A televised satellite photo: iraq fron space. The image is maplike and abstract, with S curves for rivers, blurry grids for cities and no sign of people, although we know they're down there. In the next shot familiar forms emerge, accompanied by a sense of depth and volume. According to the retired American general hired by the network to interpret the war, those shoe-box-shaped structures are enemy barracks and that dark broken line is a convoy of armored vehicles closing in on Baghdad from the south. Now move even closer: an empty airport runway, a damaged tank and there, along the bottom, where the general is tapping his pointer-a human body? The orbiting camera has reached its limits, but the mind continues to zoom in until it's looking the dead man in the eye. The big picture no longer matters, just this small one-singular, piercing.
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