Citizen Journal

I don’t bother to read Kos anymore (although I find myself skimming the headlines) because he simply doesn't add anything reasoned to a debate. If he's taken a breather from his Rove/Plame hysteria, he’s probably calling Tancredo/Republicans as sinister, evil bastards.

But I think some conservatives have it wrong this time, too. Two examples:

Michelle Malkin wrote that the “right thing” would be to retract the comments and added: “The controversy does raise a very serious issue: What should we do to deter the jihadist threat, nuclear or otherwise?”

For one thing this isn’t the issue Tancredo "raises"; we’ve been talking about “deterrence” for nearly 4 years (though it’s debatable whether that dialogue’s been an honest one). To his credit, Tancrendo introduced the unimaginable, before it happens, into the public debate (and we often read that unimaginable will happen).

Then there's Ed Morrissey ("Captain Ed"), who seems queasy with the bravado:

The idea that the US would retaliate in such a manner should be repulsive to any rational person, no matter where they fall on the political spectrum….Besides, who is Tom Tancredo to make these threats anyway? He doesn't have anything to do with the military chain of command or the national security systems that would make those kinds of recommendations. He certainly doesn't speak for the President, who has to make the final determination in loosing those weapons on any target.

For starters, “repulsive to any rational person” isn’t debate – it’s name-calling. And Tancredo didn’t even imply he’d be involved with the decision - he made no “threat." To his credit, Morrissey responds to some readers, and this is where we can tackle substance. Among his them (to a reader who likened a Mecca bomb to those used against Japan): “we were at war with Japan and both cities had significant military production facilities. We also gave them plenty of warning on both and an opportunity to surrender each time.”

This is a "distinction without a difference"; if Mecca’s a strategic hit in an asymmetric war, so it goes. And we'd give notice (did Tancredo imply otherwise?). The point, after all, wouldn’t be to kill people. As in ending WWII, it would be to save American lives, even if at the terrible expense of enemy civilian lives. I'm not sure why Morrissey goes on to buy into the silliness about "creating enemies," which is textbook liberal-think: a fearsome military engenders hatred. Lest we forget: Our enemies already hate us. (And so long as Japan is a point of reference, let’s not forget they hated us, too, but somehow that dissipated, at least to the point Japan recognized that peace was theirs for the asking, which wouldn't have happened hadn't they realized the US wasn't weak and feeble, as they'd been taught.)

Morrissey goes on to say what we should do if terrorist were to carry out the unthinkable:

1. Take out the air forces of the two nations we know to support terrorists -- Syria and Iran; 2. Destroy all nuclear facilities in Iran, to the best of our intelligence; 3. Bomb all known militarily-related manufacturing facilities.

And our enemies would laugh and laugh and laugh. (I thought we aren't at war with any one country - what of the civilians?) And what on earth would this do to prevent a militant, non-statist terrorist from acquiring and detonating another nuclear bomb?

That is the uneasy question Tancredo brought up, and I'm glad he had the stones to do so. Is anyone willing to talk about it?