Them again--and always?

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

(Serial No. 54129) writes:

>
>From _Gravity's Rainbow_, p. 113 (Picador ed.):
>
>'In these first rushes the black man moves about in SS uniform, among the
>lath and canvas mockups of rocket and Meillerwagen (akthough always shot
>through pines, through snow, from distant angles that don't give away the
>English location)  It will be antiqued, given a bit of fungus and
>ferrotyping, and transported to Holland, to become part of the 'remains' of
>a counterfeit rocket-firing site in the Rijkwijksche Bosch. The Dutch
>resistance will then 'raid' this site, making a lot of commotion, faking in
>tire-tracks and detailing the litter of hasty departure.'
>
>From _The Guardian_, Monday March 18 1996, p. 8:
>
>'The HVO [Bosnian Croat army] was assigned to attack a key Serb stronghold,
>Kokoska. But a phone call on July 18 between the Serb commander, Marko
>Lugonja, and an intermediary called Zdanko reveals a plan for the Serbs to
>let the Croats film a supposed victory on Serb territory to 'fool the
>international community and the Muslims.
>'A Serb Major Buvka tells Zdanko: 'They [the Croats] are bringing their TV 
>but make sure they come without their personal weapons. You must give them
>the weapons up there, without ammunition of course. Let them make a video
>film of the whole thing so it loks real.'
>
>
>
Whoever you are, serial number, thanks for that piece of intelligence.
By the way, did you catch that Gulf War thing?
Or am I thinking of the flag raising ceremony at Iwo Jima?
Oh, no, of course--it's Mathew Brady's pioneering, searingly real Civil War 
battlefield fotos, complete w/ dragged-on corpses of soldiers and horses, in two 
shades of blue and grey.  So nice to behold, w/ that natural antiquing, that veneer 
of fungus and ferrotyping.

Has the technology of image production always done this to war?