American Exceptionalism and the bin Laden Raid
2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 33; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/01436597.2012.728317
ISSN1360-2241
Autores Tópico(s)Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East
ResumoAbstract This paper argues that Operation Neptune Spear, or the bin Laden Raid, reinforced US elite and public beliefs in American exceptionalism and the importance of carrying out numerous ‘overseas contingency operations’. The combination of textual and legal rationales for the raid treated the mission as a legal and effective raid, and it could now serve as a visual model for future aggressive war fighting. This is problematic because it emboldens those who want to move away from softer, ‘hearts and minds’ ways of dealing with enemies, at the same time that it legitimates targeted killings and encourages violations of other nations' territorial sovereignty. Notes 1 C Black, quoted in G Corera, ‘Dead or alive? US indecision over killing bin Laden’, bbc, 15 July 2011, para 26, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14115327. Black later softened some of this tough talk when he explained to reporters that he was more interested in providing identification than collecting a grisly trophy: ‘You have to have a compelling proof that you've been successful and it can't be, “well it looked like him”’ (paragraph 27). 2 N Schmidle, ‘Getting bin Laden’, The New Yorker, 8 August 2011, pp 36–37. 3 S Hussain Shaheed Soherwordi & S Al Khattak, ‘Operation Geronimo: assassination of Osama bin Laden and its implication on US–Pakistan relations, war on terror, Pakistan and al-Qaeda’, South Asian Studies, 26, 2011, pp 349–365. 4 G Porter, ‘Exclusive investigation: the truth behind the official story of finding bin Laden’, Truthout, 3 May 2012, para 2, at http://truth-out.org/news/item/8866-finding-bin-laden-the-truth-behind-the-official-story. 5 See D Couch, ‘Special Ops forces, seals, and the bin Laden takedown’, Naval History, 26(1), 2012, at http://www.usni.org/magazines/navalhistory/2012-01/SEALs-50-years-and-counting. 6 K Rowland, ‘US: Osama used wife as a human shield’, Washington Times, 2 May 2011, para 1, at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/2/us-osama-used-wife-human-shield/. 7 BC Price, ‘Targeting top terrorists: how leadership decapitation contributes to counterterrorism’, International Security, 36, 2012, p 9. 8 N Lahoud, S Caudill, L Collins, G Koehler-Derrick, D Rassler & M al-Ubaydi, Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Laden Sidelined?, West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, US Military Academy, 2012, p 7. 9 D Barno, ‘A new kind of defense’, New York Times, 2 May 2011, para 4, at http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/05/02/the-war-on-terror-after-osama-bin-laden/a-new-kind-of-defense. 10 See R v Sussex Justices, Ex parte McCarthy ([1924] 1 KB 256, [1923] All ER 233. 11 M Follman, ‘What really happened in the bin Laden raid?’, Mother Jones, 26 August 2011, para 20, at http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/osama-bin-laden-killing-media. 12 L Kennedy, ‘Seeing and believing: on photography and the war on terror’, Public Culture, 24, 2012, p 265. 13 Barno, ‘A new kind of defense’, para 4. 14 See S Graham, Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism, London: Verso, 2011. 15 For examples of scholarly investigations that review the lingering power of this 9/11 iconography, see K Engle, Seeing Ghosts: 9/11 and the Visual Imagination, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2009; and P Andén-Papadopoulus, ‘The trauma of representation: visual culture, photojournalism and the September 11 terrorist attack’, 2002, at http://verakl.bol.ucla.edu/FR170X/Trauma-Representation-Sep11.pdf. 16 B Obama, ‘Remarks by the President on Osama bin Laden’, White House, Office of the Press Secretary, 2 May 2011, para 2, at http:///whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/02/remarks-president-osama-bin-laden. 17 See ‘Portrait of bin Laden emerges in released papers’, npr, 3 May 2012, at http://www.npr.org/2012/05/03/151962975/portrait-of-bin-laden-emerges-in-released-papers. 18 E Bumiller, ‘Raid account, hastily told, proves fluid’, New York Times, 5 May 2011, at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/world.asia/06memo.html. 19 The most famous of these at the moment seems to be PL Bergen, Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad, New York: Crown, 2012. 20 J Rancière, ‘Politics and aesthetics’, Angelaki, 8, 2003, p 202. 21 See Price, ‘Targeting top terrorists’, pp 9–46. 22 See, for example, T Lenoir, ‘All but war is simulation: the military–entertainment complex’, Configuration, 8, 2000, pp 289–335; N Brinkerhoff & D Wallechinsky, ‘“Act of valor” and the rise of the US military entertainment complex’, Infowars, 28 February 2012, at http://www.infowars.com/act-of-valor-and-the-rise-of-the-us-military-entertainment-complex/. 23 For more on the importance of mediascapes, see the pathbreaking work of A Appadurai, ‘Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy’, Public Culture, 2(2), 1990, pp 1–24. 24 SL Myers & E Bumiller, ‘Obama calls world “safer” after Pakistan raid’, New York Times, 2 May 1011, at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/asia/osama-bin-laden-dead.html?pagewanted=all. 25 J Carney, White House Press Secretary, ‘Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney, 4 May 2011’, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/04/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-542011. 