Nuking Mecca

Why Congressman Tom Tancredo’s latest idea is both strategically and morally bankrupt.

By Alejandro J. Beutel, Seton Hall University
Wednesday July 20, 2005

On Monday, just moments after returning from the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing on improving Iraqi security, I was quietly typing up a summary of the proceedings for my boss and a few other higher-ups when my friend John walks over to my chair.

He asked, “Alejandro, did you hear what Tancredo – the Republican rep from Colorado –said on Friday? You’d be shocked.”

Frankly, I hadn’t had a chance to look through the day’s news. But curiosity got to me and I found the story online. And, indeed, I was shocked.

Basically, a Republican representative from Colorado, Thomas Tancredo, had legitimately considered the idea of nuking Islam’s holiest city – Mecca – if a religious nut job organization like Al-Qaeda nuked our great nation.

Now, as a devoted American citizen and devoted practitioner of the Muslim faith, I had the sudden urge to scream and cry at the same, but I did neither.

Instead of being irrational and unproductive, I decided to take a few deep breaths, relax and calmly analyze what was said. At first, I kept checking to see if the story had been misreported, or if the man had misspoke in some crazy way. Sadly, he did not.

After denial came analysis. I tackled the (lack of) logic behind his statement in two ways: the practical policy perspective and the moral perspective.

The Practical Policy Perspective

Using nuclear weapons, or even the threat of nuclear weapons against Mecca as a “deterrent” to religious extremists bombing our country would simply be bad policy.

First, the threat of vaporizing Mecca would not deter terrorists from attacking the United States. Everyone knows that religious terrorists – like the 19 hijackers who suicidally slammed their planes into the Twin Towers and Pentagon – are not rational actors who are scared of the threat of lethal force. This does not mean that (suicide-minded) terrorists, and the extremist organizations that support them, cannot be deterred or outsmarted. We must understand that terrorism, including suicide terrorism, is simply a violent tactic to achieve certain political/ideological objectives. As one counter-terrorism expert explains, “… case studies reveal that suicide bombers are not lone zealots, but instruments of terrorist leaders who expect their organizations to gain tangible benefits from this shocking tactic.”

The implication that can be drawn from this conclusion is that deterrence against terrorist threats – including nuclear suicide terrorist threats – is not necessarily through the fear of retaliatory force, but the fear of failing to achieve their ideological objective through the use of terrorism. Therefore, the focus of our deterrence against a nuclear terrorist threat, carried out by suicidal maniacs, should include:

• Securing loose and missing nuclear stockpiles in the former Soviet Union to prevent the terrorists from getting the weapons in the first place;


• Strengthening our infrastructure security to ensure that attacks against our ports, rails, chemical facilities, etc. can be thwarted;


• Revitalizing our intelligence capabilities so we can have the necessary heads-up on who, where and how terrorists plan to carry out a nuclear attack;


• Reprioritizing our defense budget to fund programs and purchases for weaponry that best deal with the terror threat to our nation; and


• Having a smarter national security foreign policy that understands the increasingly interdependent nature of the world, which terrorists use to their advantage.

Third, a nuclear strike against Mecca will not eliminate the perverted and ideologically violent interpretation of one of the world’s greatest religions that Muslims in America and abroad are fighting hard to eliminate from the hearts and minds of their co-religionists. In fact, impractically and unjustly attacking a holy city that is dear to all Muslims around the world – including the 99.999% who have absolutely nothing to do with Al-Qaeda’s global terror campaign – will only radicalize and militarize Muslims on an unprecedented scale, swelling the ranks of Bin Laden’s pitiful band of terrorists. With support for terrorism on a significant decline in Muslim societies, just the very idea of bombing Mecca could have a negative reversing trend on these numbers. Tancredo’s statement is probably doing Bin Laden a huge favor.

The Moral Perspective

Not only is a retaliatory nuclear strike against Mecca impractical, it is downright immoral. When the 9/11 and London attacks occurred, these tragic events were vociferously denounced by Muslims around the world, including the Muslim American community.

There is no reason that all Muslims should be so cruelly punished for the despicable act of a few terrorists, especially when Muslims themselves have suffered heavily from such violence. After all, at least 70 Muslims died in the Trade Towers, and the bombings against Istanbul, Riyadh, Bali, Casablanca, Jakarta, and the 8,000 Iraqis killed since the January 30 th elections are all examples of terrorism by Muslims, against Muslims.

In addition, killing innocent civilians and destroying holy shrines is stooping to the level of Bin Laden. As the leader of the free world, America is better than that. The War on Terror not only requires a military victory, but it demands a moral victory. Americans must uphold the moral high ground during what promises to be a long fight to counter global terrorism by upholding human rights, the rule of law and democracy, as well as a simple respect for one’s fellow human beings and their traditions.

Tancredo’s statement is a declaration of absolute moral heresy that benefits no one if actually followed through. (God forbid) So, what was his defense?

Apparently, he is a “freethinker” who is looking for an answer to one of the darkest scenarios that could hit our nation.

If Mr. Tancredo is a freethinker, does that make Bin Laden a non-conformist to that whole overly “restrictive” idea that people should have the freedom from being blown up?

In the end, Mr. Tancredo’s statement is an extreme example of the strategic and moral bankruptcy of this current administration and its congressional allies, a bankruptcy that has ensured that our democracy promotion efforts are looked upon suspiciously by Muslims while contributing to an enormous spike in global terrorism, making our country less safe. If I were Mr. Tancredo, I would immediately apologize for those remarks and start seriously looking at ways to prevent such a catastrophe from befalling our shores in the first place.

Alejandro J. Beutel is a rising senior at Seton Hall University. He is also the proud son of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother.