Sein und Shine, notes on Baudrillard and the gulf war

Form the introduction to 'The Gulf War did noy take place'


1. 'Occasionally, the absurdity of the media’s self-representation as a purveyor of reality and immediacy broke through, in moments such as those when the CNN cameras crossed live to a group of reporters assembled somewhere in the Golf, only to have them confess that they were also sitting around watching CNN in order to find out what was happening. Televison news coverage appeared to have finally caught up with the logic of simulation.'

2. 'In the words of one commentator, for the first time, ‘the power to create a crisis merges with the power to direct the movie about it. Desert storm was the first major global media crisis orchestration that made instant history.’

Note:
1. The grand discusion pivots around the question of the existence of an original truth that can subsequently be representated into news (Plato's problem of mimesis). In the classical mimetic perception physical closeness (the reporters) means being close to the original (the reality, so to speak). The reporters account is exactly valued because he is right there right now, seiing it with his own eyes. His reporter skills allow him to capture this original truth in text and image. The reporter is our sixth sense, our extended eyes and ears. The reporter makes it look (through his representation) that we are there on the spot.
This example beautifully problematises the whole relationship between original and representation. The representation (tv) is obviously more real then what the reporters can see with their own eyes. So what is the original? Baudrillard denies the existence of an original. There are only signs (simulacra) that form the hyperreal. The hyperreal infects our perception of reality, as we can conclude from the second quote. The coverage of war is compeletly orchestrated. We see no casualties. Coverage is focused on showing the technological superior weapons. We see our soldiers walking around in determined fashion. The enemy is either a vague rattling of far away guns or subdued prisoners or people that looked relieved now that they don't have to fight anymore. Bombs are depicted as innocent destroyers since their superior technology makes them incapable of destroying anything human; they always hit with precision building and people that represent evil. On top of this, the chronology of war is preented to us by a press officer who chronicles the clean results. Questions are never answered because this wil jeopordize the 'operation' (note the clean medical sound of that: soldiers defecate, take out the malfunctioning without destroying the healthy tissue). Now that reporters take this fabricated account as a the source of news about the war, how are we are going to see the war for what it really is? Isnt this what we see the reality of the war?
* Question: Does Baudrillard think of the hyperreal as a new historical form or is it just a radicalisation of already existing forms?. I would like to argue that the realtion between original and respresentation always has been problematic. There has never been an original not now, not tomorrow, not yesterday. Baudrillards critique on the disneyfication of reality holds true for christification of reality as well.

Related fields of inquiry:
For the representation of war check this beautiful book on painting war.
Pentagon and Hollywood, documentary on how Pentagon finances and controls the Hollywood war movies.
The first great work of European literature is about a war. What does that tell us? Homerus does not make use of Hollywood dichotomy between good and evol. The trojans are as brave and good (or bad) as the Greeks.