I honestly don't know. Bombing Mecca would be an attack on all of Islam and I don't think that would be the appropriate response unless the attack on us was coordinated by all of Islam, and not just a faction of crazy extremists.
We're in a tough position, no doubt about it. Sometimes in frustration I wish we would just nuke the entire Middle East and turn it into glass and then hunt down and kill every remaining Muslim on the planet. If we bombed Mecca and turned this into a war on all of Islam, that's basically what we'd have to do because we'd only get a tiny fraction of the billion or so Muslims in the world by nuking Mecca. I imagine the rest would be more than a little pissed off at us for destroying the holiest of the holy cities in their religion. Some people seem to think all Muslims would just turn their backs on their religion and give up if we bombed Mecca. I think we'd do just the opposite and turn huge numbers of the remaining hundreds of millions of Muslims who aren't out there committing terrorist acts or planning same into the type of crazy extremists we are fighting now.
I don't have the answers. This is a frightening time we are living in. I'm glad I don't have to decide how to proceed in this mess because I have no idea what to do.
It would be exactly the _correct_ and most appropriate response to take, if the United States is attacked with a nuclear weapon that destroys a city, or a biological weapon that creates mass casualties. By "mass casualties", I mean deaths and grievous injuries in the tens of thousands.
The fact that bombing Mecca would be tantamount (in your words) to "an attack on all of Islam" is precisely _why_ it would be required.
It would provide a response that is equal in force (what force OTHER THAN nuclear would, could, might _ever_ be an suitable response to the use of such weapons against US?), but SYMBOLIC in nature, without destroying any of the Islamic nations' major population centers. Indeed, we might not know from which country the contents of the weapon issued, or even who manipulated it into place. At that point, it might be a strategical mistake to destroy, say, Tehran when perhaps Syria or Islamabad might be the real (read: guilty) targets.
Almost every Freeper will agree that the "War on Terror" is, itself, a misnomer; that the _real_ war we are engaged in is with something else. That "something else" is Islam, which seeks the destruction of the West (indeed, of everything non-Islamic, by the design of the Quran).
There is no single nation, no specific capital, that we can point to as the instigator of this war. Or is there? Which city, frankly, is the "capital" of Islam itself? The city towards which _all_ Muslims pray?
I knew you could answer that.
Faced with [what at this time still seems] the unthinkable, perhaps without a specific Islamic nation onto which we can assign blame (and retribution), the United States must - and I emphasize MUST - be willing to strike back symbolically with overwhelming force against a target that will get the undivided attention of ALL Muslims EVERYwhere, and the leaders that govern them.
That message must be: "Islam's thirst for the destruction of the West must end NOW. We have demonstrated what you, as Islamic individuals and nations, will face if it does NOT stop. If you have any doubts, you need look no further than the ruins of your [once] holiest city. Behold what the teachings of Mohammed hath wrought!"
Never happen, you say? Perhaps. But the war that we are engaged in now isn't going to end this year, or this decade. It could become humanity's greatest struggle, the final battle between light and dark for the future of mankind. I was never deeply into the Bible, but if ever there might be an Armageddon, this could be it.
Someday, as this struggle progresses - and probably years after I am gone - the world may witness the destruction of Mecca as the climax of the War between the West and Islam. Frankly, I cannot foresee any other possible ending, if our side is to "win". Islam is incompatible with the West on the most fundamental terms: the two cannot co-exist in a world in which both sides have acquired nuclear technology (as an aside, the West could tolerate and resist Islam so long as their side had the equivalent of pocket knives to our guns, but that is no more). As such, there can be only one side triumphant. The other must wither, perhaps disappear.
I know which side _I_ want to win!
Cheers!
- John