I believe this is my 500th post and wanted to post something I'm passionate about.  My Country.
(A few days ago some else touched on this subject within a thread)
I believe the United States has two choices so far as our perception in the Muslim world.  
I don't know how many chances to survive as we now are will remain if the "left" and their criminal partners the "left wing media" manage to stop this war on terrorism short.

Perception wise we seem to have two choices:
1) Go back to being the "Paper Tiger" we were viewed as prior to 9/11/01.  Then we will again be open to attack and we will be attacked by our many enemies.

This crap of continually slamming the administration for any and everything may eventually send us back toward the tiger, paper. Things such as:
 A) Sealing our borders - no, no, no we can't do that.
 B) Military Tribunals - no, no, no we can't have those.
But Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt used military tribunals.  No, no, no we can't do that.
 C) Detaining possible non citizen terrorist no, no, no, we can't do that.
 D)  And the ever important "Due to the terrorist threat we're suspending public tours through the White House." no, no, no, no, no, no  we certainly can't do that.
 E)  You'll shoot your eye out !  No what I mean is the Afghan is a "QUAGMIRE" and we can't possibly win there.  Wait until it's winter and then we're beaten, etc.

I'm sure most of you have your own list of favorites.

Our other choice is to be "FEARED and "RESPECTED" in the Arab world.  Those folks respect a winner and if you lose they don't care why.
I'll take feared and respected.

How many chances will we have to stop these terrorists if we're forced to stop short ?
Because we're militarily strong we probably have more chances. However,if the "left" forces us to stop short how many American lives will have to be sacrificed to silence the left and re-start the war ??

T.B. Slayer, was it not you that advocated the "dirt nap ?"
If so where in Alabama are you from ??

The thing is, we are not strong.
Air Force? 1/3 of the wings we used to have for fighter/ground attack. A-10s? Reserve only, cause Col Biff and Maj Wood just cannot be promoted to general without a jaunty photo of themselves, dressed in a flight suit and nicely patterned neck scarf, next to a phallic looking plane.
Navy? 300 ships, effectively 10 carriers (of which maybe 5-6 can be out at once), the ability to sea land on the beach almost three whole BLTs at once...but on the positive the women sailors have been able to relax in the areas on ship which would have been taken up by deck guns and ammo before.
Army? Once you look through all the cuts and dummy units, 10 divisions in real life, only three of which can be called armored.
Corps? Three divisions, all minus and with little armor. Planes and helos that actually support the troops, if they can get into the air (since they are older than dirt and repaired as budgets permit)
Show me the strength!
Oh, the M1A2 and the accurate bombs? The things that let us win the last three livefires where they were used?
The tanks we are trying to ditch in favor of LAVs which work great for facing masses of people armed with pistols and hoes and not much else?
The bombs that we are giving away to any country with 5 bucks for a congressional bribe and a vauge promise of being nice to its own people someday?

H. Shooter,
I wouldn't even attempt to argue your points mainly because I'm also a believer.
What I should have said was "relative strength."

Maybe those 4000 souls who passed into eternity on 9/11 bought us both the time and the will rearm.
One can only hope.

T. B. Slayer,
about one hundred years ago I grew up in Monroe County and went to school at Excel.
After seven or so years in the military I went to college at Troy.

Here's what we should do:

A) Stop relying on foreign oil
B) Clean out the government from top to bottom.  Our biggest problem is within our borders, not outside of them.  The US Senate is one place where you can find traitorous thinking and traitorous action in abundance.

Once we do those two things, the rest will fall into line.

Let's also add a 'c' to your list "Get the fu*k out of the U.N." and stop letting all those little sh*tsack countries dictate to us what we need to be doing!