A Modest Proposal

Jonathan Swift wrote a satiric essay in which he proposed that the Irish could solve their famine via cannibalism (devouring infants). He was attacking English sensibilities that were numb to all but the strongest assault. Like Dean Swift, I have a modest proposal in the aftermath of the beheading of Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia. The al Qaeda gang is hellbent to hold hostages and commit atrocities. Shock and Awe in reverse. Like another of Swift's characters (Lemuel Gulliver among the Lilliputians), the United States is a giant rendered helpless to deal with the terrorists. However, there is a way. What is most important to Osama bin Laden and his ilk? As devout Islamists, they revere—above all else—Mecca. Mecca is a city in Saudi Arabia with 1.4 million inhabitants (2003 estimate). Mecca is located about 80 km from the Red Sea Coast, around a natural well. Mecca is the most holy city in Islam. The city is revered from being the first place created on earth, as well as the place where Ibrahim together with his son Isma'il, built the Ka'ba. The Ka'ba, the centre of Islam, is a rectangular building made of bricks. Around the Ka'ba is the great mosque, al-Haram, and around the mosque, in between the mountains, are the houses that make up Mecca. Mecca's importance as a centre of religious teaching must not be exaggerated. Very soon in the beginning of the Muslim expansion, religious teaching moved to other places in the Muslim world. Mecca is important in two points: Centre of the compulsory pilgrimage, and a focal point for all Muslims. My modest proposal is simply to notify all Islamist terrorists via worldwide media that Mecca is now a hostage of the United States of America. All terrorists will surrender within xx hours or the United States will notify the inhabitants of Mecca to vacate the city within xx additional hours. Noncompliance with either condition will result in the nuclear annhilation of the holiest site in Islam. Mecca will be ground zero for the most powerful nuclear weapons in our arsenal. Mecca will not only disappear, but it will be unihabitable for thousands of years. My proposal may be harsh, even barbaric, but beheading a captive is barbaric. Crashing airliners into buildings is barbaric. The al Qaeda gang reveres only one thing on this earth and that is Mecca. Nothing short of my modest proposal will bring resolution to the horror. The terrorists respect NOTHING about the United States or its culture. Why should the United States revere Mecca? If this is a (fair & balanced) fatwa, so be it.

[x NYTimes]
American Hostage Killed, Terror Group Says
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, June 18 — Paul M. Johnson Jr., the American engineer kidnapped last weekend by militants in Saudi Arabia, has been beheaded by his captors, an Al Qaeda group announced today.

"The infidel got his fair treatment," said a statement posted by the group on the Internet, according to a dispatch from Riyadh by The Associated Press. The dispatch said the statement, posted on a Web site where the Qaeda group often makes announcements, was accompanied by three photographs showing a headless body....