The Gulf War Did Not Take Place

Abstract

The Gulf War is also a place of collapse, a virtual and meticulous operation which leaves the same impression of a non-event where the military confrontation fell short and where no political power proved itself. The Iraqis blow up civilian buildings in order to give the impression of a dirty war. The Americans disguise satellite information to give the impression of a clean war. The Americans are the vectors of the catalepsy. There is no question that the war came from their plan and its programmed unfolding. War stripped of its passions, its phantasms, its finery, its veils, its violence, its images; war stripped bare by its technicians even, and then reclothed by them with all the artifices of electronics, as though with a second skin. The Gulf War is one of these transitive episodes, hesitating for this reason between hard and soft forms: virtual war or real war?