Manipulating with fear

The logic of "fight Al-qaeda there instead of fighting them here" is debatable. I think there are more options possible, but for the sake of argument let us say these are our choices.
To fight them there, we spend billions of dollars to send poor, young soldiers to their front door so they can be picked off in a shooting gallery. Al-qaeda does not have to have any transportation and very little money to kill the Americans that our government has been so kind to transport to them.
So, let's look at the other option. If we fight them here, how will they get here? Al-qaeda has no planes or boats. What will they do, swim?
And, just because we are fighting them there, it is still possible for them to fight us here anyway. I do admit it is much easier to kill Americans who have been brought to you than it is to go half way around the world to kill some. But, they can still come here while they are fighting there.
Isn't this just a fear ploy - pictures in your head of masses of Al-qaeda fighters coming up your street - to use fear to manipulate voters? We heard this same kind of rhetoric when invading Iraq - mushroom clouds and poison gas. The Republican party has fooled us before with this rhetoric, and as President Bush has said "fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."