No, I disagree. If you can show me a case where 3000 people were killed in a single day by a stateless terrorist group from across an ocean, or even some proportionally similar event (to 1940's demographics) then I will concede the point.
The salient ingredient in my post was that there are always those who want to fight the last war, even though the situation may have changed. In an all out war, those who try to fight the war the way the last successful one was waged, usually lose. It is an unpopular sentiment, even with myself sometimes, but the glass parking lot theory or even the Dresden theory will not apply here. With our military strength, it would be EASY to load up B-52's and carpet bomb cities in Iraq and the Middle East. I could plan those missions myself. But it will not work. It serves as a nice mental salve for frustrated emotions, many of which I share. But in reality, it will not produce the desired effect. We could be like the Nazis, the Japanese and the Soviets, be completely ruthless and make them all fear us. But it will not solve anything, and we will be just like them. The Left would love that, America just like the Nazis. Many of them already think it is anyway. But I digress.
Perhaps it will come to that someday, the glass parking lot, maybe after a nuclear device is detonated in New York or some other American city. But as an American, if it does come to that, I want the moral underpinning of being able to say that we did try another way. And I think history will judge us better than our contemporaries, no matter how it turns out.