I disagree with the idea of not having air cover for troops on the ground during ongoing combat operations. A lot of times, these gunships can see things and identify threats, or lack there of, that the ground pounders cannot. The thing about combat is that you never know how big a fight is when you get into it. Most of the time it's brief and over before you know it, but sometimes it's big, and for that you can't afford to micromanage these guys on the ground (or in the air). We spend millions of dollars and years of training to ensure that these guys can make the correct judgement when the time counts. If there is regulations and commanders breathing down these guys necks all the time then ultimately, it gets guys killed. They are sluggish to react, wary of indictment for whatever they do, which makes it much harder to do the job at hand.
It sounds like the beef is with the politicians rather than the military. Had the last administration exercised some forethought into the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan then the military WOULD have been able to handle these situations. The US military has been taking part in peacekeeping operations for some time now and I don't think you give them enough credit for the work that they have done in past and present. Your argument would have been sound in the early part of the insurgency in Iraq, but since 2006 the military has taken a completely different approach and if you haven't noticed, there's been significant progress made in that theater. Is Iraq a beacon of democracy in the middle east, no it's not and it will remain that way for a while. But, it is certainly in a much better position than it was four short years ago. We are about at the point where all we can do is take of their training wheels and let them ride it out themselves.
SWAT stands for special weapons and tactics. They are the elite force of any police department and they are very expensive to train. Their mission is to resolve the issue with the minimum force necessary. This is because they rarely come into contact with a criminal that is willing to kill and kill themselves in the process. Most people value their life and if they see the hopelessness of a situation then most will likely surrender. Why not send tanks to deal with them, well, because most of them don't have heavy weapons like RPGs, PKCs, IEDs, Mortars, Assault rifles, hand grenades, explosive vests, organized ambush tactics etc. Do you remeber the LA bank robberies where the two stoned bank robbers seriously invalidated the LAPD and LA SWAT for several hours because they had WAY more firepower. Well, the terrorists and insurgents I dealt with in Iraq made them look like rainbow bright. I'd imagine that this is true across the board. THAT"S why you need tanks and APCs and Gunships flying around. The terrorists are dicidedly more lethal and their intention is to KILL YOU and anyone who gets in their way by any means necessary. Many of these guys were not even Iraqis. I'd say about half of the a$$holes we dealt with were foriegn fighters that wanted to kill Americans, Europeans, Indians, basically anyone who did not follow their version of Islam. The idea that the insurgency erupted so violently because of the simple fact that we are there is overstated. Most the Iraqis I knew didn't like it, but they understood it, and hell some of them even loved us.
Regardless of what the movies portray, every single soldier cares about the blood they spill and spill themselves. Every single soldier is affected by the charm of the kids and the families they come from. Most of the Iraqi deaths from coalition forces come from the simple fact of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Would I want to see abrams and apaches deal with terroists in Kansas...well...let me put it this way i don't think we'd need them here. A terrorist can blend in in the middle east, it's much harder to do so here. But for arguments sake would I, your damn right I would, I would want the military/ law enforcement/ citizens to kill any known terrorists in my neighborhood with extreme prejidce. But that's an oversimplification. There would never be a operation phantom fury type fight in the US, it just wouldn't happen, so pondering if we would like Our military engaging terrorists here is useless.
How do we fight the terroists then? What do we do to "win"? The US military is not in the business of ceding defeat. We are not in the habit of going, "well, i guess we're not really trained for this so let's just forget it" The US military is made of people that want to get results and live by the creed improvise, adapt, and overcome. We're not one to make excuses for our failures and really try to learn as much from them as we can. Was the military slow to change it's tactics to accomodate this new type of fighting, I think not. All you have to go off of is what the press reports. Sorry but schools, power, working sewage, weekly meetings with community leaders, months of patrols providing no "action", training the Iraqi/Afghan forces to stand on their own two feet, etc don't sell stories and don't generate interest, but they are the most important things we do and it happens every single day. Sadly, death, tragedy, and controversy sell the stories and it is what you read or see on the tube. We see the results, you see the failures. It seems there is a gap here.