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War. Not a police action. Either secure our borders and bring them all home and we stop sticking our noses everywhere OR we need to fight like you are suppose to fight that means total decimation. If you do not break the spirit of only the enemy fighter and the citizen that hides them you cannot win. This is the proven strategy that brought an end to WW2 before we lost two fold the manpower we lost running up to the invasions. We changed our tactics during Korea and have languished every since.

I am not for killing civilians but I am for winning when we choose to fight. Either win or DO NOT PLAY. Do you think for instance that if the shoe was on the other foot that the “moderate” muslims in those countries would lift a finger in our behalf. If so you are delusional, and please do throw the philosophy that we are better than them yada yada and need to rise above th efray yada yada.

The difference between now and WW2 is that Germany and Japan transformed their entire economic-industrial structures to being a war machine. So the US could justify, for example, bombing a factory or a railroad, because they were ostensibly used in direct support of waging war on the US.

That's not the case at all with terrorism today. These are tiny groups of professionals paid by governments, such as the US, to set off bombs. So, total war on a country makes no sense here. There is no nationwide enemy mobilization. It really is more like a criminal prosecution where we need to find the individuals involved.

Otherwise we risk exactly what's happening now, killing a bunch of innocent people and creating more terrorists.

You really should read Invisible Armies by Max Boot about the history of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies. What you are proposing is the exact opposite of what history teaches in carrying out a successful counterinsurgency. The Soviets tried your approach of utter ruthlessness and it didn't work in Afghanistan. In Vietnam, the US went from a working counterinsurgency campaign to a standard military response and it backfired.

That is not to say that counterinsurgency should be devoid of violent response. But that response needs to be targeted at those actually carrying out the attacks, or else you just build local sympathy for the insurgents.