Islam forbids swine blood or flesh. Muslims are repulsed by pigs. Here’s a question that I posed to the Department of Defense (but never received an answer):
If the body of a dead terrorist were to be soaked in pig’s blood and/or wrapped in swine flesh and then buried, would this act of desecration deny the terrorist entry into paradise?
I know this question sounds insane. But is it any more insane than the Islamic mind-set that believes heavenly rewards are awaiting those Muslim martyrs who kill themselves along with dozens of unsuspecting “infidels”?
Perhaps the only way we can terrorize the terrorists is by using their own insane ideas against them.
There is a story I read in the Wall Street Journal several years ago about this very same idea. It seems that during the U.S. military campaigns in the Phillipines during the early part of the 20th century, General John “Blackjack” Pershing was in command. His troops were continuouly attacked by Muslim fanatics using guerrilla warfare tactics. At one point, Pershing’s men captured six of these guerrillas. He had them lined up and with great ceremony, he dipped the firing squad’s bullets into a container of pig’s blood and then had five of them shot. The sixth was allowed to escape back into the jungle. Guerrilla attacks ceased almost immediately.
Could this same tactic work now? The U.S. military could publicize the fact that all ammunition used in our war on terror would be laced with some type of swine flesh.
Again, I know I sound like a nut case, but as I stated above, we’re dealing with insanity. At least insanity sounds more sympathetic than calling them what they truly are: Bronze age, barbaric savages.
I just got off the phone with Allah. Yes, it would definitely deny his entry into Paradise.
Some background -
Probably a bad idea.
This question has been asked before and the answer is - nope, doesn’t work that way and the Pershing story is likely apocryphal as Telemark’s link points out.
It is remotely possible to find some superstitious ( probably synonomous with poorly educated in this case ) Muslims who believed such a thing. But the hardcore Jihadists have their own pet clerics and you can be certain that those would argue that any such deliberate desecration would be more than outweighed by the glory of martyrdom. That’s assuming there is anything to the idea in the first place and I’ve never found anything to suggest so.
Yes, pigs are unclean, yes ritual purity in important ( to varying degrees dependant on sect ), yes you are supposed to treat bodies in a particular way in burial. But functionally at least, Islam is generally not so rigid as to deny the afterlife to some unfortunate whose dead body happens to become contaminated in some way. To my understanding burial ceremonies are more for the living to show proper respect than it is for the already dead.
If anything it’d be yet another effective recruiting tool for terrorists.
Using insanity to fight insanity just isn’t what civilized cultures are supposed to do. Defeats the message.
What if we surround possible suicide bomb targets with pigs? Like build a pig farm adjacent to the green zone wall, all the way around.
This whole idea is for people who think there’s a “magic-bullet” solution to the problem of terrorism. Life isn’t a video game or movie where there’s some secret foolproof way to defeat the villains.
Just don’t make our soldiers bite the cartridges- that sort of thing has caused problems in the past…
And anyway, if the terrorists were worried about this sort of thing, why wouldn’t they just use IEDs, which makes it rather unlikely that they’ll be shot with any of our ammunition? Or they might take to hijacking planes- AIUI, it would be rather difficult to sort out the bits that had belonged to the Muslim terrorists after a typical plane crash. And spreading swine flesh over the whole crash site would offend the families of any non-terrorist Muslims (or animal rights activists), as well as being impractical and messy.
What, up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A won’t work?
Even if this crazy ass plan worked, wouldn’t we just be providing further incentive for terrorist acts that don’t leave a body?
The original email in the linked Snopes site suggests keeping a baby pig on board every airliner. Never mind that it would have to be fed, cared for, etc.
Insert airline food joke here.
As I understand it, dogs are also ritually unclean in Islam. It would be better to keep a cute, friendly dog on board. Maybe that would help some people who are scared of flying, too.
That might be an improvement, try to accurately fly a plane into a building with no pilot.
Not that you could find enough of the body to desecrate anyway.
I see your point, but what does that have do with our culture, which slipped the surly bonds of civilization years ago? 