Rep. Tom Tancredo isn't backing down from controversial comments he made last week when he told a Florida radio host that the U.S. should threaten to bomb Mecca if Islamic terrorists successfully detonate a nuclear device in America.
"If this [terror attack] happens, and if, in fact, we can prove that it was perpetrated by some fundamentalist Islamic - 'Islamo-fascist' is really I think what we should call them - then you might think about this as a threat, the retaliation on their holy sites," Tancredo told Fox News.
"We are talking about a situation where our very lives are at stake, not just the life of the United States, but of Western civilization," he insisted.
Last Thursday, Tancredo was asked about the prospect of an al-Qaida nuclear attack on U.S. soil. He told WFLA Florida radio host Pat Campbell: "You know, there are things that you could threaten to do before something like that happens - and then you may have to do afterwards - that are quite draconian."
The Colorado Republican then explained: "What if you said something like: If this happens in the United States and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims - you know, you could take out their holy sites." Asked if he was talking about bombing Mecca, Tancredo replied: "Yeah."
In remarks this week the Colorado Republican said that it was up to "moderate Islam" to head off the next spectacular attack. "[If] Moderate Islam [is] to survive, [it] has got to help in this fight. And if it takes some sort of catalytic statement like the one I made to help us move down that path, I guess I'm willing to say we have to go that way."
Tancredo suggested that Muslim leaders could start by cracking down on hate speech by radical imams. "I'm offended when I hear the things that are said in mosques in the United States about the United States," he told MSNBC. "I'm offended by what comes out of the schools that are called madrassas that are nothing but really, in many cases, simply breeding grounds for future terrorists." "It's going to take Islam reforming itself, taking care of this problem itself," he insisted.
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