In the midst of a rambling blog post arguing that a large terrorist attack on American soil before November “puts Trump in the White House for certain,” former Twitter activist Andrea Hardie makes a rather startling pronouncement: She would support nuking Mecca if she thought it would be an “effective” way to strike a blow against Islam.
No, really:
I don’t think Trump will nuke Mecca or anywhere else, for the simple reason that it won’t be effective. Nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved millions of lives and ended the war decisively, because it brought Japan to its knees. Nuking Mecca won’t bring the Islamic world to its knees – quite the opposite. Trump isn’t going to do it for that reason. If nuking Mecca stood a chance of being effective, I’d be fully in support of the measure.
Emphasis mine.
In addition to being the birthplace of Muhammad and the most sacred city for the world’s 1.57 billion Muslims, Mecca is home to roughly two million residents, and the number of people in the city “more than triple[s] every year during the hajj (“pilgrimage”) period,” as Wikipedia notes.
In other words, Ms. Hardie, better known on the Internet under her pseudonyms Janet Bloomfield and JudgyBitch, would support the murder of as many as six million people of a particular religious persuasion if she thought it would be an effective way to rid the world of that religion.
Six million, where have I heard that number before?
Despite being permabanned from Twitter, Hardie is still listed on A Voice for Men as the site’s “Director [of] Social Media,” and she was one of the speakers at last month’s International Conference on Men’s Issues in London, organized by AVFM and Mike Buchanan of the UK’s spectacularly unsuccessful Justice for Men and Boys party.
I’m not quite sure how murdering three million Muslim men and boys — in addition to another three million women and girls — would enhance the rights of men, or boys, or anyone.
Right? And on her…it ain’t even hot.
What an absolutely repugnant human being.
I’ll let my friend George further elaborate on how this makes me feel.
OK, I need feel-good stuff now. I’m going to go look at pictures of the link-up on the Elbe, 25 April 1945 and watch videos of the Leonov and Stafford on the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission.
Since JB is reading our comments, I figure this a good time to mock her for trying to trick us into doxxing a feminist activist for her.
For those who weren’t here yet, ahead of the avfm conference, they claim there were threats made. JB decided to blame a local feminist activist with zero evidence and came into the comments here to ask us if we knew her. She pretended to be concerned about the feminist possibly being arrested for a threat she didn’t plan to follow through on but it was pretty clear she was phishing.
Of course, nobody bought it and she was thoroughly mocked by everyone here.
Good times.
Too late to edit, but I finally found the thread.
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/06/01/a-voice-for-mens-threatener-in-chief-paul-elam-demands-that-feminists-pay-security-costs-for-his-groups-conference/comment-page-6/#comment-409790
Knowing the global and local effect of nuclear weapons, why would you want to use one??? Holy shit.
@authorialAlchemy
Well, during the Cold War, NATO and the USSR, *didn’t* want to use them. Each side had several opportunities (Cuban Missile Crisis, 1973 Arab-Israeli War crisis) and chose to avoid war. We didn’t avoid WWIII during 1945-1989 out of just luck. Both sides actually chose NOT to fight, for which they actually deserve credit that has never properly been given. Each side seemed to think the others’ claim of “we want peace….” was just propaganda. I think the evidence shows the reality was a lot more nuanced. Although each side in the Cold War did some bad things, the fact is that both U.S. and Soviet leaders did more than avoid war. Multiple times when faced with a real opportunity to cause great destruction, they consciously chose not to do so and chose peace instead.
@Pavlov’s House
I believe authorialAlchemy’s comment was more about JB and the rest of the nukemecca crowd.
That said, regarding the Cold War, it miiight also have something to do with how both sides raced to accumulate the largest quantities of the biggest, meanest nukes they could produce*, as a “deterrent”. The fragile balance was theoretically maintained by the fear on each side that the first shot fired could ignite worldwide nuclear war, something that just about no one would’ve walked away from afterwards.
Not to mention that said “peace” was punctuated by proxy wars, like Afghanistan (which ultimately led to the current situation…). They didn’t exactly opt out of war, they just were extra cautious. The amount of research that went into developing technologies to neutralize incoming nukes – and then technologies to prevent your own nukes from being neutralized by the other guy’s equivalent tech – shows how badly each side wanted to fire their nukes. They just wanted to be able to do so without eating giant fireballs themselves.
