lief that American civilians were
“not exonerated” from jihad, be-
cause they chose the government
that so offended him. Some of Bin
Laden’s comments suggested, in
retrospect, that plans to attack Amer-
ica were already conceived.
In another controversial story,
Arnett reported that U.S. forces had
used sarin gas against a Laotian vil-
lage in 1970 in order to kill Ameri-
can defectors. The story was in-
stantly denied by the Pentagon; the
producers claimed documentation,
and CNN defended them. Within
weeks, however, following intense
Pentagon pressure, CNN retracted
the story and fired the producers.
Arnett was reprimanded and, as the
“face” of the story, blamed by many,
especially conservative Americans.
Arnett has won nearly every prize
offered in the field of journalism,
including the Overseas Press Club
Lifetime Achievement Award. The
journalism school at the Southern Institute of Tech-
nology is named after him.
Impact Arnett’s reporting during the Gulf War was
significant for its independent assessment of the
damage from U.S. bombardment and the reactions
of ordinary people. In defiance of the U.S. military’s
restrictive media guidelines, Arnett did not tour
with soldiers as an “embedded” journalist. His re-
ports often contradicted the U.S. military’s charac-
terization of the warfare.
Further Reading
Arnett, Peter.Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to
Baghdad, Thirty-five Years in the World’s War Zones.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Francona, Rick.Ally to Adversar y: An Eyewitness Ac-
count of Iraq’s Fall from Grace. Annapolis, Md.: Na-
val Institute Press, 1999.
Schwarzkopf, H. Norman.It Doesn’t Take a Hero. New
York: Bantam Books, 1992.
Jan Hall
See also Bush, George H. W.; Cable television;
CNN coverage of the Gulf War; Gulf War; Journal-
ism; Powell, Colin; Schwarzkopf, Norman.
Art movements
Definition Organized or implicit stylistic and
ideological trends characterizing art forms of a
given time and placeArt in the 1990’s cannot be defined by specific movements
or genres. Not since the 1970’s was such pluralism in art
seen. Many different styles were explored during this period,
including abstraction, figuration, and conceptual art.
Painting, sculpture, installation art, and photography
were created in this decade, and video art especially flour-
ished.The 1990’s saw a backlash against the perceived ex-
cesses of the 1980’s, a period when a vulgar, hyped-
up art market turned art into a commodity and art-
ists into celebrities. Many artists were skeptical of art
being too elitist and too easily co-opted by the art
market. In addition, in 1989 the art market plum-
meted. In this postcrash economic and social envi-
ronment, a reconsideration of why art should be
made set the tone of the decade.
Pluralism defined this environment where many
different mediums were utilized. Also, artists imple-54 Art movements The Nineties in America
Former CNN correspondent Peter Arnett in 1999.(AP/Wide World Photos)