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The day television changed the war
by Thanos Kalamidas
2010-01-17 09:27:30 |
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When the invasion to Kuwait started I was in Dubai and for hours I was watching Peter Arnett from CNN in the lobby of a hotel when the telephones stopped ringing. It is amazing when major events like a huge invasion happen, it seems that everything around you stops and there is a grave silence. And that silence had been triggered just seconds before when a young officer from the American army had entered the lobby saying just two words “it started”.
The allies invasion to Kuwait and the storming continue in Iraq or better the Desert Storm that hit Iraq, was not my first time near a war zone but it was the first time war zone had come so near to me and it didn’t matter where I was. I could have easily been home, sitting on the sofa eating pizza; the war had found us through the trebling green screens and the voice of Peter. Apparently in days Peter Arnett had become part of the family didn’t matter where you lived. CNN had the privilege to be the only news agency inside Bagdad, constantly showing the other side of the hill.
And it was the dramatic and atmospheric green light that made everything more effective to all sensation; it was like the smell of the war was coming out of the screen and of course the reporter’s dramatic voice was making everything more real, well it was real. And we all stayed there watching quietly for hours Saddam’s reaction. Tariq Aziz had said just days before while everybody was still trying to find a diplomatic way out that if the Americans hit Iraq then the sky will darken from the Iraqi missiles. Of course it was all a poker game but we didn’t know then. But I’m not going to go to personal experiences from those days now, the most important is how much the war changed that night and that thanks to …CNN!
I still believe that the Desert Strom was the first reality show as reality shows have become today. I had all the time the feeling that the targets were carefully chosen not because of their military importance but because they were in good view from al-Rashid hotel where Peter Arnett and his cameramen were based. It was the same feeling that a war was unveiled and CNN was directing.
I’m not blaming for anything CNN. They did their job and they did it well and after all CNN are business first of all and profit their target and the franchise from this war gave them money for lifetime. Books, documentaries, videos, memoirs; everything they touched for years became cold. It is us I blame who let a horrible thing like war, where people die and humanity loses its dignity we let it turn into a spectacular.
Suddenly there was magic and we end up talking about it, talking about the pictures we could see on our television screens and not about the dead. I remember a few days later when I saw the first Iraqi prisoners. Men that had lost any kind of dignity and self respect, men who were glad they had survived from a sure death. Talking with some of them I realized that the allies had taken dimensions of monsters in their minds. Superhuman who carried hand nuclear weapons and I don’t know what ray guns that could see in the night and would definitely kill them. Men who had been starving for days since beyond all his arrogance and confidence Saddam could not even do the simplest thing with his army, feed them!
And then later there were dead bodies in the desert, there were orphans in the villages and the cities and there was a ruthless dictator who was going to continue for a few years more threatening enemies and compatriots. There was a whole nation in ruins and they were not all Saddam's, on the contrary the majority hated the man. But what we remember from those days are the trebling green screens of CNN and that was war! And that was the day CNN changed war!
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