ABSTRACT
Shortly after the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf, a political cartoon depicted the United States “giving a [war] party” to which “the enemy [Iraq] had refused to come.” Yet “Victory Celebrations” in Washington, D.C., New York, and other major cities in June 1991, accompanied by an uncharacteristically massive display of high tech armament, gave the distinct impression that the United States had won a “fun,” essentially bloodless war-more like a Nintendo game played on a real world stage. Some newspaper columnists referred to the conflict in the Middle East as the best “splendid little war” the United States had fought since the Spanish-American War of 1898; others said it was equivalent to sending an elephant to stomp on a mouse.
