Yes, it would be so much easier if we acted like Saddam Hussein.
We don't take prisoners and now they are coming back and bombing and shooting us up.
We do take prisoners--when we actually have survivors to detain.
Now we're prosecuting officers because they're 'not nice' to the enemy?
We prosecute officers for disobeying orders. Maybe you wish to see the US military as a free-for-all social experiment; I do not.
I want to see smouldering turbans.
You're getting them now.
I want to hear about dead terrorists
Then complain to the news networks--they are not telling you what's really happening.
and I want terrified terrorist sympathizers begging to tell us what we need to know to kill more.
What you will get: terrorist sympathizers who decide that they have nothing to lose by suicide-bombing an American or two, and a lot more terrorist sympathizers helping them.
Terror does not achieve its intended goals. The Germans attempted to terrorize Britain into surrender. It didn't work; it merely stiffened the resolve of the British. The French attempted to terrorize the Algerians. The Algerians' will to resist increased with each act of repression and terror against them. The Nationalist Chinese attempted to terrorize the rural peasants into not supporting the Communists. They merely made the peasants more fervent supporters of the Communists.
Oh, please! Cut the Howie Dean act. Taking prisoners doesn't make us like Saddam Hussein and we let thousands go before the country was declared 'taken'. I'm not talking about anything like the examples you have given and you know it. Your examples are better pictures of what I mean. The Allies smashed Germany, Italy and Japan unrelentingly. It didn't make terrorists out of the Nazis. They already were. Coincidentally so are these radical Muslims.
Of all the Marines I have known I have never met one who is such an apologist for weakness under a cloak of lawful righteousness as you. I didn't suggest that orders should be shirked I said 'change them'!