[UPDATE: Salon.com has an article covering similar ground. The evidence is clear...fundamentalist Islam is thriving and moderates are finding it harder and harder to survive]

As Bush tries to convince us that he is winning his Forever War Against Terror, it is increasingly clear that we are losing the REAL war against fundamentalist extremism throughout the world. As the Taliban and al-Qaeda thrive in Pakistan and Afghanistan, even in Iraq, where we are surging merrily ahead, secularism is dying out and fundamentalist extremism of BOTH Shi'ite and Sunni varieties, thrive.

I call this the Republican enabling of a growing fundamentalist Caliphate, a concept I introduced more than a year ago (leading to my being asked by BBC radio to be part of a phone in radio program) and has recently been more openly advocated even in Indonesia.

Recently on Current TV I saw further evidence that we are losing to extremists...even in Iraq where Bush assures us we are winning. Here is a highly disturbing segment from Current TV describing how secular Iraqis are being forced out as refugees, leaving Iraq to be taken over by extremists.

You can see an even more disturbing aspect of this in another segment on Current TV covering what it is like for students (including women) at Baghdad University. One statistic that stood out to me: 100 professors at Baghdad University have been assassinated during our occupation of Iraq. Think about that. That shows how ineffective we are at providing stability to Iraq.

You can find this segment on the Current TV website.

From Bahrain and Bangladesh (both formerly moderate Muslim nations that are seeing a surge of fundamentalism) to Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan (where fundamentalists are increasingly seen as the force of stability) to Iraq itself, the crown jewel of Republican failure, we are losing the hearts and minds of Muslims around the world. And it is fundamentalist groups like the Taliban and al-Qaeda that is winning those hearts and minds...or killing or driving out those hearts and minds they can't win over.