The end of the war
In real life, a war never ends. Fear brings madness, madness brings death, death brings horror, horror brings pain and grief, and then grief becomes a memory, part of history. But in the world of the media, a war very often ends before it has even begun! According to the coverage in many newspapers and television programs across the world, the imminent war in Iraq is already over and we are now experiencing the «day after.» We follow the meticulous analysis of a range of geopolitical and economic scenarios, with as many theories as certainties being projected. Experienced commentators who have graduated from the best universities in the world speculate about the fate of a few million people. Everyone has proposed their own war scenario – every self-respecting analyst has at least three or four in their repertoire. Tactics, bombs and weapons systems, the duration of the war – all these are once again topics of analysis. But these scenarios never include predictions of death tolls, wretchedness, hunger and poverty; they merely refer to «collateral damage.» In the world of the media, as soon as you turn the page of a newspaper or the television program ends – and the scenarios have been wrapped up – the war, which has not even begun, is already over. But at some point this war will actually take place. And then special correspondents will send us their reports against a backdrop of sirens and tracer bullets. And we will think we are there but in fact, we will be none the wiser…
