You need to watch two Frontline productions: Gangs Of Iraq and Endgame. Both deal with latter-day Iraq and how the US invasion created conditions for an insurgency to blossom into civil war. Frontline is how I nurture my cold ire between new Adam Curtis documentaries. At night I dream Adam Curtis, Frontline producers, Sy Hersh and Robert Fisk meet on a secret Lunar base beneath a dome of flickering data screens to plan their next stories and discuss how best to evade black helicopters and replicant honeytraps.

If you haven’t stared too hard into the abyss of Iraq yet, get schooled with their Lost Year doc, that covers the early mistakes of the occupation. But as Senator McCain likes to say, “we are where we are.” And where is that? Gangs of Iraq describes how Shi’ite militias in Iraq began giving as good as they got against the Sunnis after two key events: the bombing of the Shia mosque in Samarra, and the Shi’ite dominated elections that put Iraqi police and armed forces under partisan control. And this brings us to a key point brought up in Endgame, that the US military leadership clearly defined only one strategic goal for the Iraqi occupation - to leave as soon as possible. They were to train a bunch of Iraqi police and soldiers and then withdraw (aside from their huge permanent bases and embassy of course, someone has to make sure the oil makes money someday). And if you recall, talking points about progress in Iraq usually boil down to numbers of new Iraqi recruits and trained men. Unfortunately, we may well have been training and arming the militia men now executing Sunnis under the auspices of the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior.

Watch gangs of Iraq and you will see Iraqi state soldiers discussing how they are not troubled by the militia weapons cache seized by US troops because the really big cache is safe with the mullah of one soldier. The Frontline producers didn’t know what they had on tape until they translated the discussion months after filming. In Endgame you will the US’ last best hope for Iraq - the “clear, hold, build” strategy the Surge will supposedly bring about. The strategy entered White House discussion through Condoleezza Rice, which upset Donald Rumsfeld. There’s a priceless moment when Rumsfeld and an Army official openly disagree during their own joint press conference about US military obligations in Iraq regarding violent excesses committed by Iraqi police forces.

To get a glimmer of the tragic, brutal absurdity gripping Iraq right now, watch these pieces. It’s important, a Fog Of War for this moment, an education in hubris, vanity, tribalism and violence.