The argument that you are making is the exact argument the terrorist need for civilized people with lofty ideals to make: that it is OK for them to butcher you, but not OK for you to butcher them in return.
I happen to like the way we live here, I like the fact that I can assume the reasonable expectation of not being butchered by some Islamic religious f#%k on my way to work on your average work day.
I like that.
I don't want to live the way Israel lives.
So when a group of people show the willingness, and the ability to do what they did to us on 9/11, we have to take them out.
I don't want to enact draconian laws, and do more damage to our already damaged civil rights. I don't want military police at the airpost, I don't want to spend more hours just trying to get on an airplane to go somewhere within my own friggin' country.
And I really don't like the fact that someone else is dictating all these policies to me via killing innocent people, our people, on our own soil.
It's like being trained to become Pavlov's Nation.
I want the things they used to be, unless WE decide to change them.
So what do you do? You go out, and make damned sure that the whole world understands three damned things:
1) You are not going to take this crap from any individual, group, or nation out there without some serious massive retaliation.
2) You are not allowing any foreign government to harbor, foster, or in any way protect people who would do these sort of thing without bringing it down.
3) You got the muscle to do whatever you want to do.
Then you go out and waste a few that needed wasting just to let everyone know that you are dead serious.
They will bitch, and moan, and not like us very much (they don't know), and they'll leave us the hell alone.
Then I we go back to having the ability to assume the reasonable expectation of not being butchered by some Islamic fanatical f#%k on our way to work on an average work week.
Works for me.
Works for me.
Well said, Luis!