"It's a serious point of debate, with no easy answers, whether we were too hardened back then, or too soft now."

I think there is nothing soft about the US military.

I think a large part of massive bombing of WWII, had to do with not having smart weapons- though such things as bombing of Dresden had less to do with this.

I think the reason for publicly showing the hanging and the the hanging themselves was because Americans were angry that the German started war that had such widespread misery and pain. Therefore the hanging was about appeasing the public in terms of balancing out the feeling of injustice.

And btw, the Left thinks that Bush started this war, and therefore has various insane reactions to this war.
I suppose some on the Left would think the American people would better people if they simply ignored 911, as we ignored the previous attacks. After all this attack did not involve battleships or soldiers in uniforms- and whole idea of getting rid of the military is so that there will be no wars.

What people generally fail to realize is that Bush had little choice- he was forced to respond in some way to 911. Now, some people may realize this but disagreed with what president Bush chose to do as a response. They think that if they were president they would have made different decisions and taken a different course of action. Now, personally I didn't hear any good ideas of what to do and I'm not sure in hindsight if there was a better course of action that Bush could have taken. But even if there was a better course of action to take, the simple fact is that Bush was elected President and it was his responsibility- the back seat driving may be fun and exciting but all the emotional responses aren't a rational or honorable response.

Now, if being soft means being irresponsible, childish, cowardly, and having the deep desire to stick your head in the sand, then I guess we are too soft. But this response is mostly confined to those people who consider themselves belong to the elite class- the media, etc.