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*****Not only that, but if we don’t get terrorist jihad stomped on and under control then there will be MANY attempted 9/11s and much worse. We are fighting not only because of the deaths of nearly 3,000 innocents on that day (significant as they are), but because the terrorists who set that plot in motion truly aim to slaughter us infidels on a huge scale unless/until we submit to them taking over all of the Middle East for starters.... but their glorious new “Caliphate” would not be an end of it, only another beginning of a much larger and more deadly jihad still.******

Actually our involvement in the Middle East has resulted in the religious cleansing of the Middle East. 15 years ago, both Iraq and Iran had significant, although very minority populations of Christians and even some Jewish people. And they were able to co-exist in the Muslim nations. Today, they are essentially all gone. Our involvement in the Balkans led to the same result. E.g. Kosovo had a large minority Christian population. Today, there are very few Christians left in Kosovo.

****Just let the jihadists start using WMDs in western cities and the problems that the Ron Pauls of the world are whining about today will seem like chickenfeed compared to the enormity of trying to stop all possible future mass casualty attacks. Competent jihadists, with more time and funding and organization, could be killing hundreds of thousands, probably millions, in years to come.****

That is just silly. If an atomic bomb would be set off in NYC, some Muslim country (which ever one we thought was most responsible) would be wiped off the map. We wouldn’t be going in and trying to set up a Democratic government. We would be seeking vengence. If we invaded, there would be no namby, pamby rules of engagement. It would be more like, “kill them all and let God sort them out.”

To illustrate the stupid way we are fighting this war now, two special forces soldiers were tracking a terrorist in Afghanistan. The rules of engagement were “capture or kill”. They killed him and now they are subject to a court marshal because some hack general thought they should have been able to capture them.

As Sherman said, “War is hell.” You can’t occupy a country that doesn’t want you there without being very brutal. I haven’t seen any of our enemies being put in prison, by their leaders because they over stepped the rules of engagement. But we have put some of our military in prison on that type of reasoning.

You folks that want us to be cops of the world have to also say that in order to protect our troops, we will be brutal cops of the world.

Population wise, we are a small country. No way can we impose our ideas and virtues on the rest of the world by being Mr. nice guys.

"That is just silly. If an atomic bomb would be set off in NYC, some Muslim country (which ever one we thought was most responsible) would be wiped off the map. We wouldn’t be going in and trying to set up a Democratic government. We would be seeking vengence. If we invaded, there would be no namby, pamby rules of engagement. It would be more like, “kill them all and let God sort them out.”

You're the one that's being 'silly' -- first, you assume that there would only one WMD attack at a time, when 9/11 and the history of Al Qaeda attacks shows that they prefer multiple mass-casualty attacks simultaneously if/when they can pull it off (they would try to make their 1st WMD onslaught the worst thing in history, not wait for our response). 2nd, what if we truly have no idea "which country is most responsible" --- 3rd, once Al Qaeda or any similar group had acquired such capabilities, the idea that having any one (or more) Middle Eastern countries "wiped off the map" (even if we would do it, which is doubtful) would solve the problem is naive -- if we imagine a much larger and more dangerous Al Qaeda (or similar group) burrowed into many countries around the world due to liberal/libertarian resistance to rooting them out, then having one or any number of Middle Eastern countries "wiped off the map" is no longer going to solve the problem. Finally, our response depends a lot upon who is in the WH and Congress in the future, but I would not take it for granted that we would be allowed to "go Roman" on entire countries or why that would even solve the problem once terrorism had gotten to such a bad point.

Your argument (so far as I can tell) has the structure of "we can act as Ron Paul recommends now because if things got so bad that terrorists nuked NYC, well THEN we could get serious and one or more Middle Eastern countries would be "wiped off the map" -- I'd prefer not to wait for that extreme situation to deal more effectively with terrorism, thank you.