{"id":207187,"date":"2015-12-09T03:39:57","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T03:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/cruz-threatens-to-nuke-isis-targets\/"},"modified":"2015-12-09T03:39:57","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T03:39:57","slug":"cruz-threatens-to-nuke-isis-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/cruz-threatens-to-nuke-isis-targets\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruz Threatens to Nuke ISIS Targets"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"129.6273166801\">\n<p><strong>Exclusive:<\/strong> Republican presidential campaign rhetoric is red-hot regarding Islamic terrorism, with Sen. Cruz\u00a0suggesting the\u00a0use of nuclear weapons to see \u201cif sand can glow in the dark,\u201d a\u00a0threat even more troubling than\u00a0Donald Trump\u2019s call to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the U.S., writes Robert Parry.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-16582\"\/>By Robert Parry<\/p>\n<p>As Republican presidential candidates lined up to one-up each other about how they would fight Islamic terrorism, many mainstream pundits questioned the hysteria and took particular aim at billionaire Donald Trump for seeking a moratorium on admitting Muslims to the United States, but Trump\u2019s proposal was far from the most outrageous.<\/p>\n<p>Getting much less attention was a statement by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who is considered by many a more likely GOP nominee than Trump. Cruz suggested that the United States should nuke the territory in Iraq and Syria controlled by Islamic State militants.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_16584\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" readability=\"33\"><a href=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ted-cruz-e1390769693468.jpg?a9b630\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16584\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif?a9b630\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ted-cruz-e1390769693468-300x198.jpg\" alt=\"Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican candidate for U.S. President.\" width=\"300\" height=\"198\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16584\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ted-cruz-e1390769693468-300x198.jpg\" alt=\"Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican candidate for U.S. President.\" width=\"300\" height=\"198\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican candidate for U.S. President.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we\u2019re going to find out,\u201d Cruz <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmoinesregister.com\/story\/news\/elections\/presidential\/caucus\/2015\/12\/05\/cruz-carpet-bomb-isis-into-oblivion\/76796154\/\"><u>told<\/u><\/a> a Tea Party rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In reference to Cruz\u2019s comment, a New York Times\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/12\/08\/opinion\/bizarre-responses-to-a-plea-for-reason.html?action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;clickSource=story-heading&amp;module=opinion-c-col-left-region&amp;region=opinion-c-col-left-region&amp;WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&amp;_r=0\"><u>editorial<\/u><\/a>\u00a0added, \u201cwhatever that means.\u201d But the phrase \u201cglow in the dark\u201d popularly refers to the aftermath of a nuclear bomb detonation.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, Cruz was making it clear to his audience that he would be prepared to drop a nuclear bomb on Islamic State targets. While the bombastic senator from Texas was probably engaging in hyperbole \u2014 as he also vowed to \u201ccarpet bomb them into oblivion\u201d \u2014 the notion of a major candidate for President cavalierly suggesting a nuclear strike\u00a0would normally be viewed as disqualifying, except perhaps in this election cycle.<\/p>\n<p>While Cruz drew little attention for his \u201cglow in the dark\u201d remark, Trump came under intense criticism for his proposal to block the admission of Muslims into the United States until the nation\u2019s leaders can \u201cfigure out what is going on\u201d in the aftermath of the Dec. 2 terror attack by a Muslim husband-and-wife team in San Bernardino, California.<\/p>\n<p>Across mainstream politics and media, Trump\u2019s idea <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/politics\/first-draft\/2015\/12\/07\/donald-trump-calls-for-banning-muslims-from-entering-u-s\/\"><u>was decried<\/u><\/a> as both&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2015\/12\/08\/cruz-threatens-to-nuke-isis-targets\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive: Republican presidential campaign rhetoric is red-hot regarding Islamic terrorism, with Sen. Cruz\u00a0suggesting the\u00a0use of nuclear weapons to see \u201cif sand can glow in the dark,\u201d a\u00a0threat even more troubling than\u00a0Donald Trump\u2019s call to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the U.S., writes Robert Parry. By Robert Parry As Republican presidential candidates lined up to one-up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-207187","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}