I thought I’d use this week’s column for a lighthearted discussion about ethnic cleansing.

To simply hear the words “ethnic cleansing,” you might not think that it’s such a bad thing. When one normally thinks of cleansing, he or she thinks of disinfecting the kitchen or mopping the floor before company comes over.

To those unfamiliar with the horror that it really is, ethnic cleansing may instead sound like some sort of national bath day for Serbia.

Or perhaps ethnic cleansing is how Sudanese teenagers raise money for their volleyball teams. Just as American teenagers will wave signs in front of gas stations, offering car washes so their team can go to D.C. for the national championship.

Perhaps the kids of war-ravaged nations hold ethnic-cleansing fundraisers to purchase airfare for trips to The Hague.

But sadly, ethnic cleansing is none of these things. It is the systematic execution of a group of people whose only crime is that they happen to eat smelly food and wear ugly clothes. And it must be stopped!

But how? How can we put an end to ethnic cleansing?

I have been thinking about how to end this atrocity, and aside from the obvious (though impractical) solution of interbreeding every type of human until we’re indistinguishable from each other, I think I may have found the answer: strip malls.

You see, at the heart of every ethnic struggle is typically a conflict over land or economic resources. But suburban strip malls, with their ample parking and array of fantastic restaurants and stores, are all the resources a region needs to survive.

If we were to put a Best Buy, Target, Qdoba, Starbucks, Cold Stone, Cosi, and another Starbucks in places like Darfur, they’d be so busy shopping and eating that they would no longer feel compelled to disassemble each other as though they were their sisters’ Barbie dolls. (Of course, I’m assuming that there are still problems in Darfur. Like most of us, I lost track of all international concerns once football season started.)

If you think I’m wrong, just think of every place in America that doesn’t have strip malls. In rural farming areas where strip malls are scarce, pigs and cattle are slaughtered by the thousands. Sure, it’s under the guise of “providing food.”

But it’s still the systematic killing of a group of species whose only crime is that they happen to be delicious when roasted. If only these people had a Whole Foods Market with a Starbucks in it, they wouldn’t feel compelled to kill their cattle. They could simply relax, sip a latte and buy all the steak they need.

Let’s keep this in mind should the entire world sink into recession. Instead of spending money on NATO troops (which is the equivalent of hiring a mall security guard to bust a drug ring), let’s invest in mass commercialism. At the very least, the warlords will be able to enjoy a nice latte after a long day of dismembering their rivals.

Jeremy Greenberg is a writer, comedian and an Eastside resident. He is the author Relative Discomfort: The Family Survival Guide. Learn more at www.relativediscomfort.com