"If terrorists start seeing and hearing about their fellow terrorist friends just dissappearing around them... They'll crap their pants.
No photos. No records. No witnesses.
That's what it's going to come down to. "
Yup. And here's where we find out what people really believe. If they REALLY believe that death is honorable, and that they don't care about their lives, we get what info they can, and oblige them.
If they DO care about their lives, maybe we get more information. The end result is still the same: they die.
But we don't kill without reason. We don't blow up mosques just because they're there. If WMDs are found there, we get rid of the WMD's. If they fire on us from the mosque, then follow the ROE, and if they don't comply, both they and the mosque go bye-bye.
That's how I'd do it...at least, in theory. I told someone yesterday, if this thing is not totally put down by Election Day, and the President is re-elected, all hell is going to break loose the very next day.
"Do not be afraid to be powerful. Cold War-era gambits of proportionate response and dialog may have some utility in dealing with practical terrorists, but they are counter-productive in dealing with apocalyptic terrorists. Our great strengths are wealth and raw power. When we fail to bring those strengths to bear, we contribute to our own defeat. For a superpower to think small, which has been our habit across the last decade, at least, is self-defeating folly. Our responses to terrorist acts should make the world gasp!"
'Nuff said.
If that starts happening to anyone, it's going to be the press. And not necessarily "in theatre."