Lumpy On TancredoOur buddy Lumpy over at Lump on a Blog has issued a challenge to "detractors of Tom Tancredo". It's a
terrific and thoughtful post. Unfortunately, it focuses on the question of whether Islam is or is not a religion of peace, and I confess it's pretty obvious that Lumpy knows a heckuva lot more on that score than I do.
Many believe that Islamic fundamentalism is a minority movement within the Muslim world. Our leaders tell us of the hijacking and perversion of a religion of peace by a few who adhere to a fascist ideology. We yell warnings at the top of our lungs that Islam is a religion of violence. They rebut that Christianity and Judaism were once religions of violence and that given enough time Islam will experience its own enlightenment. To which I rebut, there is no more time.So I'll skip that part for now, other than to note that there are millions of Muslims in America today, and thousands of them in the US military. But the number of them that have participated or would be willing to participate in terrorist attacks on the US is very small; Johnny Walker Lindh and Jose Padilla come to mind. The guys in Lodi, and the other cell in Buffalo.
For those who counsel a restrained response I have to ask myself: Would they feel the same way if they awoke tomorrow to country in ruins, on the verge of anarchy; a collapsed economy; one million dead, and their own lives and the lives of their children forever altered? Would they beg on the behalf of Islam for restraint? I doubt it.Probably not. But this is not the way Tancredo approached it. He was not talking about a US response
after a nuclear attack in the US. He
was talking about the threat of a US response
before such an attack:
But in statement this week, Tancredo said he was talking about a making a threat that might deter such an attack. He went on to say: "I do not advocate this."Not sure what he was
not advocating there--the threat or the actual retaliation. I don't think either make a lot of sense for reasons I've gone
into in the past.
