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WSWS : News & Analysis : North America
US right wing discusses "nuking Mecca"
By Patrick Martin
15 March 2002
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The Bush administration tells the public that its nuclear weapons policy is aimed at
promoting peace and deterring terrorism. But within the ultra-right circles that play a
decisive role in the formulation of US government policy, the use of nuclear weapons
is seen not as an unthinkable last resort, but rather as a desirable option.
In this milieu, bloodlust goes hand in hand with jingoism and racism.
In a discussion on the web site of the National Review, one of the leading far-right
publications, senior editors suggested that in the event of a nuclear or radiation
device being used in a terrorist attack on the US, the appropriate response would be
to attack selected Arab capital cities with atomic bombs.
Writing on March 7, National Review editor Rich Lowry declared that among people
he spoke with there was �lots of sentiment for nuking Mecca. Moderates opt for
something more along these lines: �Baghdad and Tehran would be the likeliest sites
for a first strike. If we have clean enough bombs to assure a pinpoint damage area,
Gaza City and Ramallah would also be on list. Damascus, Cairo, Algiers, Tripoli and
Riyadh should be put on alert that any signs of support for the attacks in their cities
will bring immediate annihilation.��
When another National Review writer suggested that destroying Mecca might cause
permanent outrage among one billion Muslims, Lowry rejoined, �This is a tough one,
and I don�t know quite what to think. Mecca seems extreme, of course, but then
again, few people would die and it would send a signal.�
The National Review was briefly in the news last fall when one of its contributing
editors, Ann Coulter, pronounced herself in favor of new version of the medieval
Crusades. In response to Arab terrorism, she wrote in National Review Online, �We
should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.�
When the magazine issued a public apology� because of the embarrassment the
incident caused the Bush administration in its Mideast diplomacy�Coulter objected
and was dropped as a contributor.
In considering this public debate about how many millions to incinerate in the Middle
East, one must remember that Lowry and his colleagues have the closest political
and personal ties to the Republican Party, the Bush administration, and the Pentagon
brass. At last month�s Conservative Political Action Conference, where National
Review was a major sponsor, the speakers included National Security Adviser
Condoleeza Rice and Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson.
Casual discussion of mass murder is perfectly acceptable in political discourse in
these circles, and at the highest levels of the American state. But so cowardly and
cowed is the American press that not one reporter at Bush�s March 13 press
conference dared ask him what he thought about the homicidal ravings of his close
political allies.
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