The White House Situation
Room, as Osama bin Laden was
being killed at his hideout in Pakistan.
La Capital, Argentina
Photo During bin Laden's Assassination
Herald's Dangerous New World
"The
photo of Obama and his inner circle isn't only a symbol of power allowing or
preventing the collective from seeing or not seeing something, but of
establishing what is and is not."
What's the significance of
the photo showing Obama, Clinton and their collaborators watching the planned
assassination of Osama bin Laden live? It displays a flagrant prohibition: we're
not allowed to see it - that is, those of us who are unlikely to be seen in
such a photo. It stands for the sanctioning of illegality and a self-portrait
of prohibition. The spectators looking on right in front of our noses at
something we can't see is a sacramental vehicle for unquestioned command. You
may observe how we watched, but you can't see what we saw. As gestures go, it
couldn't have been more impolite.
But it would be too frivolous
to dwell on manners. What's relevant about this image is that it establishes a
demarcation, and this brief instance of censorship creates an impregnable wall
separating us from the "Forbidden City."
It's been a long while since
we've seen such a pure demonstration of the power of exclusion, which Foucaultand his follower Agambencalled the obscene demonstration of privilege by those
in power. It is all the more exceptional in that in our democratic societies, this
doesn't happen by birthright, but by representation!
This snapshot reveals the
true face of power: the authority to establish a barrier between what is said
and what is allowed to be seen; between what has occurred, and, when necessary,
what can disappear, much like Stalin did to Trotsky in that famous photo at a
Lenin rally. The difference being, Stalin made a photo disappear, whereas now, one
is being concealed. It's no accident that the media are partners in this
beloved ontologicaltask. They do it all the time: where have those "rebels"
in Bengazi gone, who were once featured on the front page? They have
disappeared, much like the corpses the Argentine military threw into the Rio de
la Plata River in an effort to hide evidence of their genocide; or the way bin
Laden's body has been made to forever disappear. Where there's no corpse, there's
no crime.
The photo of Obama and his
inner circle isn't only a symbol of power allowing or preventing the collective
from seeing or not seeing something, but of establishing what is and is not.
The portrait/revelation was
delivered to us - how else - without fanfare. But if there's no fanfare, then
it wasn't an execution but a vulgar assassination. The absence of a stage
further reveals the ontological difference between us and those in power. That
this doesn’t simply exist as force, focusing on opposing injustice and the
arrogance of power, forms the infantile and resentful consciousness of the left,
which swallowed Stalinism without argument. It is not so much a difference as
something glaringly obvious in royalty that, according to Kantorowicz, is characterized by possessing a mystical body rather
than a physical body.
The monarch and his lineage
are not on the same plane as their subjects, who don't have the same
experiences of the world - and which justifies the enormous privileges that
despots have enjoyed from time immemorial. This is the same essential
inequality, a lingering aftertaste ofan ancient concession of obedience that is at times carried out
cautiously and with discretion by way of sovereign obligations, and one that, with
his carousing at Villa
La Certosa, was so glaringly
ignored by the unpresentable Silvio Berlusconi. This difference in the condition of those in power
appeared to have been erased forever when the Jacobinscut off the head of the unfortunate Louis XVI. Of course, in an exemplary democracy such as the
American republic, such a presentation of power would be unimaginable- yet it
is on full display in this photo. We thought that, at most, a French president
could simply afford the construction of a pharaonic building in Paris, or that a
cruel leader like Margaret Thatcher could order the unnecessary sinking of the
cruiser General
Belgrano [during the Falklands War, called the Malivinas War in Argentina], but nothing
more.
However, the chasm [between
ruled and ruler] is essentially intact: a decisive act like the execution of a
bloodthirsty enemy to millions of people is erased from the public's gaze, which
is only exposed to it once removed, with a snapshot of the astonished reaction
of his executioners. The supreme concealment of a crime that is literally
committed before the camera and in a society that is far more transparent.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
Anti-Americanism and
conspiracy theories result in distraction and claims of manipulation, but the
worst part of bin Laden's execution is not that it may have been faked for
propaganda purposes, but that it was conducted outside the law.
Something very serious is
happening in plain sight. A world without rules is being built - a world in
which the U.N. authorizes neocolonialism interventions like the one in Libya, assassinations
are tolerated ("it may not have been the most correct action, but without
a doubt the world is more secure without bin Laden," I heard Vargas
Llosa declare), the use of
torture is legitimized and directly emulates the behavior of terrorists, and
wars are fought in the name of preserving peace, while at the same time
concentration camps like Guantanamo are maintained in the 21 century.
This isn't our world, but the
world of Dirty Harry: a no man's land.
