They ARE winning. It's obvious, we are acting like losers. Our military power is being used to "build democracy". Not to protect us, or to make us feared.
There will be a time- this week? Some day in 2011? when our defeat is clear. Savannah or Honolulu or Topeka will be a smoking hole, and some president will be unwilling to retaliate. Unable to even think, "Patience my ass, I'm going to kill something." The rockets will sit in their silos, so some president can take the "moral high ground". So he can send a message that live Arab civilians are more important than dead Americans. That's the message of the Cole, the Khobar towers, and so many other outrages followed by measured response.
This fool we have now is supposed to be the tough side of our culture. A winner says something like "This is the free world. We publish what we like." Only a loser says "We're sorry we offended you." The Arabs know what it means as they burn our embassies and WE counsel OUR restraint..
Westerners who have not seen war, westerners who haven't travelled to the third world, have NO IDEA what it is like out there. The world outside the west is, in large part, just like the worst housing project in your town, minus the nice amenities. The strongest and meanest rule, period. Our enemies can't believe that we are so weak, that we accept such humiliation. We will not wake up until we have no choice, and probably not then.
The article I link to below says truths that are simply unsayable in general public discourse, beter than I can. Dislike the truths, but that does not make them false.