Is Bush right when he says the war on terror is a generally lost cause?
He did not say that - he said it's not 'winnable' (which brings the argument, no war really is..). That, however, does not mean you just roll over and die. You can bring yourself to a better situation, by putting up a fierce fight. No, the war on terrorism cannot be won.. but you can bring terrorist organisations to their knees, and very much limit their capabilities.

And how can you fight a war on a verb? You fight places, people or Proper Nouns. NOT verbs.
Exactly. There IS no war on 'terrorism', as 'terrorism' is a tool, a weapon, imployed currently by Islamic radicals (yes, me hearties, a massive majority of the world's terror organisations are Islamic), who use terrorism as a tool and a weapon, against the free world.