Even before the correct version of events emerged (less heroism, more on-location stage management) clever and careful observers asked some basic questions like, why was a night vision equipped camera (not a helmet mounted, digital combat-cam but a pro-level hand held) conveniently available to record this 'rescue'? and 'why don't we actually see any Iraqi resistance in the film, just lots of flashbang, door kicking and little American flags (the most prominent being the one placed in Lynch's hand)?
So it was possible, even using the absurd material the Pentagon and its media enablers provided us with, to dissect, analyze and ask uncomfortable questions.
Which brings me to the much celebrated 'victory' in Samara we've been hearing so much about in recent days.
Washington, and its helpful friends in that little corner of Baghdad claimed by the 'Interim Iraqi Government'(let's just say IIG for short), are claiming that the movement of American and Iraqi troops into Samara represents a "turning point" and a sign of good things to come (look out Fallujah, you're surely next).
There's this report for example:
<http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,10960153,00.html >
The Americans and their Iraqi friends tell us that tanks are rumbling down the streets without encountering RPG and IED attacks while American and IIG troopers are patrolling without being shot at. Yes, compared to the 'no go' status of only a few days ago, this new freedom of movement for men and machines looks like the fruit of a smoothly aggressive and successful operation.
But even in the official happy reports, both from the US government and embedded journalists (what, you're still embedded?) there are strange gaps of logic - bits of mystery that beg to be solved.
For example...
I listened to National Public Radio last week during a segment on the Samara assault. The Washington-based host was speaking, via satellite phone I suppose, with the embedded reporter inside Samara (and inside a troop carrier).
The Embed described hearing small arms fire and seeing tanks firing at...she wasn't sure (no crime there, fog of war and so on). At one point, she quoted a US commander who claimed that over a hundred "terrorists" had been killed and maybe 30 or so captured.
This was the first sign something was up. A hundred dead? Approximately 30 captured? I'm not a military strategist but these do not seem to be the kinds of numbers you'd state as decisive proof of having eliminated a guerrilla force that dominated a city of 200,000 people.
"How'd the Iraqi soldiers do?" our velvet voiced host in Washington asked his (probably underpaid) colleague inside a troop carrier inside Samara.
Again, she quoted an American commander who spoke glowingly of the "professionalism" and "esprit de corps" of his Iraqi colleagues (who, depending upon what report you read or view, numbered either 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000). The Embed then went on to describe an exciting raid, spearheaded by IIG troopers, to "retake" an abandoned pharmaceutical plant. Fearlessly they took up position and cleared the area. At the end of this riveting tale she admitted they met no resistance because the guerrillas had apparently left some time ago (talk about burying the lead).
They had apparently left some time ago.
Certain common sense ideas occur. If you were a guerrilla collective facing a better equipped force and you knew (and why wouldn't you, since you no doubt have friends in the IIG) they were about to seriously move against you with heavy metal to prove a point what would you do?
You'd probably de-camp, knowing that at some point, the heavy gear will go leaving only relatively lightly armed troopers in Humvees and, in the case of their IIG students, pickup trucks and repainted SUVs. When this happens (most likely after the media attention wanes), you'll simply slip back into town and resume your bloody efforts.
The AC130s and M1s will return for a while, to "suppress" you so you'll melt away and come back when they're gone. Nothing new here, this is how the insurgency game is played.
I'm going to assume that American commanders know this. I'm also going to assume that although they say "the situation's under control" into microphones they know the M1s and AC130s and other bits of killingry that give them their edge cannot stay in Samara indefinitely waiting for trouble. There's an entire country to patrol after all. They know they're only buying a brief respite from their troubles.
So this leads us to develop another interpretation of this 'victory', this first step towards elections (as I think one of Allawi's boys put it the other day).
Pick a comparatively easy target, kill a fair number of people (preferably guerrillas of course but civilians will do to boost your body counts - so long as plausible deniability of civilian deaths is maintained) open the door to the troop carrier shuttling the embeds to the scene so they can do their on-the-spot reports and capture images of M1s and grimly triumphant troopers beside mosques and "retaken" municipal buildings. Wait as long as you can with the heavy gear in place. Reduce your profile. Of course, inevitably there'll be a car bomb or an RPG attack, an IED detonation or something else but by then the target audience, thousands of miles away in Chicago and Topeka and Savannah and other storybook American locales will have received the message: Samara is liberated, (micro) mission accomplished.
This is a pattern you can almost endlessly repeat. The situation needn't actually improve or move in a (from your point of view) favorable direction. But you can create the impression of 'progress'; using people, corpses and deadly machines, you can fashion a tableau, a frozen moment of apparent triumph.
.d.