ABSTRACT
I was heading back to the Mojave Desert, where my journey into the military-industrial-media-entertainment network first began. Since I traveled in 1994 to observe the Advanced Warfighting Exercise at Fort Irwin, much had changed; and yet, much had stayed the same. Back then, the global situation appeared to be on the upward swing: the end of the Cold War left the United States without a peer rival, and the Gulf War had been deemed a military (if not entirely a political) success. Then came 9/11, a body blow to American exceptionalism, but one that nonetheless lead to a relatively successful intervention into Afghanistan and the routing of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The invasion of Iraq that followed, although controversial, toppled Saddam Hussein and enjoyed congressional as well as popular support. To mark the end of combat operations, President Bush made a tail-hook landing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003 to declare, under a large “Mission Accomplished” banner, that victory had
been won in Iraq and that terrorists were on the run. Inside the beltway, the revolution in military affairs (RMA) was heralded as the key to both successes. “Shock and awe” was hailed as a new war-fighting doctrine. The U.S. military had won both wars speedily, with remarkably few casualties.
