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Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Ultimate Responses
Representative Tom Tancredo, best known for his advocacy of intensified border control, has triggered a firestorm with his suggestion that to deter to a nuclear attack by Islamic jihadis on an American city, the U.S. might threaten to nuke Mecca or Medina, places considered sacred by Muslims worldwide. Michelle Malkin and many others have registered thoughts on the matter, most of which have been highly critical of Tancredo's statements.
Your Curmudgeon sees things a bit differently.
The ideology of the United States -- freedom, capitalism, religious pluralism, limited government, a live-and-let-live attitude toward persons of divergent views -- is at war with the ideology of militant Islam. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The necessities of war, which sometimes involve collateral damage to persons who'd have given anything to remain uninvolved, are not the ugliest of things, either.
Let's tabulate as many conceivable tactical strokes in this war as we possibly can. First, the ones short of mass destruction:
- Public relations campaigns to alert well-meaning persons to the threat from Islamic militancy and its intentions for the West.
- Official surveillance of every mosque within our borders, and of every person within our borders who's ever been seen going through the doors of a mosque.
- Closure of the borders to all persons who are known to be, or admit to being, adherents of Islam.
- Involuntary expulsion of known Muslims from the United States.
- Use of "Sword of Gideon"-style assassination squads to target known terrorist leaders, wherever they might be in the world.
- Use of constrained military force to eliminate major concentrations of terrorists, wherever they might be in the world.
- Use of major military operations to topple Islamic states known to provide terrorists with funds, weapons, or shelter.
Need it be said that the United Nations would be horrified at even the lightest of these strokes? No, your Curmudgeon didn't think so.
The tactics above divide into two categories: the targeting of identified terrorists and the reduction of the habitat that sustains others. The more dramatic suggestions are numbers 2, 4, and 7: those which press down on habitat. They'd incur the shrieks of civil liberties groups in this country and of Muslims everywhere, precisely for that reason.
To get immediate relief from some species of vermin, one targets the vermin. To eliminate the vermin problem for the long term, one targets its habitat.
But as Marc Stiegler has observed, we can never do only one thing. Every act has at least one unintended effect; this is guaranteed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. An action intended to eliminate an entire species will also change the conditions of existence for creatures not of that species, and not necessarily in a foreseeable way.
If the species we plan to eliminate is the Islamic militant, at the minimum the collaterals affected will include most other Muslims in the world. If the effect is as mild as merely denying them entry to these shores, we'll all be very lucky indeed.
But time does not stand still. We have a fair certainty that al-Qaeda and affiliated forces are struggling to acquire weapons of mass destruction. We know they have two targets in mind above all others: Israel and any major American city. We cannot doubt that if they were to acquire a nuclear weapon, it would be used against one of those two targets without delay.
If the jihadis do acquire a nuke, it will be all but impossible to prevent them from killing millions of Americans or Israelis. It's simply too easy to get a package of that power adequately close to a center of population.
If any eventuality qualifies as one that must be prevented at all costs, this is it. But how?
None of the tabulated strokes can guarantee against the nightmare above. Nothing can. As technology advances, it will become ever easier for persons with determination and modest means to fabricate nukes, bioweapons, or war gases.
During the Cold War years, we faced a similar threat. The Soviets had a credible capability to rain nuclear destruction upon us. We could not prevent it. Indeed, we couldn't prevent it today. Instead, we deterred it, by assuring the Soviets that we would retaliate unacceptably for any use of its military power against us or our NATO allies. If we omit "proxy wars" such as those in Africa and Southeast Asia, the threat kept the peace for forty-five years.
How does one deter an Islamic terrorist with access to weapons of mass destruction? Not with threats to his own life; he's willing to die if in so doing he can inflict sufficient harm on a gaggle of us "infidels." Probably not with threats to a political entity either, for his political allegiance, like his religious faith, is to Islam and its "Caliphate."
But threats to Islam and its most revered sites are another matter.
Islamic terrorists are motivated by Islamic fanaticism. They apparently believe, sincerely, that their bloody service to Islam will win them favor with Allah. But even the dimmest and most vicious of them would have to take fresh stock if the inevitable consequences of their actions included the destruction of Mecca and Medina.
Short of the complete elimination of Islam from the world, there's no way to eliminate all the places Islamic militancy can breed, hide, and plot. That butcher's bill exceeds anyone's capacity to contemplate. We could never live with ourselves thereafter. But to deter Islamic terrorists by making it plain that a major strike against America or Israel would entail the utter destruction of those sites most valued by Muslims is thinkable. It would enlist all Muslims everywhere -- 1.3 billion persons -- in the effort to restrain the terrorists. It would also be free of bloodshed, at least in principle: we could announce that the strikes would take place in two weeks' time, so that the population of those cities could be evacuated before we destroy them.
Obviously, there are details to be worked out. For one, it would be necessary to make our commitment to do this thing absolutely unretractable. Otherwise, the Saudis, the government most directly affected by the destruction, would use "negotiations" to pull our teeth. For another, we would have to arrange for appropriate prior authorization for the launch, as there's no guarantee that the president, the only American official with the power to trigger a nuclear strike, would be alive and competent at the appointed hour. But these problems seem surmountable.
In short, Representative Tancredo has the right of it, and his critics do not.
