tag:www.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk/blogs/714day//1669 2008-05-30T06:15:24Z Movable Type Pro 4.21-en tag:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com,2008:/talk//17.197660 2008-05-30T06:15:24Z 2008-05-30T06:15:24Z

714Day The wars that have occured in my lifetime (post WWII) have all been televised in some part.  Korea had very little intrusion by the little eyes, but from then on out it kept expanding into a more insistent visitor.
It's a big production, war.
If it's possible (and it isn't), there were the silly wars.  They were the Falklands and Grenada.  I'll skip the Falklands in favor of the solo U.S. romp in Grenada.  In this invasion of a sovereign state, our troops were sent  into the "zone" without proper maps.  I realize it occurred before we had the worldwideweb, but we had Thomas Bros. for Christsake!
It was all so unbelievable; these grownups playing Davy Crockett in the wild frontier...having their warriors wandering aimlessly without maps until they were corralled.   Hell. 
I should have stuck with war is never silly.  There's silly shit in all war, though.
Then there is the heartbreak business of the Vietnam and Iraq conflict. on TV.   Oldstyle Walter Cronkite and backward as the MSM was at the time of Viet Nam, we saw the bloody bullshit.  That's difficult to believe considering that network broadcasts were sanitized (Father Knows Best era) with a scrub brush.  Monks burnt themselves up in front of the TV trays, you could see PEOPLE being blasted around by bombs and helicopter blades, A MAN being shot by some officer, children running and screaming toward the camera exposing the grainy film.
TV helped us not to pretend Viet Nam away. 
I'm not saying that television and radio and print were the only reasons for giving us a different sensibility about the reality of war then, but it was deeply real on a daily basis partly because of that.
Now look at coverage of the Iraq conflict.  Uh,... may as well go back to radio and LIFE magazine.  Okay, I'm not being fair to LIFE. 
The MSM is safeguarding us now.  I guess we are being protected from troubled thoughts about our young being killed or disabled every damned day in that stunningly hostile place.  We are being sheltered from reminders of our children at the task of a killing mission, bloodying things up because now they've GOT TO so THEY can stay alive.  We needn't concern ourselves with our kids on a sweep in a densely populated city, herding residents into huddled silence at gunpoint until THEIR property has been secured against OUR enemies.  Hell, we only get peeks at their homecoming coffins.  Even  final nods from a heavy citizenry aren't allowed.
Saying again that Viet Nam had other qualities that don't exist now, like conscription, is important.  Nearly all had a personal worry, a beloved who could be, or might be, or was, called.  Or those who genuinely thought it was the right thing to do and maybe be the movers and shakers knew something.   they were to afraid to run or go to jail.  Or whatever.  We all knew someone up close and personal over those bloody years.  That's different now, for example.  That's a big example.  There are others.
Ironically that's why the magical disappearance of  the Iraq war  here in the well begun technological era is of particular significance.
I guess we have homeland security after all.  It's on TV.
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