Backwoodsman: "if a major wanted fugitive from Pakistan was hiding in New York, or Philadelphia, or Boston, [and if] he fought back and they dropped a 2,000-lb bomb on his premises, destroying surrounding premises and killing many innocent people - which was apparently the plan if ObL had decided to fight back"

This is a really very important point which some posters in support of certain aspects of the mission appear to be failing (to my mind) to address.

If the roles were reversed how would US posters feel about their citizens in one of their towns becoming collateral damage?

After all we might imagine (not so long ago perhaps) a high profile IRA terrorist leader who is wanted for a London bombing killing hundreds (or indeed maybe thousands) of Londonders, hiding out in some American town with strong republican sympathies.
Let us imagine that the US government of the day, was also sympathetic to the Irish republican cause while simultaneously retaining a political alliance with the UK.
Let us imagine that the UK government were aware of such sympathies in the US establishment.
Let us imagine that the firepower and strength of the UK and the US were fully reversed, and that the UK (being unable to capture their suspect) instead bombed the small US town in which their IRA terrorist was hiding unfortunately eliminating a number of innocent American families in the process.

Despite the fact that the US and the UK are very different animals these days, and the US is far too powerful for the UK (and *mostly* anyone else in the world) to EVER dream of pissing off in such a fashion, such otherwise plausible hypothetical scenarios are worth thinking about.