In his post today, The Wedding Party, Wretchard at the Belmont Club presents an intriguing analysis of the development of the story over an eleven hour period. He presents a table showing a comparison of the same story as reported at four different points. The table paints a clear picture of the challenges facing even professional observers in the high data flow world we’re confronted with today. Jumping into that flow at different points can present very differing views of the actual underlying events.
One of the problems reflected in the side-by-side comparisons of the story that Wretchard presents is that significantly more weight appears to be given to Iraqi accounts of the events than to U. S. military accounts. Does this reflect the reporter pre-judging the story? Or does it reflect the greater access the reporter has to the Iraqis than he does to the U. S. military? Or that the Iraqis were more forthcoming about the story than the U. S.? Or worst of all does it reflect the narrative the reporters or his editors find more newsworthy?
My own reaction to this story was that while sad it was no tragedy, merely stupidity—and Iraqi stupidity at that. It may be Iraqi custom to fire guns at weddings but it is certainly the custom of the U. S. military to fire back when bullets whiz past their ears. This is not a case of “shoot first, ask questions later”, it’s a case of “shoot back”.
Consider the alternatives. If Iraqis stop shooting at weddings not much happens. If the U. S. military stops shooting back when shot at we’ll have a lot more dead soldiers. Wouldn’t it be prudent for the Iraqis to change their behavior?
This is a tough case.
I think it goes to show that it’s really hard to change a culture — shooting guns in the air is an old tribal custom, and it’s not going to be easy to just wipe it out by fiat.
Anyway, I find it impossible to sort out what really happened. Why doesn’t the military take videos of these things, so that it can prove its case when doubted?