A majority of Americans now think we are winning the War on Terror

Which is amazing given that for 7 years we have been told there was no way we could win.

Remember in October 2001 when we invaded Afghanistan, most pundits predicted thousands of casualties with a Russian style defeat. After all both the British and the Russians had failed. Instead we toppled the Taliban and destroyed al-Qaeda's refuge. 7 years later the civilian government is still in place. Yes there are challenges (mainly I think due to inept NATO partners and a lack of will by the Pakistani government).

April 2003. The advance towards Baghdad stopped in order to allow the logisitics train to catch up. The invasion was immediately declared a failure and thousands of casualties were predicted. Instead we are 7 years into the war with and still less than 5000 dead.

2004 - 2008 a daily drumbeat of defeat from the media and the Democrats (and Chuck Hagel - jackass) President Bush digs in for the long haul and eventually authorizes the troop surge which lowers casualties to the lowest levels since the war began.

Despite this and despite the two major Democratic Presidential candidates declaring the war as good as lost the American people believe 51% to 16% that we are winning. At the same time President Bush's approval ratings are rising for the first time in quite awhile.

I have said quite a few times that President Bush will leave office a hated man but when historians look back they will view this 8 years as both transformative and positive.

That brings me to another topic. What do these poll results say about Barack Obama and his vaunted judgment? Let's be honest Obama's entire campaign is based on the fact that he opposed the war in Iraq. Except he didn't show any exceptional judgment there. He wasn't in the Senate at the time so he didn't have to vote on the issue and if he had the entire Congressional Black Caucus voted against the war so he wasn't unique. But, lets give him that. He opposed the war and he was arguably right. He also opposed the troop surge and even after it has become apparent it was successful he continues to say he would vote against it again today. Is that really good judgement?

And what are his reasons for opposing the troop surge? It keeps us from sending more troops to the true fight against terrorism in Afghanistan. He wants to avoid a resurgence of al-Qaeda there.

What he doesn't seem to realize is that al-Qaeda can only exist where either the government allows it too, Sudan and Taliban controlled Afghanistan, or where it is too weak (non-existent) to prevent it, Pakistani Tribal areas and some areas in the Philippines are good examples. If we had followed Barack's plan for withdrawal that is exactly what we would have had in Iraq - a failed state with al-Qaeda running free. Only in this case instead of being in an area with zero strategic value to the US al-Qaeda would have been in a position to disrupt Persian gulf shipping and fund their operations with black market oil. They would have also had access to the 550 tons of Yellow Cake Uranium that was just recently moved to Canada. I'm sure A.Q. Khan and associates could have found a use for it. That doesn't really strike me as extremely good risk assessment skills.

Over half of American voters (51%) now believe the United States and its allies are winning the war on terror, the highest figure recorded in nearly four years by Rasmussen Reports in a nationwide survey.

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For the first time in months, more Democrats (35%) also think the U.S. is winning versus the number who credit the terrorists with being ahead (26%), although nearly a third (31%) are undecided. Last week, only 27% of Democrats thought the U.S. was winning.

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Now 61% of men think the U.S. and its allies are winning the war on terror, up from 54% last week and 49% the week before. The number of women who agree has held steady at 43% for two weeks in a row, up from 37% a week earlier.

The percentage of Republicans who see the U.S. and its allies ahead also stayed roughly the same at 78%. Forty-five percent (45%) of unaffiliated voters, a bloc critical to the upcoming presidential election, agree, up two percentage points from a week earlier and 36% the week before that. Nationally, the race between Barack Obama and John McCain remains very close in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.