Have a bomb blast

Street lights the colour of Milk of Magnesia dimly shone through the cotton wool haze that had wrapped itself about the city. In the dist...

Street lights the colour of Milk of Magnesia dimly shone through the cotton wool haze that had wrapped itself about the city. In the distance, pale yellow car headlights fought through the smog-fog. The atmosphere was miserable, suffocatingly heavy. Another winter8217;s night in Delhi.

Or in Baghdad. Watching the night skyline of the Iraqi capital last week, you had the oddest sensation. One moment it was a perfectly ordinary, dull grey; the next it was lit up in different psychedelic shades: gold, orange, green. As Christiane Amanpour said on Friday CNN, if anything was surreal, this was it, this was it. In the morning, their faces freshly painted, TV anchors stood in the midst of a city bristling, like cities do, with day time activity; at night, in the aftermath of a bombing, with their war8217; paint retouched, they stood in its ghostly emptiness. Then, the dust settled, the sky cleared, the cars drove by. Another winter8217;s night in Baghdad. 8220;A tale of two cities8221;, commented a reporter CNN.

8220;Secondwave of air strikes on Iraq under way.8221; 8220; Air raid sirens in Baghdad8221;. Written updates such as these on CNN and BBC, constantly appeared at the bottom of the TV screen but the picture of Baghdad, remained the same. Still, as if the city was asleep. But who could sleep knowing that B-52 bombers were just a siren away? As a succession of verbose anchors spoke, you looked behind their shoulders at Baghdad and shivered: someone was walking over its grave.

We saw dilapidated buildings, the injured in hospital beds; we heard Iraq8217;s foreign minister, health minister, trade minister ?. Mostly we heard from Washington CNN and BBC. Of course their reports were biased. What did you expect from them? Bad Sad8217;s Sayings? STAR News tried for a different perspective: it gave space to the other side of the story: Arab protests, Indian point of view, etc.

The video tapes of the bombing heightened your sense of ill ease. First, the screen pitched black. Suddenly, a torchlit rocket-bomb flashed past. And you weretripping like the Beatles with Lucy in the sky with diamonds as the most breathtaking fireworks display filled the screen. President Clinton was celebrating the 4th.of July.

CNN. 1991. The Gulf War. The footage was so exactly identical, it was a twin. Except Desert Fox is more clinical than Desert Storm. You8217;re briefed, you8217;re debriefed. By the Pentagon, the White House, William Cohen, by the TV stations. The whole wide world knows the schedule: the bombings will occur under cover of the night when Baghdad, as the BBC would have it, 8220;hunkered down8221;. Was this a video game, was it film? Either way, it wasn8217;t for real.Real wars are fought on land, sea and in the air, not the airwaves of satellite TV; real attacks are secret with lightning, unexpected strikes on unsuspecting enemies, not public events notified well in advance; real casualties are bloodied faces, remains of the dead or injured, not the crumbling walls of cement buildings. Vietnam. Afghanistan. Those were real.

This is a phoney.Stage-managed. Sanitised. Made for TV. Television as anaesthesia: its Baghdad images leave you etherized, numbed. How much can you feel for crumbling cement? What can you feel when the TV anchor, watching the Tornados take-off, tells you 8220;it was a very impressive sight,8221; as if she had chanced upon the Taj Mahal? What is there to feel when the 8220;relentless pounding8221; of a city is described as a sport: 8220;Bout two is over8230;bout three is about to begin8221;?CNN How do you feel when Adm.Scowcroft barks 8220;Saddam is a pain in the neck8221; and then thanks the BBC for its hospitality: 8220;nice to be with you8221;? Huh?

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The shadow of the impeachment of a President darkens this absurd drama. TV stations seesaw between the two. On Friday morning you tune in for the latest news on Iraq and find Republican Livingstone telling all the world he8217;s had extra-marital affairs. 8220;It is wrong, it is wrong, it is wrong, it is wrong, it is wrong!8221;screams Democrat Gephardt and for one mistaken moment you think he is referring to thebombing. No sirree. He8217;s enraged because while sons and daughters of the U.S of America are out there risking their lives for God and their globe, the House of Representatives is contemplating Clinton8217;s navel, sorry impeachment.

Thursday, Friday: you reel between Washington8217;s war of words and bombs blasting Baghdad. As they say: choose you poison.