SCHOLARLY PRESENTATIONS

Colorado Daily, April 10, 1991: pp. 3, 7.

'Magic' of war technology questioned

GERARD FLECK

The media and the Defense Department cast a mysterious quality of enchantment over the war and turned generals Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell into wizards, said journalist and anthropologist Janine Wedel Tuesday during CU's World Affairs Conference.

"Magic fulfills without labor," Wedel said, citing the awe of CNN viewers as they watched the laser-guided bombs' seemingly magical ability to enter doorways and fly down ventilation ducts during the six-week Persian Gulf War.

The "Technology and War" discussion was held in CU's University Memorial Center Glenn Miller Ballroom as part of the second-day conference events.

"Magicians are special and have nontransferable powers," Wedel said. "Schwarzkopf is now venerated for his IQ, a supposed 175, and is given a wizard's title: 'Stormin' Norman.' "The sad thing about this magic allegory used to describe the coverage that TV and the press presented to Americans is that, "magic and magicians are guiltless," according to Wedel and, "it appears that only the bad guys suffer."

George Hazelrigg, a deputy director at the National Science Foundation, picked up on the theme of magic while citing the role Colorado played in fighting Iraq.

According to Hazelrigg, "technicians, hundreds of feet below the southern slope of Pike's Peak, just west of Colorado Springs, magically and continuously monitored the location of Scud missile launchers, and via satellite, beamed the coordinates of airborne Scuds to the Patriot missile batteries in Dhahran and Tel Aviv.

"Pilots can't possibly understand all the electrical functions that take place inside the black boxes in their cockpits. One pilot who took out 23 Iraqi tanks in one afternoon could only have perceived his accomplishments as an act of magic," said Hazelrigg, referring to a captain who lives in Berthoud, northeast of Longmont.

Richard Aregood, a 1985 Pulitzer Prize winner for his work at the Philadelphia Daily News, said, "Technology has increased our distance from war and decision-makers. We saw the Gulf War as entertainment, extracting one fact every three days from CNN."

After stating some of the magical effects of the televised news, Aregood said that this type of coverage "is more horrifying than the TV coverage of Vietnam, because Vietnam was up close and personal," with nightly images of dead American soldiers flashing across TV screens.

TV causes other problems, he said. Because of the distance that technology puts between TV watchers and the real world, "We don't vote, and when we do, we vote for the most pleasant-looking candidate," Aregood said.

This country needs to get its priorities straight, he said. "We can shoot down Scuds, but we can't build a Honda Accord or VCR. We have set the priorities (for research and development), and now we have to live by them," Aregood said.

The coverage of Operation Desert Storm gave Americans a "false sense of community. Tying yellow ribbons around trees is just imitating Tony Orlando. Waving flags - it's phony," Aregood said. Because of our euphoric feelings, he said, "We can't objectively judge the accuracy of our technology or the number of deaths related to the war. The Russians have a better view of our technology now than we do, because we see it as magic," he said.

An audience member asked, "How we can build some insight into our military and political institutions?" Hazelrigg replied, "Institutions have no insight." The only way to ensure that technology is not used to mislead the public is to "examine the political decision-making process closely" and "have total freedom for scientific research and unrestricted access to all files," whether they be political, defense or scientific.

When asked if the magic spell was cast as a result of the Defense Department's ability to control the frontline reporters, all three panelists agreed: "Truth is the first casually of war."

"This is nothing new," Aregood said. "The American press is a center-right establishment, basically a unified cheerleading service."

Wedel said, "an anthropological definition of the word magic does not consider magic to be good or bad," but what happened to the media coverage of Desert storm, "was awful."

Said Aregood, "They lied, and people believed it. Americans wanted a magical war, and they got it."