Do you think the United States is winning the "war on terror?"

Unfortunately the "natives" who were once colonized , in Viet Nam by the French and in Irak bt the British have the feeling that we seek to "recolonize " for whch they resent us. Leaving them to their own devices may not be the best oucome as we saw in Viet Nam and Cambodia and as we see in Zimbabwe, sticking around will not cure the situation , especially as sooner or later we will leave.

Our attempt at democratization unfortunaltly failed as in some cultures there are traditions of block voting and respect for traditional authority , which means that once you have the arithmetic , there is noi more need to go thru the election process .

And of course nobody want to touch the oil problem , too stickly...

A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from “Chosen” Company 2-12 Infantry to the church, where photographer, Michael Yon videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John’s, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope.

He photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John's Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome. A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from Company 2-12 Cavalry to the church, where Michael videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John's, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope.

Michael Yon has been embedded in Iraq for most of the war.

More reports fom Michael can be found here.
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/category/dispatches/

It's interesting that we hear about "benchmarks" for the Iraqi government, but we rarely hear the "war on terror" put in these empirical terms -- other than, of course, how many al Qaeda leaders/operatives our troops have killed. It's no wonder they're already re-branding this the "long war." The facts don't play out in your favor, so cherry-pick data. You're not winning, so just change the context...