Are we winning the war? The first question to ask is, what war? The Bush administration continues to muddle a national understanding of the conflict we are in by calling it the "war on terror." This political correctness presumably seeks to avoid hurting the feelings of the Saudis and other Muslims, but it comes at high cost. This not a war against terror any more than World War II was a war against kamikazes.

In reviewing progress on the three fronts of this war, even the most sanguine optimist cannot yet conclude that we are winning or that we can win without some significant changes of policy.

As late as June of this year, Mark Mershon of the FBI testified that the bureau will not monitor or surveil any Islamist unless there is a "criminal predicate." Thus the large Islamist support infrastructure that the commission identified here in the United States is free to operate until its members actually commit a crime.

Spun another way, the FBI is sick of tailing pizza delivery boys. Is there really an Al'Queda domestic support infrastructure that we are aware of and aren't paying attention to or is this guy merely suggesting that every arab is a suspect?

Even in the United States, some 80 percent of Islamic mosques and schools are closely aligned with the Wahhabist sect and heavily dependent on Saudi funding.

I would be seriously suprised to hear that American Islamic mosques are producing violent radicals. If this is the case, the response ought to come in the form of dialog. The suggestion that we should target and eliminate funding for a sect of domestic religious schools that are, AFAIK, not producing violent people, simply because they are muslim is, frankly, unconstitutional for a good reason. I don't think the sort of radical churches that exist in England would be tollerated here.