26 See, for example, P Bergen, ‘The “manhunt” to capture Osama bin Laden’, npr, 1 May 2012, at http://www.npr.org/2012/05/01/151766454/the-manhunt-to-capture-osama-bin-laden. 27 See S Shresth, ‘Sahibs and Shikar: colonial hunting and wildlife in British India, 1800–1935’, History Dissertation, Duke University, 2009. For the visualities associated with this colonial or imperial hunting, see JR Ryan, Picturing Empire: Photography and the Visualization of the British Empire, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998. 28 One interesting point that needs to be made here is that decisions regarding just what types of images need to be shown during these debates about targeting appear to be incredibly strategic and self-serving. 29 Leon Panetta, ‘cia chief Panetta: Obama made “gutsy” decision on bin Laden Raid’, pbs, 3 May 2011, at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/terrorism/jan-june11/panetta_05-03.html. 30 For a short biographical account on McRaven, see B Gellman, ‘William McRaven: the admiral’, Time, 14 December 2011, at http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102133_2102330,00.htmlFor. 31 Kennedy, ‘Seeing and believing’, p 270. 32 J O'Dell, ‘White House release Situation Room images from bin Laden raid [PICS]’, Mashable, 2 May 2011, at http://mashable.com/2011/05/02/situation-room-pics/. 33 For more detailed discussions of some of these ethnic and gendered dimensions of the photo, see J Blake, ‘What “Situation Room photo” reveals about us’, cnn, 5 May 2011, at http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-05/us/iconic.photo_1_black-men-photo-national-security-team?_s=PM:US. 34 For an excellent overview of how occupants of the White House use hyperreality for presidential politics, see SJ Parry Giles & T Parry Giles, Hyperreality and Presidential Image-Making in Postmodern Politics, New York: Peter Lang, 2002. 35 I Drury, D Williams & S Greenhill, ‘Obama watched bin Laden die on live video as shoot-out beamed to White House’, Daily Mail Online, 3 May 2011, at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1382859/Osama-bin-Laden-dead-Photo-Obama-watching-Al-Qaeda-leader-die-live-TV.html. 36 Former cia director Leon Panetta, quoted in M Winter, ‘Panetta: Obama did not see bin Laden being killed’, US Today, 3 May 2011, para 1, at http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/05/panetta-obama-did-not-see-bin-laden-being-killed/1#.T60TfutDyuY. 37 J Crawford, ‘The bin Laden Situation Room revisited—one year later’, cnn Security Clearance Blog, 1 May 2012, paras 5, 23, at http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/01/the-bin-laden-situation-room-revisited-one-year-later/. 38 T Vietor, quoted in Bumiller, ‘Raid account, hastily told, proves fluid’, para 7. 39 Admiral William McRaven, quoted in Gellman, ‘William McRaven’, para 47. 40 E Schmitt, T Shanker & DE Sanger, ‘US was braced for fight with Pakistanis in bin Laden raid’, New York Times, 9 May 2011, para 1, at http://www.nytimes.co/2011/05/10/world/asia/10intel.html. 41 Ibid, para 25. 42 Ibid, para 2. 43 Anderson, ‘Targeted killing and drone warfare’, p 1. 44 See A Bottorff, ‘doj asks to dismiss case seeking release of bin Laden photographs’, Jurist, 28 September 2011, at http://jurist.org/paperchase/2011/09/doj-asks-to-dismiss-case-seeking-release-of-bin-laden-photographs.php. 45 Judge J Boasberg, Judicial Watch, Inc v US Department of Defense et al, Civil Action No 11-890 (JEB), 26 April 2012, p 2. 46 B Zelizer, About to Die: How News Images Move the Public, New York: Oxford Unversity Press, 2010. 47 R Limbaugh, ‘nbc's campaign infomercial on Osama kill: Obama had no choice—and he made it’, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 3 May 2012, at http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/05/03/nbc_s_campaign_infomercial_on_osama_kill_obama_had_no_choice_and_he_made_it. 48 D Ignatius, ‘A lion in winter’, Washington Post, 18 March 2012, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/osama-bin-laden-a-lion-in-winter/2012/03/18/gIQADmAKLS_story.html. 49 ‘Obama bin Laden's last words show dark days for al Qaeda’, cbs News, 3 May 2012, para 1, at http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57426970/osama-bin-ladens-last-words-show-dark-days-for-al-qaeda/. 50 N Lahoud, S Caudill, L Collins, G Koehler-Derrick, D Rassler & M al-Ubaydi, Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Laden Sidelined?, West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, US Military Academy, 2012, p 1. 51 Ibid, pp 1–5. 52 Porter, ‘Exclusive investigation’, paras 4–8. 53 B Van Schaack, ‘Assassination under international & domestic law’, Intlawgrrls, 2 May 2011, para 2, at http://www.intlawgrrls.com/2011/05/assassination-under-international.html. 54 ‘Bin Laden death “not an assassination”—Holder’, bbc, 12 May 2011, para 12, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13370919. 55 US Attorney General Eric Holder, quoted in ibid, para 13–15. 56 Schaack, ‘Assassination under international & domestic law’, paras 8–17. 57 See, for example, the interesting position taken in K Anderson, ‘Targeted killing and drone warfare: how we came to debate whether there is a “legal geography of war”’, in P Berkowitz (ed), Future Challenges in National Security and Law, April 2011, at http://futurechallengesessays.com.
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