In WWII the Allies bombed the church that held DiVinci’s “The Last Supper”. Imagine that! **THAT** was their commitment to crushing fascism under the heal of rational Western Civilization.
Personally, I am tired of Vietnams, and Iraqs, and Afganistans, and “winning the hearts and minds of the people”.
If the U.S. is not totally and completely **dedicated** with single minded purpose of getting a complete, total, and fundamental attitude change from **all** of the enemy's people, then it isn't worth the lives of those who must go to fight. And...The dollars spent to fund these “actions” also represent hours of **life** spent in labor to create those dollars.
In WWII the Allies bombed the historic monastery of Monte Cassino even though they had been told that there were no Germans there, just civilians--they killed a lot of civilians. I was looking at the
Foreign Relations of the United States volumes for 1944--the Vatican complained more than once about bombing attacks that served no military purpose but just killed civilians. I don't know what the reason was--carelessness, or the feeling that the Italian civilians' lives didn't matter (that was after Italy changed sides).
At least da Vinci's "Last Supper" survived.