I imagine that a lot of Americans felt pretty disgusted after they read the front page of yesterday’s New York Times. After nearly six years of fighting the War on Terror, a classified report shows that Al Qaeda is stronger than ever and that we are no safer here at home.

What the hell happened?

Having read through the Times coverage and additional information from other sources, let me break down these revelations for you:

Despite six years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is now clear that Al Qaeda is making a startling come back. Listen to this assessment presented in the first paragraphs of the Times story:

“The intelligence report, the most formal assessment since the Sept. 11 attacks about the terrorist threat facing the United States, concludes that the United States is losing ground on a number of fronts in the fight against Al Qaeda and describes the terrorist organization as having significantly strengthened over the past two years.”

We have reached this astounding point after spending hundreds of billions of dollars, losing tens of thousands of lives around the world and witnessing destruction on a mass scale. We have thrown our military into battle without adequate political and diplomatic support and as a result, the American force structure is broken and stretched thin. As a result of profligate spending and a lack of foresight, we have sacrificed our future at home by adding unfathomable sums to the national debt. We have seen the best and brightest of our country’s young return home in boxes or badly injured.

Well, at least we can rely on the Department of Homeland Security to prepare the country for another terrorist attack, right? Unfortunately, we now know because of Hurricane Katrina that our government is unable to prepare even for foreseeable natural disasters. While seniors, people with disabilities and the poor were stranded in New Orleans, federal and state agencies couldn’t figure out how to distribute water and food to desperate citizens.

Clearly, we are still unprepared, after having spent billions to create the Department of Homeland Security, for an American city to come under siege. Amazingly, Secretary Chertoff remains in his position almost two years after presiding over the greatest debacle in the history of federal emergency management. Do you feel safer?

Both abroad and at home, there has been one failure after another throughout this so-called War Against Terror. Do we stop and think that perhaps another approach might be wiser? Hell, no. Instead, we send aircraft carriers to the Persian Gulf to provoke a conflict with Iran and send covert forces into the Northwest tribal areas of Pakistan. At home, we haven’t allocated enough resources towards preparing our big cities for potential terrorist attack or securing our ports.

A few months back, I wrote about how unfolding events in Pakistan particularly scare me. Today, that country is moving even more rapidly towards disaster than I had projected. Bombings and civil unrest are a way of life. The central government has little to no control over the Northwest areas. General Musharraf, at our urging, is increasingly cracking down on internal dissent, creating martyrs and momentum for the extremists’ campaign. Pakistan is a tinderbox and one step away from becoming a militant Islamic state.

Here is the clincher.

Pakistan has in hand forty to sixty nuclear warheads, and not weapons that might be developed in five years like Iran, but operational missiles systems. Can you imagine these weapons falling into the hands of Islamic terrorists?

We now know that the War in Iraq has added scores to the terrorists’ ranks, and that our increasing failure in Afghanistan has led to the resurgence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Meanwhile, we have lost any goodwill and all influence in Iran and Syria.

Now, here is a radical solution.

Let's sit down and talk something we should have done from day one.    Maybe it is time to seek common ground among our partners and enemies in order to build peace instead of expanding this failed war.

Why not? At this point, I don’t think we have much to lose, especially given the costs of war to date. With what have spent in treasure, lives lost and diplomatic capital, we could have vastly improved our lot at home and shared responsibility for a better world with other nations.

In business, we often say that a return on investment is a critical success factor. The cost of this campaign – the War on Terror – has been astronomically high and the return has been disappointingly low.  Everyone knows that except our Chief Executive President Bush.  How much damage will we allow him to do before bringing this under control?

Nevertheless, the bottom line is that something has to change and change soon, before it’s too late.