Is all out bombing worth it?

[customerserviceguy]

39. It manifests itself in other ways

We countenance death by vehicle travel and weapons ownership, because the freedoms to have those things are valued above the rather minimal loss of life (when compared to the whole society) that occurs. Where it is practical, we enact laws to chip away at the margins of the death toll (seat belt laws, gun safes, etc.) where those are politically possible, but at the end of the day, we're willing to tolerate the losses.

The same mentality seventy-five years ago would have produced "Eh, Pearl Harbor is so far away, and Hawaii isn't even a state. That's what happens when you get stationed so far away from the homeland, it can't happen to me." But Pearl Harbor cut right through the isolationism that had taken a grip on the United States in the years following "The Great War", and FDR was more than ready to move boldly in the direction of total war, going before Congress the next day to get a declaration of it. Today, we have Presidents who dither around with decisions for months or years, which leads to the half-hearted "well, we have to do something" kinds of measures that are doomed to failure.

Terrorists don't have that mentality, they are willing to cause as much death and destruction as is possible to acheive their aims. They've learned from Korea that we're satisfied to fight to a draw at best, and from Vietnam that if they hold out for a decade or so, that we will simply declare "Mission Accomplished" and go home, wishing to forget about our misadventures in their lands.

If a strategy against the US seems to have worked for nearly seven decades, why would an enemy abandon it?