True that. News travels in ways it never did in the distant past. Public Relation fiascos probably weren't too high on any rulers agenda's a few hundred years ago.

On the other hand, firing a half million dollar missile at a half-ton pick-up truck seems like a losing proposition too. The fireball may be momentarily satisfying, but you're going into the hole financially.

That is very reasonable number.
It takes certain amount of people with certain beliefs and ideology to support organization like ISIS.
Most of which most likely would not pick up guns and go the way fighting for ISIS... yet share certain attitude for some to go all the way.
In ME the numbers are much higher due to decades of conflict , misery , oppressive governments , tribalism and sponsored Islamic indoctrination.

I haven't heard of any plans to nuke whole ME yet....maybe Israel yes , from some Shi'a radicals...why this drama?:haha:
The fight should be against any extremists while making it clear that it is unacceptable and unwanted while protecting the others from harm.

The latest event somehow have shaken the house a bit.
Unfortunately very match only due to the executing western journalists otherwise... who knows ... because nothing really new and special happened.
Yet some realize that ISIS went to far and done PR damage , including those who helped to finance and create it.
The Muslim communities need to give themselves a kick in the back.
They can be very vigorous about certain issues and should be same about this.
No , not some prominent intellectual figures most Muslims don't care and don't or don't want to know about...most of them are simple religion followers living day by day...it must happen on the level of the local neighborhood mosque Imams.
On the YouTube(:haha:) level which so many chose to ignore...yet where so many people are living , after all bigotry is not only western attribute.

Heh, now that's the million dollar (literally) question, but the other options don't get much cheaper sadly. This document makes for alarming reading: http://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22926.pdf

The US hasn't been involved in a war that's lasted longer than a decade before, even Vietnam was 1965 to 1975, and the revolutionary war was 1775-1783. I dread to think how much conflicts like the Hundred years war cost Europe (even though it wasn't actually a hundred years in length), and to be honest, if you were to add in the totals of the other nations involved in World War II then you find that the US got off pretty lightly in terms of economic cost (hence how it was able to fill in the slot of world leader so quickly post-war) since the overall cost was about $4.1t.

A cheap LGB or AGM would probably help matters a lot, but then you'd have to subsidise the like of BAe to make it otherwise they wouldn't bother since they wouldn't be able to make back the costs on it. :/\\!!

Ouch. The vaunted position of World Cop isn't what it once seemed to be. Long hours, poor pay, no near-term prospect of retirement and the enmity of the world community.

Somebody just keep the donuts and coffee coming.

http://www.mozzarellamamma.com/wp-co...nd-a-donut.jpg