Over and over again I see people here talking about liberals as appeasers, Liberals as weak on terror; basically, I see a lot of bad information and wrong ideas.  So let's take a look at what a hard core Liberal War on Terror might look like:

First, we'd set a timetable for Iraq.  Lets the Iraqis know we don't plan on staying forever, which is really important right now.  Do what we need to do to get out of there and start repairing our military.  We're going to need them.  Give it a year, get an Iraqi army set up as well as we can and get gone.  Maybe leave some support troops and training centers behind for another 6 months.

Starting today, we'd actually start fighting terrorism.  There are three main fronts where terror can be fought, because the terrorists need three things: Money, Shelter, and Leadership.

First: The Money
Terrorist groups get their funds from two main sources: drugs and oil.   Let's make a plan to be off of foreign oil in 10 years and off of fossil fuels in 20.  First thing we'd need to do is double the milage of every car in the US in 3 years and stop the sales of any car that doesn't get at least 40 miles to the gallon.  We have the technology.  The government would pay the cost to tranistion American factories owned by American companies.  If the government needed to seize some patents to do it, I say that more important than gassing up for Osama.  Next would be a massive infrastructure change that would swap us over to mostly renewable, decentralized resources.  We can't rely on large power plants to carry the load anymore because they make for excellent targets.  By decentralizing, you make an attack on our power grid impossible.
With drugs we have 2 options: We can either regulate them and produce them domestically, taxing them and providing users with free rehab on demand.  Also, draconian punishments are put in place for people who break the laws regarding drug use.  The other option is to buy off the farmers who are producing the crops in other countries.  They aren't making huge money, and it would save us on cost down the road.  I don't have a preference here, but a mix would probably work best.


Next: Shelter
No more of this cowboy "if you shelter a terrorist, we'll treat you like a terrorist" garbage.  Governments can't be held responsible for the actions of a few of their citizens.  What we need to do is get in, house by house and make the case that we are the good guys.  If we can't do this, we've already lost.  That means holding ourselves and our troops to the highest standards.  No more playing with being torturers, mucking around the Geneva Conventions or violating our own Constitution.  We've got to be able to go anywhere and say America equals Freedom.  America is the Gold Standard for behavior.  The more we become like the terrorists, the less reason people who shelter the terrorists have to choose us over them.
Domestically, this means opening up our own governement.  No more paperless ballot voting machines, no more pork barrel politics, no more lobbyist contributions.  Clean up our government, cut the pork and the fat.
Next, we need better education.  A lot of people talk about college, but I think you need to start young.  Let's start getting kids into school at 3 rather than 5.  Free preschool, mandatory kindergarten where teachers are paid like teachers, not baby sitters.  At that age, kids learn fast, and if you don't start them till they're 5, they never catch up.  You show me a kid reading and writing at 3, I'll show you a kid that doesn't need a college education unless they want to pursue an advanced degree.  You'll also see a kid who knows how to read a newspaper, knows the difference between opinion and fact.  You'll also have brighter people for businesses to draw on so you'll advance America more quickly in all fields.
It also means Universal Healthcare, taking care of our troops while they fight and when they get home.  VA passes good for any local hospital so our vets aren't traveling across the state for a checkup.  These folks aren't just warriors, they are our ambassadors and they need to know we've got their back like they had ours. We get better troops and don't have to take these guys with Klan tattoos and the like.
The point of the domestic front is to make sure that everyone knows America is not just a great nation, but a good nation as well.

Last: Leadership
This is not our leadership, which is sorely lacking these last few years, but theirs.  It should be the most dangerous job in the world heading a terrorist organization.  We need to begin rebuilding our international spy network, starting with renewing our ties to the Pakistani ISI.  They created Al-Queda with our help in the 70's and 80's.  They know everyone there.  And when we find bin Laden, pop in the night, no TV, no 100,000 soldiers, just gone.  And on to the next guy.
Meantime, we start working with all the international players.  If Iran wants to sit down at a table, we sit down with them.  We figure out what they are really doing.  If they want nuclear power for peaceful purposes, we get the IAEA in there, work out a deal where they buy the uranium rods from us so we can control the content and we get the spent rods back before they get more.

If it were me calling the shots, that would be the rough sketch. Any edits you'd like to see?