Think about this, all our guys who are tasked with finding the terrorists are 95% white, christians, male, and probably conservative.
Meanwhile our enemy is pakistani, afghani, british, sudanese, persian, lebanese, german, indonesian, croatian, etc, etc.
Our side follows a chain of command. Our guys have to follow whatever the top dictates.
Their side has only a symbolic leader. The various cells operate independently with probably only minimal communication or pre-arranged signals.
Our side has to deal with the beltway & giant corporate bandits who see tons of money to be made. The biz may talk about the 'war on terror' and plant flags behind their logos, but at the end of the day, the shareholders take precedence, not the fight.
Their side simply has tons of money made from selling oil to us, which is then passed along to the various cells or raised independently.
So how on earth are we supposed to win with a crappy situation like this?