Making Terrorist Recruitment Films

Before I get to anything about the world at large, I want to talk about my personal life. Usually I try not to talk about my life here, but today I'm too excited not to -- because on Saturday I got engaged to the most beautiful, amazing woman that has ever walked the earth. I'm not sure when we're getting married yet, but it'll probably be in less than a year. And I'm freaking excited.

That said, I want to move on to some less exciting news. Today Colorado representative Tom Tancredo (R) joined Dick Durbin on the short list of US congressmen whose statements will most likely be used in terrorists recruitment tapes. Tancredo foolishly said on a radio show that if terrorists used a nuke in the US that we might respond by bombing Mecca, or other Islamic holy sites. His 'clarification' is not really much of an improvement, saying that he was thinking of ways to deter an attack by an enemy with no country or other large force to attack directly. Great. So now they have it from the mouths of US congressmen that we treat our prisoners as poorly as Nazis, and we're going to bomb Mecca. Maybe neither said those things are for sure realities, but they both were more than clear that they are distinct possibilities, and neither remark is doing much to help our image abroad. Statements like these are just unwise. Even if Tancredo thinks that it is a viable option, which he shouldn't, he should know better than to broadcast that opinion on the air. I hope he apologizes fully -- being a CO resident I already wrote him an email asking him to.

The biggest problem with this philosophy is that it attacks all of Islam, not just the people attacking us. We are only fighting a small sect of Islam, not the entire religion. Statements like these say 'It doesn't matter who you are or what you've done, if people who share a basic belief attack us we're going to start bombing you and your holy sites.' Its like the internment camps for Japanese during WWII in that we are punishing innocent people for the crimes of others that are only weakly related. Its stupid and it won't stop the war, anyway. It will probably make it worse. Take the US as an example. Before 9/11 there weren't too many people keen on the idea of invading Afghanistan and toppling the Taliban, although they were an oppressive regime that talked about attacking the US and was related to bombings that affected us, including that of the USS Cole. But then they hit some of our 'Meccas' -- Washington DC and New York. Did that make us more willing to accept their presence? No, it galvanized us against them in a way we haven't been united for decades and haven't been again since. Nothing unites people like a common enemy, and a good way to turn people into enemies is to needlessly destroy things that they love, or idolize (to some extent) as is the case here. If we want every Muslim who is even slightly inclined to be militant to band together to fight us, then we should definitely bomb Mecca. Otherwise it would be one of the stupidest decisions we could make. So, Tom Tancredo, I give you the benefit of the doubt that you didn't think before you answered the interviewer's question, but you should not try to defend your statement and instead should apologize fully and keep your words from damaging the country as much as possible. Its too late to completely undo their negative effects, but if you act quickly to fully retract your statement they might be held to a much smaller proportion than otherwise.