*The Tsar Bomba is a famous and somewhat funny example. When the USSR test-fired their prototype of an absolutely massive hydrogen bomb, the result was so destructive it actually scared them the hell out of ever producing more or even considering using them. That’s right, THE FREAKING RUSSIANS were scared of their own weapon. That’s how fucking terrifying that thing was.
And that’s all a testament to how incredibly stupid JB and the nukemecca crowd are : keeping those things as a strategic deterrent against your neighbor’s own nukes is already pretty questionable and problematic. But actually wanting to use them ? Holy shit.
Is that woman getting stranger? She’s gone from tweeting the word ‘whore’ at feminists to setting up a twitter stream yelling for Islam to be nuked.
I’ve been reading the alt right on and off for about three years, and the prominent ones who are still blogging have all followed the same trajectory – they start out with views that are still within the boundaries of normal (Roosh was just another sex tourist) and then they begin sounding paranoid, angry and apocalyptic.
Playing with this ideology is toxic.
(Deep breathe for first post ever–)
I always find it ironic how both sides of the political spectrum in the West deal with Islam. Muslims as a group are conservative, and therefore have values that fall much closer to those of western conservatives than liberals, but the liberals tolerate them to a much greater extent. I think the reason for this is the xenophobia that is also rampant in conservatism. If a conservative Muslim society attacks women it’s bad (which it is), but it’s perfectly fine for JudgeBitch to do it because she’s white and wannabe American.
(I’m liberal and non-xenophobic, by the way.)
@Bazia
Seriously? Women are constantly told our ideas must be coming from someone else. I don’t care how unpleasant of a person she is; she’s still capable of coming up with her own ideas and there’s absolutely no reason to believe otherwise.
@ pavlov’s house
That was interesting; cheers. You may already have read up about the Tokyo Tribunals. They’re a bit neglected as most people concentrate on Nurenberg, but they’re more relevant for modern integration all law. Also though they shed a lot of light on what was happening in Japan in terms of control. Of course they were skewed a bit by the Allies’ aim to keep the emperor out of it and his subordinates willingness to go along with that.
Also, I love the USSR’s history in space exploration. That’s another area that’s oft neglected. The secrecy at that time has a lot to do with that, but it’s a history of unsung heroes (and heroines) and amazing technology abandoned through lack of funding.
@ sinkable john
The Tsar Bomba was only tested at half yield too. Of course, the whole point of nuclear weapons is that they’re too terrifying to contemplate. In many ways I find the smaller tactical ones more scary than the strategic ones though; there might be less inhibition about using them. Still, the Kashmir situation would suggest that it’s recognised that use of even small nuclear weapons is a line not to be crossed.
@HSL
Thanks for the heads-up.
@Sinkable John
I’ve barely retained anything from the Spanish and French lessons I’ve taken in various years of schooling, but I can bust out a little French in your honor. Bonne anniversaire, mon ami!
To elaborate on my last comment: I can still read things in Spanish and/or French and parse out their basic meaning, but I can hardly ever remember how to translate what I’m thinking from English to Spanish/French. I also know a few scattered words of Russian and Chinese. Basically I’m fascinated by foreign languages but have a hard time with retention.
@Alan:
Re Japanese surrender:
I’m not a historian and I can’t quote specific books, but I recall reading that the Japanese peace offers in December 1944 and in July 1945 (the Foreign Ministry ones) both offered to surrender Japan’s colonial empire and the lands they’d conquered. However, they asked that Japan be permitted to retain its (military) government and not be placed under military occupation, and those were terms unacceptable to the Americans.
Given what happened in Manchuria on 9 August 1945, the lack of military occupation may only have been temporary anyway.
Re space:
There was an exhibition earlier this year at the Science Museum (the London one) about the Soviet space programme. It was fascinating; I knew a lot of the space science already but hadn’t known about the politics involved.
Sergei Korolev, it turns out, ran the programme as more or less a personal empire. He was pretty ruthless about using bureaucratic tools to isolate and remove anyone who threatened his personal control, meaning that by the time of his death in 1966 everything was dependent on his personal signoff, and the project was funded through his personal loyalty to Krushchev rather than through normal channels. Predictably, this meant that after 1966 everything was thrown into anarchy and the Soviets were unable to continue their space programme. Had he not died, the first person on the moon may well have borne a hammer and sickle.
