What is it about war that thrills us? Last PM I watched some old CNN footage of the Gulf War start.

[NRaleighLiberal]

And I don't mean "us" as DUers - I mean "us" as humans in general.....

I am sure many of you will remember - back in 1990, after Saddam invaded Kuwait - and we had Holliman, Arnette and Bernard Shaw reporting from the Al Rashid hotel in Iraq at the very start of the dropping of our bombs. I remember watching it.

But now that years have passed, and we've done what we did in Afghanistan, then Iraq, I watched this footage with different ears....and noticed very clearly the excitement - putting the microphone out the window, letting us hear the anti aircraft guns, then bombers going overhead, then the bombs.

It reminded me exactly of when TWC covers the big storms and puts Jim Cantore et al out into the wind to blow around like fools on camera.

The connection I made to the significance of yesterday - the 10th anniversary of our grave, lie based bumble into Iraq - is that it seems that war makes great TV (as long as it is not on our soil)....that hearing bombs drop gets the news folks' juices flowing (I noted that none of them even for a second pondered whether the bombs were falling on innocent people's houses or heads). That was perhaps the beginning of war as entertainment.

I could go on and on and am sure there are deeper philosophical comments and insights to be made...but before I lost the thought, I just wanted to share how surreal it all sounded - and of course the whole "surgical strike" thing has now been perfected so that we can watch what seems as so much videogame footage from the comforts of our homes.

Then consider the costs....and the death....and the lies....and the damage to our reputation as a "world leader".

I am not saying that particular war was or wasn't justified....

I am also sure it is not just Americans, and not just recent. It seems to be a human fault - I guess in "kill or be killed", in a way. We've just been able to make it so much cleaner (to us, watching)....and more antiseptic. And, based on the anniversary of yesterday, so easy to slip into.

Thanks for reading my afternoon ramble...

[SharonAnn]

1. War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning" by Chris Hedges

An excellent book about this.

[Initech]

2. These are the people who get their jollies from war:

- Charles & David Koch
- Donald Rumsfeld
- Dick Cheney
- Blackwater / XE Corporation
- Exxon Mobil
- Kellog, Brown & Root
- Shell Oil
- British Petroleum
- Enron (defunct)
- Arms Manufacturers
- Boeing
- Raytheon

I'm sure there are more I'm forgetting.

[Bigmack]

3. I'm sure a lot of folks get chubbies...

...just thinking about all those nifty war toys. Especially if they go BOOOOOMM!

Very few of us who have been there when the BOOOOMMM happened want to be there again.

No chubby for us.

[bluedigger]

4. People find it reassuring to know their "side" is dominant.

Winning is always better than losing, even if the cause isn't Just.

[ljm2002]

5. Yes "war makes great TV"...

...especially when the war is reported by "journalists" who are embedded with the military and limit their coverage to watching big explosions without ever showing the blood and guts that go with the big explosions.

The powers that be learned the lesson of Vietnam well: don't let those pesky reporters go out on their own. Why, you could end up with pictures of napalmed little girls screaming in pain and terror, or of young Viet Cong soldiers being summarily executed. Stuff like that is bad for busi... er, is unhelpful to the War Effort and doesn't Support Our Heroic Troops.

[marions ghost]

6. War is always romanticized

Lots of action, constant risk of death, sacrifice, heroism. All the elements of a good story. Psychologically, soldiers are programmed to feel good at the death of another. Plays into a primitive instinct--"you must die so that I may live." One thing if you're talking about deer. Another if you're talking about humans. Suburbanites don't grow up as killers. They have to be trained to kill. We have lots of war entertainment resources to help young men (& women now) feel fine with it, especially at a distance.

If soldiers don't believe they are fighting for a just cause, why do it? Hence the towering lies behind the Gulf "Wars" and Afghanistan. Immoral, indefensible wars. But if you are supporting a huge military industrial complex and a multifaceted armed forces, well, ya gotta have wars. Gonna happen. After the fact war stories have always been entertainment. For some.
There won't be many fond memories for this generation of soldiers. Like Vietnam, they may realize just how much they've been punked, in suffering for a war perpetrated by political exploiters and white collar criminals.