Our ability to defend ourselves, in the sense of averting blows against us, is less than it's ever been. Our ability to deter potential attackers, however, is not. The secret to deterrence is finding that which the enemy values more than the prospect of damaging us, and holding it hostage to his good behavior. In a war animated by the Islamic pseudo-religion, the identities of those hostages should be obvious.
Comments
I too agree with you and Tancredo. Time to lay all the cards on the table and stop pussy-footin’ around. Why on earth should Mecca be off-limits under these circumstances but especially since one of these nut-job groups have advised the Vatican is a target?
The ‘rough men’ must do what they must and the righteous realists must permit them to do so while ignoring the whiners, who can cover their eyes if they must, if we are to come out of this intact.
Posted by on 07/20/2005 at 10:38 AMThe problem with this plan is that deterrence works much better in a two-player game than a multiplayer game.
A beleivable threat to nuke Mecca or Medina is a deterrent to Muslim terrorists. But it’s also an opportunity for other organizations who’d like to see Mecca or Medina nuked, and who would find it much easier to smuggle a nuke into NYC or LA than into Mecca / Medina - which is pretty much everyone who isn’t a Saudi royal.
And if those people consider either the loss of the American city or the followup war between the US and the Muslim world a feature rather than a bug, they’d be incentivized to use a one-and-only nuke on us *instead* of on Mecca.
Are there any candidates for that third party? How are Hindu-Muslim relations in India and Kashmir? If the Chinese wanted to invade Taiwan, would they be interested in seeing the Muslim world enraged at the US? Are there any Jewish or Christian extremist organizations who’d like to trigger a worldwide US-vs-the-Muslims conflict?
Posted by on 07/20/2005 at 02:02 PMThey’re not deterable? Pakistan has been deterred from using its nukes.
They’re not all suicidal. The top people have shown very little inclination to do their own exploding.
They are, of course, very good at pretending to be unanimously suicidal.
Posted by Joseph Hertzlinger on 07/20/2005 at 04:53 PMThanks for gettin’ my back, Fran.
Posted by Joe on 07/20/2005 at 07:53 PMI don’t know if I’m with you and Tancredo or not. While I agree it’s lunacy to randomly take any target off the table, I’m not at all convinced a Muslim holy site would be a good strategic target or deter the fanatics or fence sitters in the Muslim world.
The random Ali on the street went loco over the Koran flushing story. I don’t quite believe they will hunt down the extremists in their midst if we bomb a shrine. Chances are equal they’ll rally to the cause believing we really do want to kill them all. Not a perfect analogy, but the majority of Southerns who had no stake in slavery, yet rallied to the Confederacy comes to mind as a real possibility.
Al Queda has a vested interest in convincing these “moderates” that this is exactly our plan, so I see it potentially playing right into their hands.
As for the terrorists themselves being worried about our taking out a holy site, I’m not convinced of that either. It wouldn’t suprise me to learn they are hoping we do precisely that to gain millions more active recruits.
I have no problem doing it if it serves our goals and needs, I’m just not convinced it would do so and indeed, it might likely have the opposite effect.
It depends largely on whether there is a significant group of more moderate Muslims who could be persuaded to join us if they believe we are winning and can protect them from the radicals. Some, yes. Enough to make a difference one way or the other? I don’t know the answer to that question.
The problem with all these Tancredo denoucments is that it precludes having just this sort of discussion. Instead of having a rational analysis on the various merits or drawbacks of the idea, we have a bunch of ladies having the vapors over the very idea.
Posted by Lana on 07/20/2005 at 09:58 PMThreats made to Vatican:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=721558
Posted by on 07/21/2005 at 01:18 AMOne practical problem: Israel, with 1 million Muslim citizens, 200 alleged nukes, and a delivery system of global range, would immediately extend its umbrella over Mecca at the first rattling of this saber.
Pakistan and Iran will be able to take up the slack in a few years, but for now a credible threat against Mecca or Medina would have to accept swift Israeli (and perhaps French) retaliation against dozens of US cities. I don’t think the US has the stomach to call this bluff.
Posted by on 07/21/2005 at 01:49 PMI’m not sure I agree with the nuke idea either, but only because it doesn’t seem tramatic enough to get through to the fanatics. I think instead we should consider the whole-scale desecration of the holy sites of Islam with air dropped pig entrails; preferably in enough volume to coat the cities hip deep, occupants and all.
Posted by on 07/21/2005 at 04:02 PMIt’s simple. They hate us for our freedom. Once we finish getting rid of it, they won’t hate us any more.
Posted by on 07/21/2005 at 04:16 PMMr. Burton, are you expecting me to believe that France is going risk its only remaining source of military power - sub launched nuclear missiles - in attempting to attack America over Mecca? Do you honestly think that French missile subs are quiet enough to avoid American attack subs AND our warning network in the Atlantic?
The Israelis would be in an even worse boat since their ‘delivery system of global range’ is also sub-based. Their boats would have further travel and must pass through either the Suez Canal or the Straits of Gibraltar to begin to get close to the US mainland.
Sir, I think you vastly overestimate the reach of French or Israeli nuclear weapons. Both nations have focused on intertheater, not intercontinental, range arsenals.
Posted by on 07/23/2005 at 12:53 AMIsrael has Shavit-2 in addition to their three fleet subs, and the French M45 can MIRV Denver and Dallas from inside the Mediterranean.
Posted by on 07/24/2005 at 04:43 PM
