I was once in a professional military education class that i need to complete in order to advance to my next rank and the a similar subject came up. I argued for complete war (gloves off, raping, pillaging, killing grandpa, grandma, junior and daughter, burying people in pig skins, etc.) in order to fight one war for all other wars. My theory was, our enemy already hates us - no matter how nice we as a country try to treat them.
An analogy the U.S. and insurgency are playing a game of football and we ( the U.S.) mandate to game be touch football. The insurgency touches sometimes, but often our players get absolutely hammered. We in-turn maitain stay the course and continue to play touch football in order to maintain the moral high ground.
It is my opinion that our enemies will continue to disregard us as a force until we take the fight to them in a manner they will understand. Yes, I think it will initially embolden the enemy, but I still don't think there is a force on this planet that can hang with the U.S. military in a total war.
Wrapping up my original point, when I said that during my class, I was looked at like I was on crack. People could not understand the concept. Some even laughed at me like I was an idiot. Their main argument was that we need other countries to be in agreement with us. I reasoned, most countries don't like the U.S. to being with (it is a jealousy thing) so which is better to be liked or feared?
No war is good, but I would rather fight just one and set an example than continue to live in the fog of constant war and terrorism. And if we keep playing nice with the enemy we will continue to live in that fog.
You said it. The rest of the world is not going to like us. Period. They haven't liked us since we emerged from WWII as a superpower and they're not going to start liking us now. Nobody likes the richest, most powerful family in town, especially when they're the richest and most powerful by many orders of magnitude. The best we can hope for is to be respected and feared. Respected and feared is good. Respected and feared is going to save American lives. Trying to be loved is getting people killed, and it's time to stop. I'm sick of being told to tolerate everyone's diversity. The rest of the world needs to stay in line or tolerate our fist.
It's way past time to kick butt, take names and straighten out some attitudes out in Iraq. Enough pussy footing around with the new Iraqi government, too. We need to do to them as we did to the Germans and Japanese. Hand them a constitution, appoint a government and tell them to get with the program. Tell them to stop the infighting or we'll be back to bust more heads until they get it right.
Respect and fear. Stop trying to be loved--it isn't going to happen.