"Saddam Hussein has the home-field advantage in this conflict"
We all sat around in my dorm room tonight and waited for the world to officially go mad. Relief when Bush announced it wouldn't happen for a good 48 hours -- we were going to need the time to get homework done, to prepare psychologically, to lay everything in order so we could, in my friend Anna's words, freak the fuck out on the infamous day.
I've always been a fan of ABC News for their coverage of international affairs, probably in large part due to the fact that my international relations teacher of a few years ago had a huge crush on Peter Jennings, and so we watched countless hours of specials in which he walked around in that big map room looking all thoughtful and unbiased. I think the fact that he's Canadian, and that Canada is the closest enclave of sanity to my home country of the United States also has something to do with it.
So, out of habit I turned to our local ABC affiliate to watch the President's speech. And because no one could really bring themselves to say anything after that bit of jingoism, we kept watching for the analysis afterwards. ABC opens with this big exciting montage of military might, entitled "When Diplomacy Fails". For Christ's sake, this is a war we're about to fight, and ABC is airing something that sounds and looks like a pregame show, like the Super Bowl is coming up. We start out with "The Numbers" -- surprising to find out that the United States and Britain have an overwhelming military force compared with Iraq. Next up, of course, analysts speculate on the game plans of both sides: Iraq will probably try to fight back, apparently. There's even the guy with the map, drawing little arrows of where various forces will move. And lots and lots of pictures of missiles being launched from airplanes.
Then come the starting line-ups of both sides. Neat tree diagram of the US command, we're ever so well-organized and professional. For the Iraqi side, short bios on the top commanders -- "so-and-so cut his teeth murdering innocent Kurdish civilians in the Iran-Iraq conflict" -- complete with b-roll of casualties caused by their actions.
I had to turn it off at this point, just couldn't keep watching. Thank God for The Daily Show, thank God for the rest of the world, for people who haven't completely lost it yet. And stay tuned for the halftime show, and the post-game wrap-up, brought to you by the liberal media.