Gulf war changed minds of people, says scholar

Gulf war changed minds of people, says scholar

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangalore, April 6, 2014: Mangalore University History Department retired Professor D. B, Surendra Rao has said that with the live coverage to Gulf war by the media, the very concept of war has changed in the minds of the people.

Speaking after releasing “Gulf Yudda 1990-91 Samrajyashahiya Punaragamana” (Gulf Wasr 1990-91, Return of Imperialism) authored by Dr. Barkur Udaya here on Saturday, he said “in the past, the war was fought between enemies. Soldiers died on the battlefields. Civilians remained at a distance mourning the dead. However in the Second World War, civilians become the victims. Cities and towns were razed by aerial bombardment. The fighter jets have been extended the reach of destruction. Here the strong countries like US believed that, by killing as many as civilians as possible, the spirit of a nation would be broken. Since then, millions of civilians, especially in Vietnam, Afghanistan have been killed for some cause or the other”. “We been so much influenced by the propaganda that Americans and British are right that we enjoy the movies based on the war in Iraq, destruction in Afghanistan and other countries,” he added. 

 

 

 

In his remark on the book, thinker G Rajshekar said that the Gulf war was coined the world ‘collateral damage’, which says to be brutally honest, those millions who died had no value. Their dying did not change the course of the country’s history.

“The American media had made use in recent years of a practice called embedding, in which journalists travel with the US military to cover wars. But embedding has its own ill effects. The journalists are observing these wars from just one perspective, not seeing them as a whole. As a result, the whole world sees the war in the perspective of American journalists,” he said

“Following the gulf war, the USA imposed economic sanctions on Iraq. As a result, they could not import all the necessary products. The result is five lakh kids were killed between 1990-95 in Iraq,” he added.

 

Courtesy: Deccan Herald