The US can be blamed for making a lot of mistakes regarding terrorism, but I don't think being too gentle is one of them.
I think its more an issue of being hyper-motivated by the fear of terrorism than being "soft on terror". Both cowering under the bed and sacrificing freedoms to domestic authoritarians while dropping bombs all over the world can be manifestations of the sensitivity to fear of terrorism.
Europeans are far more used to violence like the PIRA/UDA in NI Eta in Spain and the RAF in Germany. For example I know two people going through the truth and reconciliation process in NI.
And if I had had to goto NI on business during the troubles I would have to be very careful about where I went and who I told who I worked for - the down side of working for "crown forces" let alone that I was the product of a mixed marriage.
The U.S. didn't invade Iraq as a response to terrorism. They invaded Iraq because of the threat of "Weapons of Mass Destruction". Many people just assumed Iraq was behind 9/11 simply because the government wanted to invade them after 9/11, and the government did little to dispel that mistaken notion. And we all found out that Iraq having "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in the first place was a mistaken notion as well.
Fear of terrorism was one of the reasons for public support of the war and it was heavily pushed in the pro-war propaganda.
> They invaded Iraq because of the threat of "Weapons of Mass Destruction".
In the run-up to war, both supposed direct ties between the Iraqi regime an al-Qaeda (and direct ties between Iraq and one of the 9/11 attack specifically) and the threat that if Iraq acquired WMDs it might transfer them to al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups for use against the US were trumpeted. WMD and terrorism are not mutually exclusive motivations for war.
The supposed connection between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda (including a supposed link between Iraq and 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta) was still be trumpeted months after the 2003 war began, even just before the 9/11 Commission issued its finding that no such connection existed. [0]
[0] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5223932/ns/us_news-security/t/pane...
With that in mind, consider the massive overreaction to that specific type of threat. Entire government agencies were created to combat it, despite it already being solved.
https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2006/08/refuse_to_b...