A Collection of Opinions, Which As An American I am Free to Express

The Muslim al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 were for all practical purposes an open declaration of war. Unfortunately, this enemy doesn't play by the usual rules. Terrorists don't care to wait until an enemy trespasses on their turf to take retaliatory action.
Terrorists also don't really have to have a logical reason to do what they do. They are motivated by hate and an evil ideology.
So it should be pretty obvious that there really isn't an effective way to reason with or fight terrorists, except to exterminate them wherever they raise their ugly heads.

I guess terrorists are similar to cockroaches. You can't sit in your house and whisper sweet nothings at the baseboards, telling the roaches to go to the next town. You have to spray, put out murderous bait, and mash the little boogers into oblivion - and keep after them, because once you have them they never completely go away, you can just keep them from taking complete control.
In many ways, terrorists are also like octopi and other animals who can regenerate themselves when they have body parts cut off.  Over the past ten years, our military forces have captured and/or killed a lot of terrorists. But by golly, the terrorist attacks haven't stopped! In fact, I would bet that in the ten years since 9/11 there have been MORE terrorist attacks worldwide than in the previous twenty years, maybe even more than that.
Why is this? Muslim terrorists don't give a rat's patootie if we capture and kill their head guy. The second in command just moves up to take his place. They also don't much care if we do take all our soldiers and sailors and come home from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and wherever else we have military on duty in the war on terror.
What they DO care about, though, is this: complete and total domination of the entire world, because this is what they believe is their purpose in life. (As a Catholic Christian, MY purpose in life is to develop as close a relationship with Jesus Christ as possible, and to someday enjoy Heaven with Him).
Say what you will about the Muslim belief that Christians and Jews are "people of the Book", it's just a fact that Muslims want the whole world to be Muslim, and it doesn't matter much how that goal is achieved.
What should we do? Good question. It gets harder and harder to be a Christian openly - in the rare instances where public prayer is permitted, the direct mention of God is not. Policies set in place for purely safety reasons are being protested by Muslims as "Islamophobic" - such as the 'no headgear' rule at an amusement park that caused hijab-wearing Muslimas to object loudly and violently. Daily prayer and Scripture study is a part of the lives of many Christians and Jews, but I challenge anyone to show me an employer who provides a chapel/prayer room for his Christian or Jewish employees, the way some employers have been ordered to provide prayer rooms for Muslim employees.

We could make a start at taking America back to being the great "shining beacon on a hill" that she once was, by securing our own borders. Enforce the effective laws that already exist. Stop giving 'civil right' status to earned privileges. This is the United States of America; if you don't like it then fortunately it is just as easy to leave the country as it is to enter.

"Oh, say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

Yes, but for how much longer?