Is the war on Iraq reality TV?

There is already confusion around what is paid for and what is independent editorial and my opinion is that sooner rather than later our interest in the gruesome and macabre will allow our global psyche to look forward to horrors in the media. I believe we are a short step away from ancient gladiator-type shows that will show death as a spectacle in the media.

If advertising rates on the international networks have not increased around their broadcast of this skirmish, I would be very surprised. Similarly, if they have increased what is the nature of the sensitivity that prevents advertisers from creating tactical advertising?

The communications task is an impossibly difficult one: how will the US succeed in communicating their moral right to this war? Bush has presented himself as arrogant and dismissive of contrary views and, setting the truth aside of Sadam's abysmal human-rights record, Sadam has done the same.

I will be glued to my TV over the next few days not so much to see the bloody and sad outcome, but to witness the change in what we find socially acceptable.

I believe the US in this action begins the end of their life as global superpower - I'm off to learn Mandarin.