> No, I meant you can't spot small knives from the air so you have no way of really knowing who you're killing

No, you still know whom you are killing, because of the
human INTEL and not because they are carrying knives.

Another point, on your side, is that once the Jihaders
know that the US is watching with INTEL, etc., then
they will be much more secretive and not have open
air training camps and, thus, be more difficult to
detect, target, etc. Then the US has three fall back
positions: First, we are much harder to attack now
than on 9/11. Second, the attacks we are now most
concerned about are not just two wacko Jihaders in Boston but
a nuke in a boat in Boston harbor. Third, generally
our INTEL around the world is much better now than in
9/11 -- anyone wanting to slip a nuke into a boat
in Boston harbor will have a much tougher time
getting from start to finish for that project than
in 9/11. From banking, finance, electronic
communications, satellites, HUMINT, etc., the US
has a much closer eye on Jihaders now than in 9/11.

> There's one simple reason the USA is in the middle east - oil. Making sure it keeps flowing.

Likely so. Some in Israel hope not. Actually,
some in the Arab oil states should like the
US 'police' activities in their area.

But oil is not why the US is in Afghanistan.
W wasn't much on the Afghan effort, but
Obama wanted to say that the country that
attacked us was Afghanistan and not Iraq
so wanted to claim that W was wrong going
to Iraq. Once Obama was in office, he
tried a 'surge' in Afghanistan that didn't
much work and now is about just to pull out.
To me, Obama was just playing US politics
and has had no interest in either Iraq
or Afghanistan.

> So does some war-hawk talking about how we should push a button and end the outrage that we created with yet another bomb.

> Maybe we should trade, the militant cleric for you, as some sort of reverse prisoner-of-war deal, to help keep the peace.

War is hell. I know that and don't like it.

But we are in a war in Afghanistan. Then, did
I mention, war is hell? So, part of how we
do that war is push buttons on the controls
of drones. That's part of why war is hell.
But, Afghanistan was the base of the 9/11
attack on the US that killed 3000 innocent
US civilians. That was war and hell. So,
to defend ourselves, we went into Afghanistan
and eventually got Bin Laden. Then we tried
to set up a modern government there to replace
the Taliban that let Ben Laden set up a base
from which he attacked us. To defeat the
Taliban, we use HUMINT and INTEL, heavily
where the Taliban leadership is hiding
in the Pakistan tribal regions, to identify
Taliban leadership. Then we track them with
drones. When we have a clear shot at such
a bad guy, a USAF guy in a box in Nevada
pushes a button. It's hell. Sometimes
women and children get killed, like they
do in nearly all wars. Did I mention,
war is hell? I don't like it. And I
didn't like 9/11 either.

> Or, you know, you could try for a foreign policy that didn't involve holding a gun to everyone's head.

That's not nearly all there is to US foreign policy.
I don't much like US foreign policy, tries to
do too much, is too blunt sometimes, to gentle and
even naive other times, and usually too simplistic.
Still, a gun to the head is not nearly all of
US foreign policy. In Afghanistan, we could have
just leveled the place, all from the air, in weeks,
the whole place, dogs, cats, rabbits, goats, sheep,
men, women, and children. Easily. Instead, we
tried hard to give them a constitution, a freely
elected government, a freely elected parliament,
roads, schools, hospitals, trained and equipped their
police and military, tried to protect their
villages, etc. But it didn't much take root. Essentially no one in Afghanistan was prepared to sign on
and support the government we were trying to
help them have. So the Taliban was able to
run a powerful shadow government, use Mafia
techniques to keep the villages 'in line',
extract cash to pay for their war, etc. But
our efforts were far from just holding a
gun to heads.

> started picking on smaller enemies with less resources

My view is that the US has been too active
around the world. But the US is not nearly
responsible for the rise of radical Islam,
and radical Islam is not aimed nearly at only
the US. In particular, radical Islam against
the US is not seriously from the US "picking
on" anyone.

Really, radical Islam is based on a simple, old
dynamic: Some people want more power. So,
in heavily Islamic countries with a lot of
oil money sloshing around, people who wanted
more power, e.g., Bin Laden and various
Islamic clerics, saw a way to pursue power:
Use Islam to get some young people up on their
hind legs and use oil money to pursue projects.
Boom. 9/11.

There's a lot of pushing and shoving, heavily
enabled by oil money: So, Saddam wanted to
push against Iran. And Iran was eager to push
back. So the US helped Saddam. Then Saddam
wanted to push against Kuwait and then Saudi Arabia,
and the US pushed back. Now Iran wants connect
with Syria, influence Lebanon, and push against
Israel. In Egypt, the Islamists didn't like
the secular dictator and got rid of him, and
now are making an even worse mess out of Egypt.
Similarly in Libya. Similarly in Syria.
And Iran .... So, there's lots of pushing
and shoving, again, enabled by oil money.
And it helps that the culture is so heavily
dominated by Islam's 500 year old traditions
that there is so little more modern culture.
But no way is much of that pushing and shoving
due to anything the US did or did wrong.