No, the only truly offensive culture, the real seismic threat to America’s skewed and mostly delusional sense of its own morality, was “gangsta rap.” American political and spiritual leaders offered no objections, as protecting Muslim feelings was not a campaign promise. By Desert Storm’s end, in what was gleefully referred to as “shock and awe,” the US and allies had run 115 assault missions per hour, a round the clock, for six weeks straight, each delivering 90 tons of explosives.įM radio drive-time personalities across the nation made merciless Desert Storm skits and parodies built of cultural ridicule. The arcade-quality visuals lessened the soul-sucking reality that people were dying and America was loving it from the living room.

And the overhead video from actual B-52s (not the “Love Shack” kind) raining savage oblivion on bridges and convoys - dead-ringer Atari, with a touch of Frogger viewpoint. The Apache view screens with 8-bit graphic crosshairs pounding Lockheed Hellfire missiles into buildings and dots that scattered like ants were spot-on Nintendo. The night vision footage of green rockets and tracers racing back-and-forth across the black skies of Baghdad looked an awful lot like the last level of Asteroids.

This was next-level nationalism, unprecedented patriotism, televised mass murder with the feel of a dark sporting event and the lo-fi broadcast resolution of a video game. This was groundbreaking stuff, honest-to-goodness live war, featuring play-by-play from on-site reporters and color commentary from retired senior military in the studios. In the early evenings of late January 1991, a fter local news and Wheel of Fortune, the majority of American families tuned in to CNN’s coverage of Operation Desert Storm, the first ever real-time, front line broadcasts in the history of combat.

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