1,001 Iraqian Nights

Most folks will recall that Scheherazade was the tale-telling heroine of the story that framed The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. To recap, Shahryar, a fictional king, marries a new wife each night, only to execute each the following morning. Eventually, Scheherazade, the daughter of the king's vizier, marries the king and keeps herself alive by telling a story per night, each halting at a cliff-hanger to be resolved the following evening.

Well, I confess that I chuckled to discover that (a previous version of) the AP report about the video of that Iraqi wedding that the United States allegedly bombed was written by one Scheherezade Faramarzi. With the Abu Ghraib story running out of steam, the wedding has emerged as the media's next means of darkening the public's impression of our military and the next tale to spin in its attempt to keep opinions about the Iraq war low enough to harm the President in November.

Writes the latter-day Scheherezade:

A videotape obtained by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say U.S. planes later attacked, killing up to 45 people. On Monday, the U.S. military showed photographs to support its own case that the target was a safehouse for foreign fighters.

The U.S. military says its investigation of the attack, which took place early Wednesday about five miles from the Syrian border, will try to reconcile the two different sets of images.

A certain Providence Journal blogger clearly has a firm opinion about which side to believe. ("It was possible for the military to deny this was a wedding until several hours of video shot by the hired wedding photographer... showed up.") For my part, I'm not so sure — and not just because my bias is to believe in our men and women in uniform.

This sort of production for the benefit of Western media wouldn't be without precedent in that region. (Remember the faked Palestinian funeral?) "Survivors" led the AP reporters to the site, and the reporters were able to identify "survivors" on the videotape of the wedding that supposedly preceded the bombing. Among the rubble, they found a piece of possible U.S. ordinance, which would be very easy to come by in Iraq, at this time. And a water tanker truck is visible in both the destruction video and the wedding video.

The more substantial, although not conclusive, evidence would be a match between the wedding band keyboard player and a corpse appearing in yet another video. But frankly, with respect for the dead and apologies if I'm wrong, I don't think it's the same guy (look at the noses).

I am, however, on the edge of my seat in anticipation of tomorrow night's tale.