Dr. Forbush Thinks

One of the “legal” sales techniques that we often witness is the “Bait and Switch.” The idea is to create a vision of what the customer desires. The customer begins to imagine the joy of ownership, and begins to fill in the blanks with his own imagination. The salesperson is careful not to lie about the reality of the product that he or she is trying to sell, but he is also careful not to clear up any possible misconceptions.

For example, on our recent trip to Las Vegas we sat through a couple of time share pitches. As the target of this pitch you begin to imagine lounging out by the pool with a waiter asking when to bring your next drink. Then, maybe you begin to think of the cost of these drinks. But, then no need to worry because with the time share you could surely stock the liquor cabinet. Having that “home away from home” is better than a hotel - right? The sales person will not point out that the reality of the situation is that this is basically a hotel with guaranteed guests for the owner. Occupancy rates are going to be high, because not using the time share is your loss. Now, since this does become obvious to some potential customers the time share pitch now talks about trading and delaying your weeks. But the salesperson will never point out that if you don’t want to use the time that you purchased you will eventually lose it. If you have saved up ten weeks of time share, and you die, then you have paid in advance for time that you can never use.

The illusion of sitting by the pool in a tropical paradise is tempting, but the reality of mandatory vacations to the same place, or similar places every year might be a bit to demanding. What if we want to go traipsing through the Outback with a guide? What if we want to take a climb in the Himalayas? A friend of ours recently took his family on a motorcycle tour around the Western states. The time share constraint would rule this trip out.

Well, the time share pitch isn’t the traditional bait and switch. They don’t promise something that they won’t deliver. You get the place to use every year for a week. For some people this might be just the thing that they want. After all, it isn’t the salesperson’s responsibility to advise you as to what the down side might be. It isn’t against the law to point out what the upside of a deal is without pointing out the down side.

Similarly the recent presentation of the situation in Iraq by General Petraeus is a sales pitch. His presentation is a continuation of bait and switch sales pitches that we have been offered for the last four years. First we attacked Iraq because Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction. When we discovered that they didn’t, we changed our motive to the removal of an evil tyrant, because he was a major focal point in the War on Terror. And, after we killed him and the Terrorists continued to pour into Iraq we decided that Iraq could be molded into a shiny example of Democracy in the Middle East. When the government failed to become this shining example, we have now changed our goal to a “bottom up” establishment of order in this country.

The point here is that General Petraeus has created a new vision of what it means to succeed in Iraq. Creating a new goal with out admitting to the failure to achieve the old goal is dishonest at best. I suggest that this is a typical bait and switch that a salesperson uses to make the sale. The sales person isn’t really concerned with the goal, but rather they are concerned with making a sale, or “saving face” in this case. Changing the goal continues to be used by the Bush administration, mainly because they can never admit when they are wrong by administration policy. Aside from Bush coming claiming that his only error of his presidency was to say “Bring It On,” the Bush administration hasn’t claimed a serious mistake. Instead of claiming human fallibility, the Bush administration continues to change the goals and proclaim that they are almost there.

Well, surprise, surprise, General Petraeus has claimed that we will reduce our military force by the surge number of 30,000 troops by next summer. But, he never pointed out that the military could not sustain the surge strength beyond next summer without some major changes that no one wants to do. We could implement a draft and demand that Americans make real sacrifice for this “necessary” war. Or, we could pull troops out of Korea. Or we could cut time in which troops spend in the US between deployments. So, in other words, General Petraeus is making a positive illusion out of a situation that was going to happen no matter what the reality on the ground in Iraq. Is this just another marketing ploy? Is he just giving us another illusion of success in the face of necessity?

And, in the only other positive announcement that General Petraeus made he claimed that the “bottom up” effort of getting the regional leaders to support our efforts was making progress. But, what does this really mean? The regional rulers have found that it is in their best interest to support us, NOW. But, will they change their support as the political winds change? Yes, they don’t care about the global situation. They don’t even care about the total Iraq situation. And, if they see that the US is supporting another rival group more than the US is supporting them, then they will change their allegiance.

The reality here is that was are supporting Sunis in Suni areas. And, we are supporting Shia in Shia areas. And, with all of the ethnic cleansing that has happened over the last few years these divides are greater than they were in the past. This means that the divisions in the country are actually becoming more not less profound. On this current course Iraq is moving toward a greater division along sectarian lines. And, without a way to share natural resources among these groups we are heading toward the traditionally difined civil war in which Suni areas organize Suni armies and militias to fight Shia armies and militias in Shia areas. In other words, current US policy is enabling factions to organize, strengthen and eventually fight each other in organized fronts. Is this positive or negative from a US perspective?

But, at the current time the current salespeople will continue to sell the current policy and continue to avoid the issues that they don’t want us to see. They are acting like any “good” salesperson. And, it is our responsibility to see through the candy coated illusion and pull out the reality, as ugly as it really is.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


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