In recording the episode, however, regimental headquarters decides that awkwardness would be avoided if it were stated that arms had been found in the shot-up truck. So the final communiqué reads: “Yesterday at … the occupants of a truck machine-gunned passers-by, miraculously only wounding one."

DEFINE: Illustrates the concept of official communiqués manufacturing facts to dodge awkwardness.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 522