I’m not sure which was more surreal, what went down on Sunday at a graduation ceremony for 978 Iraqi army recruits, or the spin being put on the incident. The U.S. Army has managed to turn in a phenomenal performance, even by its own impressive standards. In less than 24 hours after the incident, they managed to put out both lies of omission and lies of commission.

The graduation of 1,000 new Iraqi army soldiers in restive Anbar province took a disorderly turn Sunday when dozens of the men declared that they would refuse to serve outside their home areas, according to U.S. and Iraqi military authorities.

The graduation ceremony at Camp Habbaniyah, a base about 45 miles west of Baghdad, was going well. … Then some soldiers started tearing their clothes off.

The protest was triggered by an announcement that the new soldiers, all residents of Anbar province — widely considered the heartland of Iraq’s Sunni Arab insurgent movement — would be required to serve outside the province.

While the fracas fell well short of outright mutiny — there were no reports of officers coming to harm, and the soldiers ate a meal in an orderly manner later that day — a video clip of the graduation aired on the al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya television networks on Monday gave the impression of a near-riot.
[...]
U.S. military authorities, who issued a statement on Sunday night that made no mention of the incident, gave a more subdued account of what happened.

“It was actually a very small number of graduates,” said Lt. Col. Michael Negard, spokesman for the Multinational Security and Training Command-Iraq, which oversees the training of the Iraqi army and police forces. “It was a momentary but very brief display of displeasure. It was never out of control. It was over as quick as it started.”

For the U.S. Army statement on the incident, click here. Yes, there really is no reference whatsoever to the “protest” or “near-riot”. As far as the Army is concerned, it never happened. Now if only they hadn’t aired that footage on al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, no one would know about this thing that never happened. Which is how it should be, right? It was such a small mutiny. And over so quickly too.

Ah, but just because Lt. Col. Michael Negard, spokesman for the Multinational Security and Training Command-Iraq, says it’s over, that doesn’t really mean it’s over, does it? The WaPo story linked above goes on to quote statements by two of the recruits. Both make it clear they will not serve outside Anbar province. And they had no problem with their names being used in the story, either. Moreover:

Iraqi soldiers and local authorities said the problem that surfaced in Sunday’s ceremony has not yet been solved. …it isn’t yet clear which way the opinion of the soldiers will swing. Another volunteer, Falah Hussein, said the soldiers’ officers have met with them and asked for four days to try to work things out.

According to WaPo, a mediator, Brig. Salah Khalil al-Ani, has been assigned to try and sort things out.

Surely, even in this through-the-looking-glass-version of 1984 that we live in, a continuing refusal to obey orders has to be described as a continuing display of displeasure (at least), rather than one that’s over?

And let’s be clear what we have here: a near riot at a military ceremony that constitutes a public declaration that some of these newly minted soldiers — whose graduation the U.S. Army statement celebrates as another step in the development of an Iraqi military capable of reestablishing order and preserving peace and stability in the nation — intend to disobey deployment orders. In short, behavior that any self-respecting military force would have to consider a totally unacceptable breach of discipline.

In an earlier, more simple-minded world, the name for such behavior used to be “mutiny”. But then we stepped through the looking glass, and lo and behold, many words suddenly had new and improved meanings.

Remember what happened to “torture”? Research by enquiring administration minds revealed that it ain’t torture if it do’t involve “death, organ failure or the permanent impairment of a significant body function”. (And even that seems to leave interesting loopholes for torturers. Surely no significant body function is impaired if you separate a man from just one of his testicles?)

Now, meet the reinvented “mutiny”. It ain’t mutiny if you just, like, disobey orders. If you don’t kill, maim or torture officers, then it’s just a misunderstanding or a protest. (Oh dear! Are the words “kill” and “maim” redundant here? So confusing, this new English.) Or a display of displeasure. I guess only the nattering nabobs of negativism would insist on calling it a mutiny. Especially since everyone sat down to an orderly meal later. (They didn’t even get sent to their rooms, huh?)

One of the more chilling aspects of the story to me: WaPo already subscribes to this new definition of mutiny.

(Just wondering what the official U.S. Army spokesman definition of “lies of omission” might be. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if the manual says “a lie I should have told but didn’t”.)