Go on the offensive: invade countries, topple regimes, install friendly governments. For every mullah out there, afraid of his own women, we have a General MacArthur. Godspeed.
As does the "Song of Roland" analogy. Get the terrorists who did this by all means, but Holy War isn't a good prescription. It will alienate allies, provoke the hatred we seek to dispel and leave us isolated. I can understand your anger and feel angry myself, but if we can achieve our goals without a thirty or hundred years war to subjugate other countries I would count that a victory. McArthur was an admirable man and leader with commendable virtues, but I'd want to avoid another savage racial, religious or ideological war. I don't think we need a war of cultures, a Stalingrad or an Iwo Jima to get the killers. It would only complicate and compromise the necessary military operations.
Total war ends up overshooting the mark. Total war for Christianity or America may end up benefiting World Government, or Multinational corporations, secular humanism or other powers which exploit it to achieve their ends. What triumphs in long wars aren't the values of the boys who fight them or the folks back home, but the managerial apparatus that's formed to organize the war -- or those who stay out entirely and pick up the spoils afterwards.
During the Gulf War, the Wall Street Journal advocated the course you support here. It might have been the right course, but I'm not sure that all their reasons and expectations for this plan would be shared by all of us. Kill the murders, but don't throw away young Americans on a plan to remake the world as a monoculture.
That would certainly not be either morally justified, nor would the results be happy. However, that's not the issue.
The issue is the fact that terrorists will be able to acquire and deploy nerve gas, biological weapons and perhaps even nuclear bombs. Those who are willing and able to acquire and use such devices in order to commit mass murder must not be allowed to live. It's them or us. It's that simple.
Holy War is an old metaphor, I didn't offer it and I don't know what a better one would be. This is a war between civilizations, but it is not a national or religious war. Although led by Christians, it is joined by Jews and westernized Muslims. It is not a war between ideologies or cultures either, because the Western civilization consists of many ideologies and cultures, with individual dignity and rule by consensus as a common trait.
I believe that tactically, many methods seems effective, and war by proxy looks particularly attractive, but ultimately, this war will be won when a Westernized regime controlls the territory and a police force mops up the resistance. The Westernized regime will have the task of winning the hearts of the population with rule of law and a clear path to prosperity. The model of that is General MacArthur and post-WWII Japan.
Too late for this kind of thinking, my friend. This might have been the mentality after the USS Cole, or on September 10.
7,000 innocent men, women, and children were slaughtered in an act of total war on 9/11. We are beyond the period when we are worried about "alienating allies". They should be worried about alienating the USA.
We are beyond the time to worry about their hatred towards us. It is time for our enemies to be worried about our hatred.
Leave us isolated? It is our enemies who should only hope so.