In the short sense, yes.
Please read this. It is long.
http://www.esquire.com/features/michael-hensley-0708
Thanks for the link.
Alberta's Child... Here is a quote from the link that demonstrates the thinking that we hold now.
"My soldiers are paratroopers," Balcavage says. "And when paratroopers come to a country, all they want to do is kill and break stuff. Well, you can do that all day long without any progress. You've got to do it with the Iraqis. You can't win a war just by killing people."
The writer easily recognizes a flaw in the "logic" presented.
But then, you can't win a war just by paying people, either, or else it wouldn't be war. And Balcavage was at war before the surge took hold. His men were being shot at by snipers and blown up by IEDs. They were taking mortar fire. In the IED attack that gave the battalion its first combat fatality, on December 20, 2006, one of the survivors lost not only his legs below the knee but also his penis, and the soldier who died was electrocuted by a power line transformed by the blast into a lethal whip.