Well, the casualties the Taliban have suffered have at least given them reason to stop fighting for now:
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have called a halt to their Summer Offensive. They pitch this as a "pause" while they wait for people to starve (a drought in the south has halved the wheat harvest there, putting over two million people at risk of starvation) and for the Hizbollah attack on Israel to get Afghans suitably enraged. At that point, the Taliban will call upon the 300,000 men who used to serve in their army and police force, to lead the population in a national uprising. This will bring the government down, and the Taliban back to power. That's the Taliban explanation for their timeout.
Few friends in Afghanistan. Few successes against the Coalition or government. And fewer gunmen to go on suicidal attacks on government and Coalition forces.
The Taliban pause is significant considering they were going all out to hit the new NATO forces and discourage NATO countries from fighting in Afghanistan. Instead, the Taliban got a bit discouraged.
So killing the enemy does have a good effect. A third of them dead got them to pause. At some level, it will get them to give up entirely. Or we just shoot for 100% dead, I suppose. That erases that problem of whether to give them attorneys and culturally sensitive meals.
Oh, and note that the Strategypage post that notes the discouraged Taliban is separated by the prior Strategypage post noted in my linked post by about three weeks. It is often difficult to see and appreciate the difficulties of our enemies. They don't advertise their problems. Our difficulties in contrast are easy to see. So we can think we are failing to win even as we kill the enemy is lopsided battles. Yet now the Taliban are clearly discouraged.
Pursue the enemy. Kill them. That is always discouraging.
