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It was, of course, too late; I was already hooked. But even as I settled in to watch, resigned to my latest addiction, the thought crossed my mind that perhaps reality television has finally gone too far.

The latest phenomenon relied on months of hype (before the actual first episode) to establish a solid, if somewhat skeptical and reluctant, base of viewers. But despite the near-constant viewer polling, Operation Iraqi Freedom is no mere “Married by America.” The first-ever war to be televised live – as it happens, 24 hours a day – represents a new high-water mark for the United States’ already unimaginably large voyeuristic impulse.

From the moment the first Coalition troops crossed the Iraq-Kuwait border, networks like FOX News, MSNBC and most of all CNN have devoted themselves to constant coverage and analysis of the conflict. The major difference from the coverage of previous wars – most notably Desert Storm – is the pervasive presence of so-called embedded media: journalists who live and move with actual companies of Coalition troops, documenting movements and skirmishes within minutes of their occurrence.

The result has been, for better or for worse, an unprecedented look at what really goes on in the front lines. Viewers, myself included, have spent hours in front of the TV, captivated by live images of soldiers actually shooting at other soldiers, bombs actually falling on real buildings, and sometimes by nothing more than a stretch of land over which the network has received reports of incoming air strikes. While I watched live, accompanied by my constant companions – the CNN news team in Atlanta – the barren stretch stayed undisturbed for a tense two hours before the strike finally came.

Proponents of this type of coverage maintain that it gives the public greater access to accurate information than ever before and that, by keeping constant tabs on military actions, it increases the accountability of the Coalition forces, hopefully eliminating the atrocities and gross blunders that were eventually revealed to have taken place in Vietnam. Critics worry that we may be giving opposing forces too much advance knowledge, enabling them to prepare more thoroughly for imminent attacks, thus putting our own troops in greater danger.

The truth, I believe, is far more sinister. It would be foolish to think that Coalition commanders would allow anything to air that would jeopardize military operations. It would be equally foolish to assume that the public is getting an honest, unadulterated look behind the scenes of the war. Really, the network coverage has little, if anything, to do with accurate, documentary journalism. What we are seeing every day is a carefully controlled piece of meta-propaganda, directed at both American and Iraqi viewers.

One needs only to look at the language used to confirm this. The initial air strike on Baghdad, as most know by now, was called “Shock and Awe.” To Iraqi viewers, this moniker is clearly intended to demoralize to the point of submission. But more subtly, to American viewers the name sounds suspiciously like the tagline to an $8 billion action film. I know it worked on me; from the day the war began I waited with bated breath for the attack. Of course it turned out to be neither shocking nor awesome, but just rather sad.

The term is just one symptom of a massive effort to market a war to a country, not as something terrible but necessary, but as something bombastic and thrilling. I have found myself shocked again and again by the images on TV. There is something wrong when I find reporters in the field (on more than one occasion) dashing. There is something wrong when I hear a general give a nostalgic reference to “the greatest tank battle ever fought” and lament that embedded media could not capture it.

What, after all, is left to a society that has managed to shape even that most solemn pursuit – war – into a mass-market commodity? Maybe nothing, but to sit back, relax, and watch the bombs fall on what’s left of our dignity.