That first morning, facts led fluid and unconfined lives. The television news reported bombing on Capitol Hill, fire on the Washington Mall, eight separate planes hijacked. These assertions would stand for some time, then fade away without proper correction or disavowal. The accepted version of events that emerged from this confusion simply asserted itself by strength of repetition, and not by contrasting itself with previous reports.

Some confusion results naturally in trying to make sense of bewildering events. Other confusion is political.

During the earliest speculation of who and why, television commentators mentioned the demonstrations against the IMF and World Bank, scheduled for the end of the month in Washington, DC. In doing so, they insinuated that protesters might be responsible for the terrorism. This infuriated me: The warped security mythology about violent protestors in places like Seattle had fully reversed reality. It was as if the police officers had been the ones who dressed up like butterflies and choked through clouds of tear gas. As if the protesters had been shooting the rubber bullets and pepper spraying riot troops, troops locked together and seated cross-legged in the middle of the street. As if the Italian protester, 23-year-old Carlo Guiliani, had delivered a bullet, rather than taking one in the face.

As I calmed down, I realized that perhaps I overreacted to the passing implication of global justice protesters. Nevertheless, this served as my first inkling that now, amidst the bipartisan declarations of war, words would bear a different relation to the truth.

In the official response to the attacks, as on TV, information would go missing and specifics would shift. The point that holds steady is the war.

Friday's New York Times featured a biographical profile of Osama bin Laden. Astonishingly, while it describes his Cold War guerrilla efforts against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, it all but excises any ties to the United States -- erasing past CIA support for bin Laden's activities. A story on the same page talks of President Bush making diplomatic calls in preparation for his own potential attack on Afghanistan.

These items recall Orwell's descriptions of the shifting alliances between Eurasia, Oceania, and Eastasia; in the states of 1984, who one counts as friend or foe may reverse abruptly, but officials eliminate any inconvenient history by never making "mention of any other alignment than the existing one."

According to the Times, whose "deep knowledge" of Afghanistan will President Bush consult in his invasion? Russia's, of course.

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