Strategypage writes that the issue is a bit more complicated:
As al Qaeda suffered greater and greater losses in Iraq, recruiting became a serious problem. In desperation, leaders were ordered to recruit whoever they could. This meant more women and more teenage males. Normally, al Qaeda does not like to employ adolescents. They are too inexperienced and unreliable. That combination gets everyone in trouble, and adult al Qaeda do not like to work with kids. But earlier this year, al Qaeda found that fewer and fewer adults were willing to join up. This was largely due to U.S. troops capturing several key al Qaeda leaders, and lots of membership records. Too many al Qaeda members were being arrested or killed, and recruiting became very difficult. So kids were hired for a lot of simple jobs, like placing roadside bombs, or guard duty. Turned out that these kids were more likely to run away, or just surrender, if confronted with Iraqi or American troops. As a result of that, nearly half the al Qaeda under arrest (950 of 2,000) are under 18.
Even at half the population of imprisoned jihadis, this means over 1,000 adult jihadis gave up. That does indicate morale problems.
And the fact that al Qaeda is the one with recruiting problems and not our military shows that it really isn't futile to fight jihadis in the mistaken belief that fighting them just creates more jihadis.
Other nomilitary methods surely must be used to dry up the recruiting pool, but killing those already recruited is important. And when the enemy is down, killing those in the field will further depress recruiting efforts.
Declining attacks inside Iraq and declining recruiting for the jihadis? That sounds like winning to me. The reality-resistant community may think otherwise.
