I have always seen the War on Terror much like the War on Drugs. You will never win the War on Drugs, and the best you can do is reduce the percentage. In the same way, we can only buy ourselves time. Even if we won tomorrow, Terrorism would be back within decades. We have to decide how much we want to pay for that time.
You only see it this way because we are fighting it much like a law-enforcement action rather than like a real war.
If there was a *true* war on drugs, we would execute every dealer, incarcerate every user into forced rehab, and make penalties for crimes while under the influence very, very severe.
This War on Terror needs to be fought with a greater ferocity. Unfortunately, we face a media and political opposition that emphasizes the enemies' point of view over ours.