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Originally Posted by mixedmedia I would think that the more we remove ourselves from our own conflicts, the more likely it will be that events like this will happen. The people are just figures walking around on a screen and most young people are already enured to killing figures that walk around on screens. How very convenient.

Baudrillard argues [in The Gulf War Did Not Take Place] that the style of warfare used in the Gulf War was so far removed from previous standards of warfare that it existed more as images on RADAR and TV screens than as actual hand-to-hand combat, that most of the decisions in the war were based on perceived intelligence coming from maps, images, and news, than from actual seen-with-the-eye intelligence.

Most provocatively, Baudrillard argues that the startlingly one-sided nature of the conflict (fewer US soldiers were killed in this 'war' than would have died in traffic accidents had they stayed at home) means that it should not be seen as a war, simply because the US-led coalition chose not to engage with the Iraqi army or to take the kind of risks that constitute war. The US-led coalition was fighting a virtual war while the Iraqis tried to fight a traditional one - the two could not entirely meet. A great deal of violence took place, but the Gulf War did not; rather than belittling the effects of this violence, this means that the Gulf War should be seen not as a war but as "an atrocity masquerading as war."

The Gulf War Did Not Take Place - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia