"From the gut (and the heart)" Editorials by Paul Olivier Do you get it now? If you did not get it from my last article, I can understand: following me jumping from thought to thought you need intuition and imagination. The tittle of my last article was: "After the war: Where was Mecca?" I am not optimistic about how the conflict with the Islamists will develop. With an approach as employed at this time still American soldiers have to fight and  die. At home the American people are still under the threat of terrorist attacks. This strategy will take a long time and many people will die. What I suggested was to threaten that what is the most valuable to Islam. What would Islam be without Mecca? Without Kaaba? I am not suggesting to nuke that city with all its inhabitants. They can have 24 hours to move out, 48 hours? I don't care, a week. One more attack and that would be it! The prospect of the destruction of that city and may be Medina and Riyadh as well,  might give the "good" Muslims enough reason to take care of the "bad" Islamists. Without those three cities, their culture would be without anchor and to me not to big a loss. The threat alone could be enough to avoid any more dead Americans. Whether it is the President or Rumsfeld or Ashcroft or Reis, they all have promised us more of the same as 9-11 and worse. The "bring them to justice" is taking the long road. Talking softly and showing the big stick to the so called friends in Riyadh might be the short cut necessary to solve the problem without the continued bloodshed. A problem could be that they,  the Muslims don't buy, without sample. That is not so much a problem as keeping fighting and dying and in the end still have to use the "big stick".  Why not knock-out in the second round, rather than get beaten black and blue and wait till round fifteen. For the audience? Or the betting? You see, I am not optimistic: I think it's inevitable: In the end the big stick has to be used anyway.  Email Paul Your Comments Past Editorials   Date 03/00/2002