No, you are missing the point.
Islamists attacked us and killed 3,000 people who happened to be working in the wrong office buildings.
And your strategy would be to attack the people who didn't do it, and create many new Islamists. Thank God the grownups are in charge and not you.
Should we feel bad for having to do the same to them? Yes. Should this stop us? No. Why? Because we have to end this quickly before they do.
It would not end it quickly.
This enemy is playing with a new set of rules. War without the onus of responsibility waged almost solely against civilians.
And our adopting the same strategy would not accomplish our intended goals.
As for your misguided insight to the human psyche, we bombed the Germans and Japanese into submission.
We most assuredly did not. The Germans only surrendered when a GI stuffed a rifle in their face and said "Surrender or die." The Combined Bomber Offensive actually lenghthened the war. The Japanese were starved into submission by mine and submarine warfare. The only things that allowed the Japanese elites to get away with surrender were (a) the novelty of the atomic bomb and (b) a largish dose of luck.
But, as usual, you won't let inconvenient facts get in your way.