The Pendragon's Hall

The conflicted Pendragon feels the need to respond to Tom Tancredo's suggestion that any future terrorist attack be answered by bombing Mecca. On the one hand, well, he's just desperately trying to get some support for his floundering presidential campaign. And in reality nobody would ever do it. Yet I also sympathize with critics who note that bombing Mecca would not solve anything. Yet again the problem with fighting wars is that if someone hates you enough to attack you, any response you make is bound to make them hate you more. Even if the US only responded by flattening the house the masterminds of the attack were in, their friends would use the retaliation as an excuse to recruit more for their campaign of terror. Only the annihilation of the West and all it stands for will satisfy these people. By all means, let's engage in rational debate over the desirability of bombing Islam's holiest site (something they would not hesitate to do to any religion, or even their own, with whom they happened to disagree), but let's not have commentators, conservative or liberal, telling us that bombing Mecca would raise any more militant Islamists than bombing Al-Qaeda headquarters in the wastelands of Pakistan. It won't. It'll have exactly the same effect.

There does appear to be good news from the front in Iraq. President Bush's political fortunes rise in conjunction with the good news (further proof his legacy is tied to victory in Iraq, which justifies his continuing obsession with it) but are rising much faster than the fortunes of his Democratic opponents in Congress. Nevertheless I counsel all supporters of the war to not let your guard down. This is still not going to be easy. Our opponents are waiting on tenterhooks for us to say, "Oh, it's all over. We've won and it's all downhill now." Then the first bad news will have them gloating over how stupid we were. Wars are messy affairs--lots of ups and downs--and a plan made from outside the war zone rarely works to perfection on the ground. Eisenhower noted that during the World War he had to change plans repeatedly because some facet just wouldn't work and had to be discarded. And he was one of the greatest generals in American history. Let's not assume we know more than he did.