The sometimes mischievous French philosopher, Jean Baudrillard earned himself a bit of notoriety in the wake of Operation Desert Storm by declaring that the the Gulf War did not take place. Of course, he wasn’t suggesting it didn’t take place in the sense that conspiracy theorists maintain NASA didn’t land men on the Moon. Baudrillard’s observations noted instead the simulated character of the war:
- “Simulated” because it was less a war and more a massacre as the large but antiquated Iraqi military was bombed to bits by the very latest weapons technology the Western coalition had at their disposal.
- “Simulated” because the fighting, from the perspective of the coalition military, was done at arms’ length – ground operations were little more than skirmishes, were infrequent, and not germane to the eventual outcome.
- And “Simulated” because the media fixated on camera-mounted missiles, guided artillery, footage of warplanes embarking and returning from their sorties, and so on.
