Has anyone else had a Church Lady Moment with the relevation of the Zarqawi "treasure trove" of intelligence? It may be the Reynolds Wrap sombrero talking, but I find it a little too... conveeeenient. The usual suspects are swallowing the story whole hog, of course.

Consider if you will: 

• The Iraqi PM claimed the terrorist mastermind was carrying around existentialist, self-loathing doubts about the future of al-Q on a flash drive in his pants [along with his Morrissey mp3s?]. US officials, meanwhile, said the documents (which miraculously hit on all the right Bushie talking points) were found three weeks earlier; they later claimed copies of same the documents were found at both times and locations. 

• The military apparently conducted a boatload of operations within hours after Zaraqwi was zapped, based on intelligence from his safehouse. Stratfor doesn't think this makes sense, and speculates that some sort of quid pro quo was struck with Sunni insurgent chiefs.
• The Bushies announced another bug-eyed boogeyman is ready to fill in; in desperation said boogeyman reportedly makes threats against indigenous Sunni insurgents. Thereby leveraging xenophobia. Or something.
• The GOP just happened to be ready with a full week of "We're winning and Dems are weenies" PR gimmicks, from Flyboy's midnight flight to the sham Congressional debate.

 Update: The experts actually agree with my half-assed assessment. I must have the sombrero dialed in to the right wavelength.

I suppose it's a good thing the Bushies are at least making some sort of effort in shaking up the status quo, even if it's mostly appearances (it'd be nice if some small fraction of the effort went toward actual policy and diplomacy, but we'll take what we can get). It's certainly worth enduring the cries of glibertarian glee if it brings us a few baby steps closer to ending this sorry saga. Peace with honor and all that. 

But I can't shake the feeling that we've been down this road before... repeatedly. Psy-ops is no substitute for strategy, and bullshit tends to produce blowback... it enables the true believers to pursue their delusional and agendas unfettered by, you know, reality:

The centerpiece of the Reagan administration's campaign to prove the international- conspiracy nature of the revolution in E1 Salvador was its White Paper issued a month after taking office [Feb. 1981] and based largely on purported "captured guerrilla documents", some of which were included in the report. Amongst the various analyses of the White Paper which cast grave doubts upon its claims was the one in the Wall Street Journal by Jonathan Kwitny. This included an interview with a State Department official, Jon D. Glassman, who was given the major credit for the White Paper. Admitted Mr Glassman: parts of the paper were possibly "misleading" and "over-embellished" ... it contained "mistakes" and "guessing''. Said the Wall Street Journal: "A close examination ... indicates that, if anything, Mr. Glassman may be understating the case in his concession that the White Paper contains mistakes and guessing..."

...It was not merely the accuracy of the White Paper that was questioned, but the authenticity of the documents themselves. Apropos of this, former US Ambassador to El Salvador, Robert White (sacked by Reagan because of excessive commitment to human rights and reforms), commented: "The only thing that even makes me think that these documents were genuine was that they proved so little."

[...]

[W]hatever military support the Salvadorean insurgents actually received from abroad--necessarily limited to what could be carried by the occasional clandestine small truck or boat--plainly did not belong in the same league, nor on the same planet, as the huge transport-planefuls and shipfuls of American aid, in all its forms, to the Salvadorean government.

On 28 January 1982, President Reagan certified to Congress that the El Salvador government was "making a concerted and significant effort to comply with internationally recognized human rights" and that it was "achieving substantial control over all elements of its own armed forces, so as to bring to an end the indiscriminate torture and murder of Salvadorean citizens by these forces." The language was that imposed by Congress upon the administration if the flow of arms and American military personnel was to continue.

Two days earlier, the American and foreign press had carried the story of how government troops had engaged in a massacre of the people of the village of El Mozote in December. From 700 to 1,000 persons were reported killed, mostly the elderly, women and children...

...[For years] the United States waged ruthless war against the Salvadorean revolution, [ginned up the Iran-Contra mess] and threatened worse. In April 1991, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, announced that "if necessary, [the civil war in El Salvador] can be resolved the way it was in the Persian Gulf."

In early 1992, the war came to an official end when a United Nations commission, after a year-and-a-half effort, finally got the warring sides to agree to a cease fire and a peace agreement.