No question there is movement on the Arab Street. The camera does not lie. It shows us crowds of (mostly young) people protesting. We sympathize with them – we know most of them have no job and have a lot to protest about. At the back of our minds, however, there lurks a question – we can’t help it, though there is no visible evidence – a question that the camera cannot answer: are some of them fanatics who wouldn’t hesitate to cut our throat?
The camera also shows us grotesque pictures of Gaddafi – clearly a buffoon, or rather a man who, for reasons that the camera cannot illuminate, wants the world to think that he is what he appears to be. If we acted only on the basis of what the camera shows – a buffoon, not a monster – we would not have needed Security Council Resolution 1973 authorizing a no-fly zone in Libya. The intelligence services of the civilized world would have got together, recruited a few Swedish mystery writers, and invested in some well-placed bribes – to buy the willing cooperation of his key guardians – cheap compared to all those tomahawk missiles. They would have deposited him at a villa in St. Moritz, or Disneyland, or at a comfortable oasis in the Saudi desert – of course out of range of television cameras. What could be easier?
To understand the world, unaccompanied television is useless. It is not allowed in the White House Situation Room where the decision-makers weigh the pros and cons of every strategic move. It cannot show the rules of the Great Game that force them to consider every move in relation to the nuclear build-up in Iran, to consider the prospects of a successful popular uprising in Iran (which, of course, would be a splendid thing for the West), or in Saudi Arabia (which would possibly be less splendid), and the consequences to the increasingly dangerous impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
In fact, television alone is worse than useless. It gives us the illusion of understanding the world when in fact it cannot.
The only moments of truth occur on the screen when it shows us well-meaning, well-informed experts grappling with insoluble problems.
Eric Koch’s book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
