As recently reported in The New York Times, the U.S. military strategy of “Clear and Hold” — to clear violence-ridden neighborhoods of militias, insurgents and arms caches, and then hold them with Iraqi and American security forces — appears to be a dismal failure.
Our old friend Jerry Seinfeld found this out the hard way, as he tried to check into his hotel on a recent trip to Baghdad, to visit the “War About Nothing”:
Hotel Agent: I’m sorry, we have no hotels left standing up in this part of the City.
Jerry: I don’t understand, I made a “Clear and Hold” reservation.
Agent: I know, but unfortunately the hotels were all knocked down.
Jerry: But the “Clear and Hold” reservation keeps the hotel here. That’s why you have the “Clear and Hold” reservation.
Agent: I know why we have “Clear and Hold” reservations.
Jerry: I don’t think you do. If you did, I’d have a hotel room. See, you know how to clear the violent neighborhood, you just don’t know how to hold the violent neighborhood, and that’s really the most important part of the “Clear and Hold” reservation, the holding. Anybody can just clear out the neighborhood.
Agent: Let me, uh, speak with my supervisor, Don Rumsfeld. [The agent then goes into an office with a window in the door so she can be seen speaking with someone.]
Jerry: Uh, here we go. The Secretary of Defense. You know what she’s saying over there?
Elaine: What?
Jerry: “Hey Rummy, you see those two people over there? They think I’m talking to you about a plan to save Iraq, so you pretend like you’re talking to me about new options, when we’re really just ’staying the course.’ Okay now you start talking.”
Elaine: “Oh, you mean like this? So it looks like I’m considering new options, but I’m just really ’staying the course’?”
Jerry: “Now you say something else and they won’t yell at me because they’ll think we were considering a phased redeployment.”
Elaine: “Okay, that’s it. I think that’s enough, see you later.”
The agent returns.
Agent: I’m sorry, my supervisor says “Shit Happens.” There’s nothing we can do.
Jerry: Yeah, it looked as if you were in a real strategy session over there.
Agent: But we do have a tent in Del Boca Falluja if you would like that.
Jerry: Fine.
Elaine: Alright. Just make sure I don’t have to sleep on a fold-out cot. Or else we’ll have to sleep head to toe, with me wrapped in a Burka.
Jerry: You know, this 120 degree desert heat is making me thirsty.
Elaine: Hey, Jerry, I just came up with the solution to this whole damn mess over here.
Jerry: What’s that?
Elaine: Just GET OUT!
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STAY-THE-COURSE-WORTHY:
BuzzFlash on George Lakoff’s new book.
John Amato on active-duty troops now calling for end to the debacle.
Norm Jenson on Darfur.
Lisa Casey on the Bush Family Foot in Mouth Disease.
Glenn Greenwald on Enema for the State: the cleansing effect of investigations.
