On a Crazy Politician

Either Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo has a serious case of foot-in-mouth disease or he’s batshit crazy. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt and say it’s the former, but it’s looking increasingly likely that it’s the latter.

Why do I say that Tancredo off his meds?

He said that, to deter Islamic terrorism, we should announce that we’ll flatten Mecca and Medina — Islam’s two holiest cities — if the United States is attacked.

No, really. He did:

On Tuesday, Tancredo warned a group of Iowans that another terrorist attack would “cause a worldwide economic collapse.” IowaPolitics.com recorded his comments.

“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,” Tancredo 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.”

And when the State Department said that Tancredo’s comments were “reprehensible,” Tancredo’s spokesperson, Bay Buchanan said: “his shows that we mean business.”

Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Tancredo’s idea of restraining Islamic terrorism is to actually incite the Muslim community by threatening the two holiest sites in the religion.

I get where Tancredo’s coming from — it’s Mutually Assured Destruction for the Age of Terror. But that thinking shows how misguided many of the neoconservatives are in their thinking toward the Middle-East; they think that what worked in containing the Soviet Union is just as applicable to containing radical Islamic fundamentalism. The problem with this approach should be obvious: the Soviets were fundamentally rational in their actions and had a top-down approach in their dealings with the West. Islamic fundamentalism has shown itself to be anything but rational, and terrorist cells are fly-by-night operations of rogue operators and lone wolfs. As Christopher Hitchens noted at Slate earlier this week Islam is not, by design, a moderate belief. Threatening the Islamic community as a whole for the theoretical actions of a few is only going to throw gas on a fire already burning thanks to the protracted American occupation of Iraq.

Tom Tancredo — foot-in-mouth sufferer or crazy loon? I’m voting the latter. Unfortunately, he’s a dangerous loon because of his words. :/

Published by Allyn

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

One thought on “On a Crazy Politician

  1. This was the plot of “The Sum of All Fears” (the novel, not the movie). Terrorists set of a bomb on U.S. soil and point the finger at Iran, in hopes that the U.S. will nuke an Islamic city and utterly destroy any hopes of peace or reconciliation in the Middle East. The book also features a weak-willed, easily manipulated president. Tom Clancy has gone WAY downhill but once upon a time he predicted the hell out of things…

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