Unfortunately the lighting raid and swift counterattack is what has Israel in such hot water in much of the world community and losing international support. Any sort of lighting raid that disregarded civilian casualties would paint the US with the same brush, giving even more propaganda to the enemy, tying is straight in with Israel in not only alliance, but tactics.
In this war you have to think outside the box of "kill enough of 'em to make 'em quit". We're on a multi-front war, and one is fighting the propaganda of the enemy. Give the enemy this kind of propaganda and you'll just replace anyone you kill with a new terrorist. To win, you have to not only kill the enemy, but deny them the propaganda to recruit. Certainly they will propagandize as much as possible, but propaganda holds much more weight when backed by truth than by supposition.
Thanks for the replies. I think I agree with mld0806's
and Williams' comments the most. It would be pretty tough to prepare for such an attack and catch them "by surprise." You can't really hide that kind of preparation. That makes sense. We're probably doing the best job we could do there. Now I'd love to see Zarqawi beheaded by a well-placed surgical strike.
Oh, and yes I posted my own comments in the wrong place, I guess. Sorry, still getting used to the somewhat convoluted and ambiguous (compared to other boards) posting fields here.