The moral of the story is that bureaucratic agencies should not be designed like those levels from Nintendo games which collapse when the boss is defeated.
Re Tsar Bomba:
Edward Teller ran some maths afterwards and was disappointed to discover that a larger bomb would have been useless, since there is an upper limit to the atmosphere’s ability to absorb energy. He also concluded that it is not in fact possible to set the atmosphere on fire, regardless of how hard you try.
Teller was probably the only human being who ever lived who could feel disappointed that this was the case.
From my limited history knowledge, the nuclear bomb on the Japan was all but useless. The Japanese were already willing to surrender, and just wanted to see if they could be not humiliated. They did not get humiliated in the end.
As far as the russian space program go, there were way too many avoidable and pitiful deaths, a lot of which were perfectly avoidable by taking time to do thing correctly. It’s one of the black spot of USSR to me.
Oh look! Ann Coulter’s Mini Me is running amok.
@ EJ
The politics of space exploration in the early days is fascinating; on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Nowadays everyone knows about Werner Von Braun; but what’s often forgotten is that his lot were very much the “B Team”. The U.S. Navy were prioritised in terms of resources and access to facilities. It has been, plausably, suggested that the first successful launch of WVB’s rocket version was unauthorised. Basically “Can we have some pad time to static test this motor? Oops, wrong button”.
@Nikki
Merci bien 🙂
(although, I hate to be that guy, but it’s bon anniversaire, because gendered nouns which don’t make sense)
@Alan
I agree those are even scarier. Horrible tactical decisions seem much more easy to justify than strategic ones before or after the deed is done – but even a “small” nuking would set a precedent and/or risk escalation. Besides, in the current climate, with certain, say, “non-governmental outfits” having a knack for procuring military gear, well… safe to say that the whole world would have reasons to be scared shitless if Davy Crocketts and the like were still around.
I mean, seriously. Who ever thought it was a good idea to design a nuke that can be carried around and fired by, what, three guys driving a jeep ?
@EJ (The Other One)
You mean the only one other than Trump ? As far as I know, he only wants to be president so he can build beautiful walls AND blow as much shit up as possible. Not necessarily in that order.
@Nikki
Yep. German for me. Can’t speak it for shit anymore. Always a jolt of… accomplishment(?) seeing it on the page and going ‘Hey! I know what that means! Mostly!’
@ sinkable john
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the same team that developed a man portable nuclear device (the SADM; used the same MK-54 warhead)
They did initially make some sense in pure combat (and financial) terms. One jeep or APC could replace an entire artillery regiment, but with much improved speed and flexibility. Politically though it was recognised that replacing conventional forces would mean that there would be no option but to use nuclear weapons even in minor skirmishes and this would lead to almost inevitable escalation to strategic use (the West German govt was quite keen on them though for perhaps obvious reasons).
@ sinkable john
Hey, what do you have against the private sector? Typical pinko. I suppose if it were up to you nuclear weapons would be nationalised. That’s socialism for you.
But yeah, small scale proliferation of nuclear weapons is a scary thought. You could knock up a sub 15Kt fission device in a shed if you could get the U235. Such a device would be a terror weapon though, and if that’s your aim a dirty bomb is much more practicable and would probably be equally as effective psychologically.
Ironically you could create a much bigger explosion with an LPG tanker ship. Good job terrorists are no good at hijacking ships. Oh, wait…
The terrorists alway amaze me by how bad they are at the whole terrorism stuff. Which is good because the police seem to have trouble finding them regardless.
@Alan
Well I didn’t mean the private sector but yeah, them too. But right now I’m actually more scared of ISIS ever getting their hands on actual nuclear devices. I mean, a dirty bomb, alright, that’s bad because of the panic it would cause (also I’d like to thank JB for fueling said panic in the same post in which she advocates for nuking Mecca – great job, JB, that’s literally doing their job for them there). But it would only work once. Actual nukes ? That’s some actual bite with the bark, and it’s repeatable.
Heh. Ever read Barjavel’s Ravage (Ashes, Ashes) ?
I say let the laws of reality be rewritten (MRAs try this all the time, so why not me, plus the cause is good for once) so that all nuclear weaponry stops functionning. Plus it doesn’t work the same as nuclear power, so totally doable without also suppressing the power plants. Problem solved forever or at least until we move on to antimatter (if Peter F. Hamilton is any good indication).