By way of contrast, the Islamic militants are not in the least afraid of death. On the contrary, they have a virtually endless supply of willing suicides, ready to crash passenger planes into buildings, or simply strap explosives to their bodies and detonate them in the midst of their enemies. In Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan, and other countries all over the globe, they have developed these techniques into what amounts to a whole new technology of war.
In this sort of "war," there is no nation-state against which the West can stage a counterattack (though there are, to be sure, rogue nation-states like Iran, ready to aid the militants). There is no capital city that can be conquered and occupied. There is not even a political leadership sufficiently unified and effective to bring about surrender, assuming it could be forced to try. The enemy is everywhere, and therefore, in effect, nowhere.
Who can say with confidence that bin Laden is wrong in his calculations? At the moment, he almost certainly thinks he is winning. If the Democrats succeed in forcing a "redeployment" of American forces in Iraq to some less inhospitable area (probably home), the Middle East will rapidly fall under the sway of the militants, the Muslim influence in Europe and much of the rest of the world will grow and become more malignant, and the United States will be left to confront its fate alone.
So the "war on terrorism" may not be a war in the conventional sense. But a day may come, ironically, when we will wish it were.