The slight, bearded man padded over to me in well-worn birkenstocks, and quietly murmured the code phrase. I repeated the one to which we’d agreed on the phone, and he led me into an alley. He placed a blindfold on me, and we progressed into a building and, apparently, an elevator. I had no other clues as to my whereabouts except for the scents as I passed through the native environment for these determined, if deluded fighters–deep Vienna roast, and the yeasty aroma of a patisserie.

On the brink of resurgence of military action in the twelve-year cold war between the west and Saddam Hussein’s regime, scrappy bands of rebellious journalists are positioning to take advantage of the upcoming confusion of battle. Their aim is to reestablish their crumbling empire, and restore their domination over American mindshare, lost during the war in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001.

Like confederate sympathizers of the American south, or lone Japanese soldiers on tiny Pacific islands decades after the end of the war, they are unable to accept defeat, or disavow the rightness of their cause–they vow instead to rise again.

I am traveling to a secret rebel camp, deep in a canyon on Manhattan’s upper west side, to determine their state of readiness for the new fight, and the level of their morale on the eve of renewed battle. Because of my earlier sympathetic treatment of their tragic plight in the field hospital, I have earned their trust.

As we enter their lofty lair, somewhere high in the western peaks of the island, my blindfold is removed.

Blinking at the sudden light, my eyes eventually focus to view a spartan room, bare of all but the most vital necessities: fax machines; computers with high-bandwidth connections; comfortable ergonomic desk chairs; multiple big-screen televisions tuned to the BBC and CNN; tables piled high with back issues of The Nation, The Village Voice, and the New York Times; electric foot massagers from the Sharper Image; an espresso machine; and an expansive view of eastern New Jersey, providing them with a keen insight into the heartland of America. One small portable television is tuned to the Fox News Channel, with the volume reduced, and a hood over it so that only one person at a time can view it.

“Know the enemy,” explains my guide. “We have one person keep an eye on them, but we don’t want to risk corrupting the objectivity of the troops.”

Hung in apparent reverence on the wall, next to the “Che” poster, is a fading portrait of Bill Moyers. There is also a picture of George W. Bush, but it is being used as a dartboard.

Over in the corner, huddled over a space heater, a melancholy young woman is quietly teasing a dirge-like version of “La Marseillaise” out of her harmonica. Sitting next to her, listening, but looking bored, an obvious newsroom veteran methodically cleans his keyboard in preparation for the rigors to come.

My guide takes me over to a corner desk, for my interview with their supreme leader, who goes only by the name, “Commandante Howell.”

“We’ve just about completed regrouping and rearming with new arguments after the setback in the Hindu Kush,” he explains. “Fortunately, the rush to war has been so prolonged that we’ve had plenty of time to assess our past tactical errors. We realize now that we were using the wrong historical analogies in our predictions of disaster for the US–we were fighting the last rhetorical war.”

Despite his brave words, it’s clear, looking around, that their ranks are much thinner now. Many of their unfortunate colleagues have been lost to them forever in the brutal education camps, in which they were taught to actually think. But quite a few managed to evade capture or injury, and others escaped rehabilitation before they became rational, and are now ready to fight another day.

There are some new, fresh recruits, but they have very little experience, having seen little action except an extended and losing battle over a men-only golf course. Still, it partly hardened them for the battle ahead.

But the rearming hasn’t been going well.

“In retrospect, it’s clear that the Vietnam analogy wasn’t appropriate for Afghanistan,” he continues. “Neither was the Afghanistan analogy. Actually, we’re still not quite sure what analogy would have been applicable, but that’s water under the barn now. Our focus is on finding the right analogy for this upcoming brutal massacre of innocent civilians in Iraq, that will lead to a bloody quagmire and thousands of young American boys in body bags, with millions of new recruits for Al Qaeda.”

I suggest that the first Gulf War, in which the Iraqi army collapsed quickly, surrendering even to second-rank Italian journalism teams, with most of the few American casualties from friendly fire, and nary a word from the “Arab street,” might be the most apt. He shakes his head impatiently.

“No, no…you don’t understand. What good is an analogy that doesn’t result in an obvious interpretation that disaster for America from this, or any military action is inevitable?! We must have an analogy of mass destruction (AMD). But don’t worry, I have my top military strategists working on it.”

He points to a couple bespectacled journalists, a man and a woman, poring over history books and maps. I ask him if they have any military experience.

“No, it’s very hard to find journalists with military experience–most of them are retired. But it’s actually better that way–people with actual military experience might not be objective.”

He coaches them–“You might want to focus on desert battles–that jungle deal didn’t work all that well above the tree line.”

As we continue to talk, they call out suggestions to the Supreme Leader as they find them.

“Here’s one. Little Big Horn.”

“Is America Custer, or Crazy Horse?”

“Crazy Horse.”

“Forget it.”

“Hmmmm…here’s one called El Alamein.”

“Did the Arabs win that one?”

“No, actually the Brits whipped the Krauts.”

This prompts only a glare.

“OK, How about this? Can you say Masada?”

“Isn’t that the one where all the Jews off themselves? I have to admit, it does have a certain appeal…So are the Americans the Jews, or the Romans, in that scenario?”

“The Romans.”

“Keep looking. Tell you what, maybe the desert thing doesn’t work that well. Expand the search–just stay away from the jungles.”

As they go back to their books, he walks me over to another room in which the soldiers are being drilled in their new battle mantras. More conventional armies have the men charge stuffed bags with bayonets. This one hammers on keyboards, frantically typing “going it alone unilateral rush to war smoking gun cowboy failure of diplomacy let inspectors do their work selected not elected no connection to Al Qaeda…”

The training can be brutal, and the ranks have been thinned even further with injuries, ranging from carpal tunnel syndrome, to many broken syllogisms after prematurely jumping to conclusions.

One veteran, no longer able to type, has been moved into a blow-dried brigade of talking heads, and practices reading the litany from a teleprompter.

From the other room comes a war cry of triumph.

“We’ve found it! If you ignore the fact that it’s winter instead of summer, and far eastern Europe instead of the Middle East, and that the French were vastly overextended, instead of having the essentially unlimited logistics capability that the Americans will have, and the fact that the Russians were actually fighting for their country against an invading dictator, instead of about to be liberated from their own, Napoleon’s march into Russia is the perfect analogy. Either that, or Stalingrad. In both cases, it was a disaster for the dictatorial invaders.”

“Hmmm…well, I don’t like the fact that it necessitates beating up on the French and the Germans, but at least the Russians get to win, so I guess it will have to do.”

He turns to me.

“I want you to take our message back to the Americans. We may seem weak and confused, and illogical, but that doesn’t matter, because we have something more important–a belief in the rightness of our cause. We know, despite all the evidence, that we’re smarter than you are, and with that knowledge, victory will ultimately be ours–you cannot hold down a journalism major forever.”

“Once our Stalingrad analogy is shown to be prophetic, despite the internet, and weblogs, and fair and balanced news channels, and educational vouchers, we will once again tell the American public what to think, and liberate them from having to do it for themselves.”

“Tell them, the arrogant media shall rise again.”

(Copyright 2003 by Rand Simberg)