What part of the world should we have bombed after 9/11? All of the terrorists were Saudi, and BinLaden was a Saudi national.
It’s simple really. As I and another fellow discussed on the night of 9/11:
Tell the Moslem world they have 48 hours to produce Osama Bin Laden. If they don’t, nuke Jakarta and Tripoli.
Give them another 48 hours: no Osama - nuke the next two major Moslem population centers closing in from the east and the west.
Repeat until we either have Osama, or we obliterate Mecca and Medina.
I still maintain that it would have ultimately been the kindest and most effective approach for all concerned, and, with a new demand (now that Osama’s dead), a demand to cease all hostilities and disarm, this would again be the kindest and most effective approach.
This worked beautifully the one time it was tried in history: on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ultimately, despite the initial brutality of the attack, probably many millions of lives - American, and many times more Japanese lives - were spared.
This is what is required to end war. Total, brutal victory that reorients the mindset of a hostile people. Hearts and minds, nation building? - all simply crap, adolescent utopian nonsense. Completely destroy your enemy’s will to fight, or completely destroy your enemy. The rest is martial masturbation.