I like your point, but terrorism and war is conflating. I wouldn't want to ignore a terrorist that we know hides in Syria, and that we believe to be dangerous. That could be our moment of hesitating to kill Bin Laden. And unlike Bill Clinton, who had no drones back in 1998 and would have had to use a cruise missile strike, today it can often be done with no civilian casualties.

Sending in troops in this godforsaken places means losing more lives.

Say we have proof that a target is a known terrorist and that no civilians are around. Would you still risk the lives of 10 soldiers to catch him. Or of 2,996 and just let him go?

I do agree that the Americans probably don't have much proof of terrorism or other wrongdoing for many of the targets, and that so far they have stricken several times where civilians were around.