Pure, unadulterated idiocy!

Nincompoop Strategey

I'm sure you read it. And I'm sure your jaw dropped at merely the headline -- "The Pentagon Gets a Lesson From Madison Avenue: U.S. Needs to Devise a Different 'Brand' to Win Over the Iraqi People." And I'm sure your jaw continued its plunge as you waded in disbelief through the reporting on this year's indisputable winner of the "They Did What?" Awards.

For starters, I was rather shocked that the Joint Forces Command -- a name that manifests what they're smoking -- permitted the release of written evidence that it has lost its mind. Second, I was incensed the JFC didn't offer me the chance to bid on the "research" gig. I gladly would have done it for $350,000, or $300,000, or $100, instead of the Rand Corp.'s piratical price of $400,000. Even the $100 would have been negotiable; and charging even half that still would have sparked pangs of guilt within me for taking advantage of the incredulously challenged.

Nevertheless four-hundred grand of your money is what the JFC shelled out for the mind-bendingly obvious: Iraqi civilians, caught in the flying lead between urban insurgents and occupational forces, can indeed "help identify enemy infiltrators and otherwise assist U.S. forces."

However -- and this almost certainly was the costly part, requiring, as it would, months of thumb-twirling thought -- "they are less likely to help, the study says, when they become 'collateral damage' in U.S. attacks, have their doors broken down or are shot at checkpoints."

Apparently, until last week, the JFC was of two minds about the occupational advisability of innocent civilians being "shot at checkpoints." Their ballistic elimination, said one school of thought, would undoubtedly enhance the odds of our shooting the right people in the future.

True, one can't argue with math, said the other school, yet something about whacking those we're supposed to be there to help just doesn't seem right -- seems almost counterintuitive.

Well, gee, what would Madison Avenue do? wondered these two thoughtful schools of thought. Let's ask esteemed clinical psychologist and Pentagon/Rand Corp. toady Todd C. Helmus, said one. Our treat.

Realizing tremendous good fortune had come his way, Todd played along, agreeing to look into this matter of martial dispute. He then played golf while his middle schooler pondered and wrote the 211-page pioneer report that recommended "establishing a brand identity that places what you are selling in a positive light."

We're pretty sure that means don't shoot innocent civilians, thunk both schools. Get a dispatch off to Patraeus straightaway and release the study, thereby proving to taxpayers there's more depth to and a higher learning curve within the military mind than they might otherwise suspect.

Unfortunately, Todd's middle schooler felt duty bound to include in his report the additionally obvious: "that it could be too late for extensive rebranding of the U.S. effort in Iraq."

But plucky Duane Schattle, who labors daily on our imperialistic behalf at the JFC's "urban(e) operations office," countered that "cities are the battlegrounds of the future."

Did you get that, Tehran?

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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.