It takes a while, but the Arts & Entertainment Network’s “20th Century” focus on the Persian Gulf War does get around to asking this question: After the deaths of almost 300 American soldiers and billions of dollars spent on mounting this conflict, what was the point?
If our objective in the 1991 attack was to push Iraq’s Saddam Hussein out of power, then why is he still in power?
We don’t get around to that question until the fourth act of this hourlong program. Until then, we see a vivid history of a war that was brought directly into our living rooms. Produced by CBS News Productions with A&E, “20th Century’s” look at “The Persian Gulf War” airs at 9 p.m. Wednesday and again at 1 a.m. Thursday.
The program will evoke memories of an anxious time. Many Americans, as well as people from around the world, were glued to their televisions during those taut days leading up to and following Jan. 17, 1991 when the U.S.-led allied forces launched Operation Desert Storm. And CBS’ words and pictures are effectively used here.
“To many Americans, it was a good war,” says “20th Century” host Mike Wallace. That’s probably because, in essence, the good guys won. And the program captures that sense of us fighting what Wallace calls “the most one-sided war in modern times.”
Who can forget those scenes (thanks to night-vision technology) of olive-green skies lit by fiery “starbursts” from hundreds of missiles? Or the Battleship Wisconsin firing its Tomahawk cruise missiles into the night? Or cameras mounted on jetfighters picking up buildings being blown to bits as if they were images from a video game?
The “20th Century” report is meticulous in showing the technical sophistication of the gulf war. Terms such as Stealth bombers, laser-directed strikes and Cruise missiles entered our language, as did the “feared” Republican Guard, and Hussein’s Scud missiles. Since this is an CBS production, however, there’s no mention of NBC “Scud stud” Arthur Kent.
“The Persian Gulf War” also is effective in bringing back that sense of patriotism America felt after the war. There are numerous scenes of soldiers marching all over the country after coming home from the war, with massive crowds cheering them. There’s a priceless glance of a preening General Norman Schwarzkopf leading his troops in a march down a street in Washington .
But for all the scenes that “The Persian Gulf War” shows us, it still winds up asking that one nagging question: What was the point, if after our eventual winning of the war resulted in ruthless Hussein still in power, raining his terror on thousands of war refugees?
“The written mission for Schwarzkopf was to destroy (Hussein’s army) the Republican Guard,” says military analyst Bernard Trainor. “And they did not do that.”
One theory given is that Colin Powell of the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t keep up the pressure after the allied forces bested Hussein’s army.
Even President George Bush had some regrets about how the Persian Gulf War ended.
– West Palm Beach Law: Amanda Donohoe is back as wandering lawyer Diana Cadell in “Shame II: The Secret,” an interesting Lifetime movie premiering at 8 p.m. Wednesday.
Donohoe, best known as “flexible” (read: bisexual) lawyer C.J. Lamb on “L.A. Law,” first played Cadell in 1992’s “Shame” as a former Los Angeles district attorney who hit the open road on her motorcycle, to escape a failed relationship and her job’s responsibilities.
Filmed in West Palm Beach, Fla., “Shame II” finds Cadell arguing to save the life of a young man (well played by Geoffrey Blake) facing the death penalty for a murder. She finds out the young man is mentally handicapped. Standing in her way is the man’s mother (Kay Lenz, looking way too young to be this guy’s mom), who has never accepted her son’s disability.
Donohoe, who also is an executive producer of “Shame II,” gives a nice performance in a movie with a plot more realistic than the average crusading-lawyer TV flick.
– Where’s the remote: Host Bill Kurtis is checking out the cutting-edge research being done in Antarctica and the South Pole, as “The New Explorers” looks in on “The Crystal Laboratory” at 8 p.m. Wednesday on WTTW-Ch. 11.
