remind us that the GOP may still be locked in a Hate Primary. Tancredo, tired of pandering to Latinophobes over the threat of illegal immigration, has turned to pandering to Islamophobes over terrorism. He said on Tuesday in front of thirty people in Iowa that if we are attacked by Islamic terrorists, we should respond by bombing Mecca.

"If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina," the GOP presidential candidate said. "That is the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they would otherwise do. If I am wrong fine, tell me, and I would be happy to do something else. But you had better find a deterrent or you will find an attack. There is no other way around it. There have to be negative consequences for the actions they take. That's the most negative I can think of."

Here's the funny thing... Tom Tancredo is correct. Technically.

Let me be clear as can be before I defend his answer on this one, as I don't want anyone to be confused on this point: THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA. If you want to increase the number of quote-unquote-"terrorists" willing to inflict death and destruction on American soil, go right ahead and flatten Mecca and Medina. This would be putting theory into practice in the most flagrantly self-destructive way possible, and there's no getting around that point.

But Tom Tancredo is correct. Technically.

His idea, his baseline analysis of the situation, is actually the most factually accurate answer to the question, "What do we need to do besides changing our foreign policy and leaving Israel to fend for themselves to make sure terrorists don't attack us again" that I've ever heard. Since we're dealing with Republican rhetoric, where the conventional wisdom states that "they hate us for our freedoms," the answer to the terrorism question doesn't have a foreign policy theme. Instead, so far (and oh so good!) we've managed to turn our answer to the terrorism question into stoking a civil war and doing everything but enlisting Ron Popeil to host an infomercial recruiting "Islamofascist terrorists(!)" via al-Jazeera "After Dark."

If you're of the mindset that America can and should do whatever she damn well pleases without consequence, then this is the answer to your terrorism question. If you're of the mindset that it's as simple as "hating us for our freedoms," then this is the answer to your terrorism question. if you're of the mindset that "they" are just trying to put the whole world under Sharia law, then this is the answer to your terrorism question.

They hate us because we're Israel's big brother, and they hate us for occupying (or "occupying," if you want to believe what you want to believe) Muslim lands. They've said so before.

So, if you're a Republican, and your party line has drawn you into a rhetorical corner where "they hate us for our freedoms" becomes the conventional cognitive dissonance wisdom, then what could possibly be the correct answer to the terrorism question? It certainly cannot possibly be a foreign policy answer, as Rudy Giuliani has already said that's an absurd answer. Non-interventionalism isn't the neocon way, who can possibly argue with sowing the seeds of democracy?

How, then, do you handle terrorism? Terrorists don't have political goals we're willing to admit exist, and they can't be appeased economically (like we do with other countries - throw them a pile of cash and tell them to STFU), so all that's left is finding a deterrent. And how, then, do you find an effective deterrent when you're "fighting" an ideological enemy who cannot be "appeased" (damn, I'm going to have to take my Neville Chamberlain portrait down from over the mantle, methinks) through traditional methods?

You throw multicultural political correctness to the wind, and stoop to their level. Find the one thing they care about (i.e., their ideology), and punish them by pissing on it. The only influence these single-minded ideological "Islamofascists" have in their lives is their religion. So leverage that influence into a threat, and use that as a deterrent. Problem solved!

This is how you take a cognitive dissonance, allow it to evolve into a rhetorical trap, and bring it to its own logical conclusion. Is Tom Tancredo suggesting a solution that would take our Iraq war problems and spread that level of ill will amongst a couple billion Muslims? Yup.

Is this a logical solution based on the framework constructed by the Republican party around the "terrorism problem?" Absolutely, so long as you're willing to accept that "they hate us for our freedoms" is where the issue stops and starts.

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My Way News - Giuliani: Dems Want Nanny Government

Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani on Monday accused Democrats of favoring a controlling "nanny government" as he continued his bashing of the rival party.

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