It's easy to say : We are the strongest nation in the world, let's nuke them. It's definitly easy to want to do it (FScott comes to mind).
First of all, if you nuke a region, or kill a leader, you solve 1 part of the problem. The more you act with violence, the more you fuel violence. Look at the Nazis during WW2. They came in a neighborhood village and executed more than alf of the population, about 2000 people. They did that to retaliate from our local resistance actions there. Did that stoped the local resistance? Off course not, worse than this, it fueled their revenge... not only theirs but all the neighborhood lacal resistance too.
As far as wacking the leaders... Why Kadafi, Yasser Arrafat, Saddam are still alive? If you kill them you make a martyr, the whole country from the dedicated terrorist to the local mother will want revenge.
Also, from my days in the Intelligence, and the part usually people hate to listen : We comunicate with them. We know who they are, what they do, and by "negociating" with them we keep all their army under control... (till the Intell misjudge like today). If you kill a leader, a new one arises right away, a new one where you know very little on his habits, desires, capabilities, limits.
A new one who's less "controlable".
Terrorist groups are either under-estimated or over-estimated. What does it take to fly a 767 in a tower? Eck, even a 10 year old can log a couple of 767s hours in MSFS, learn about the FMSs to hit the "direct" button. the 767s, 757s series were described as very complexly automated, we pilot knows that those glass cockpits are there to be easier to read than all the analog guages and the FMS are "click and go".
That's a bit off subject
What is the best way to hit terrorists? I'm not a terrorisum expert, and it's not "so simple". I think that financial is one, who finances those guys? How can you "deal" with people who finance them? Put economical pressure on them, to discipline them or shut them off. People who join the organizations, how can it be prevented, controled? In France, it usually go like this : they drive white Mercedes, and cruise the poor neighborhood. They gather bored 18 year olds and start to contact them during parties and social reunions. Like drug dealers. They show all the whealth they have and say :" look what my group did for me". Then they reward the target with a better life style and start to educate them. the more they are whilling to be educated, the more they earn.
And I mean real education like college, not "this is how you kill". Added to that, they off course add the group personal ideology. At the end, you have an educated, endoctrined potential terrorist.
What always makes me freack out, is that they make sense. Don't think that those people go die in suicide attack because they are too stupid to see "the truth". The group vision of our society is as valid of our vision of theirs.
Bottom line, "nuke those motherF" is probably not the best thing to do. Off course, to comfort and satisfy the public opinion, some poor guys in the middle of the desert more or less related with international terrorisum will be blasted... So the world will be able to sleep well and say :"Yeah, we are the best nation in the world, don't piss us off little toejam".
