Thinking The Unthinkable

In light of the recent remarks by Congressman Tancredo, it is perhaps a good idea to go back and read this post from The Belmont Club, which discusses the issue in some detail: The Three Conjectures:

Even if Islam killed every non-Muslim on earth they would almost certainly continue to kill each other with their new-found weaponry. Revenge bombings between rival groups and wars between different Islamic factions are the recurring theme of history. Long before 3,000 New Yorkers died on September 11, Iraq and Iran killed 500,000 Muslims between them. The greatest threat to Muslims is radical Islam; and the greatest threat of all is a radical Islam armed with weapons of mass destruction.

Conjecture 3: The War on Terror is the 'Golden Hour' -- the final chance

It is supremely ironic that the survival of the Islamic world should hinge on an American victory in the War on Terror, the last chance to prevent that terrible day in which all the decisions will have already been made for us. That effort really consists of two separate aspects: a campaign to destroy the locus of militant Islam and prevent their acquisition of WMDs; and an attempt to awaken the world to the urgency of the threat. While American arms have proven irresistible, much of Europe, as well as moderates in the Islamic world, remain blind to the danger and indeed increase it. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad recently "told an international conference of young Muslim leaders ... (that) ... Muslims must acquire skills and technology so they can create modern weapons and strike fear into the hearts of our enemies". Fecklessness and gunpowder are a lethal combination. The terrible ifs accumulate.

You will have to read the entire piece to fully understand why the attainment of Nuclear weapons by the Islamic radicals may well be the final nail in the coffin of Islam (at least according to this analysis).

However, I am somewhat taken aback at the hysteria unleased by both the Left and Right on Tancredo, who is surely expressing something that many people are feeling right now.

I am not saying that the course he suggests is the correct action in response to a nuclear attack on the US by the Islamofascists. Frankly, I don't know what an effective response would be, since there is no "nation" of Islam that can take responsibility for such an atrocity if it occurs.

But I daresay--human nature being what it is--the likelihood of Conjecture #2 in Wretchard's analysis coming to be once the nuclear threshold is crossed, is not at all unlikely. Tancredo's emotionally honest openness about the "unthinkable" is not dismaying as much as it is sobering --for both sides, one hopes.

All the more reason why we must continue to take this war against Islamofascism seriously, and why those elusive "moderates" of Islam need to take back control of their religion.