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

[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...