I don't particularly like the bombing strikes, but there isn't much of an alternative.
A few facts to remember:
1. They declared war on the US, not the other way around.
2. Even if the US didn't retaliate, they'd still attack again. A "Now, now, that's not a nice thing to do" isn't gonna get the US anywhere in this war.
3. A ground strike, though a good show of "bravery", is pretty useless. The losses would be horrific, and the results would be the same in the end. The terrain is very rough, to say the least, and the terrorists are familiar with it; only a small portion of the population is terroristic, which means they can use the civilians as human shields, and I doubt they'd not stoop to that. This is war, people. They would kill the US soldiers, the US soldiers would kill them, and in the end I suspect Afganistan would end up being a very large parking lot for Pakistan. And do you think that a "surgical strike", using SEALS or any other elite force would really work? I could be wrong on this, but I don't really think any of you people have the military experience to deny this: the logistics of any ground-based strike, no matter how surgical in nature, DO NOT WORK. Now, if you can prove that such a strike would work, then I will stand corrected. Until then, remember that the US cannot do nothing and this is the most viable course of action anyone has yet to think of....
I'm a pacifist, but I can't come up with a good alternative. I've thought of this from every angle I can imagine, I've read articles written by Afganistans from their point of view, as well as what most Americans see on the media. I have tried to think of a better solution, but I haven't come up with one that is at once more humane and more tactically viable. In the end, this is still war. In the end, the US cannot allow these attacks to continue. And in the end, I ran out of good alternatives that don't involve changing the past.
This whole mess seems to me to be a 'sins of the fathers' scenario, with elements building up to it from many different events in the past. We of the present can't change what happened in the past very well.... so what do we do?