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."

 

By Enrique Lynch

 

Translated By Anthony Figueroa

 

May 31, 2011

 

Argentina - La Capital - Original Article (Spanish)

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 Foucault and his follower Agamben called 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 ontological task. 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.

 

SEE ALSO ON THIS:
Frontier Post, Pakistan: 'As History is Our Witness', China is a More Reliable than U.S.
The Nation, Pakistan: Ignore American Complaints About Friendship with China
The Nation, Pakistan: Pakistan Must Break American 'Begging Bowl'
Hindustan Times, India: ISI Officials to Be Charged in U.S. Court for Mumbai Attacks
Telegraph, U.K.: What Next for Brand bin Laden?
Telegraph, U.K.: Osama bin Laden hiding place visited by Taliban
Global Times, China: Western Criticism of Pakistan is Wrongheaded and Unfair
La Jornada, Mexico: Afghan Official Asserts: 'Osama Blew Himself Up'
Tehran Times, Iraq: West Uses bin Laden's Death to Distract from Bahrain Atrocities
Diario Decuyo, Argentina: Bin Laden's Death is a 'Call to Arms' for the World's Clergy
El Pais, Spain: After bin Laden: West Must Reflect on Methods of Self-Defense
News, Switzerland: The Pope and the Terrorist: Two Misguided Beatifications
Tagesspiegel, Germany: Osama Photo Issue - Obama's Morally Superior to Bush
The Nation, Pakistan: Afghan Official Asserts: 'Osama Blew Himself Up'
Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland: Finally, It's Beginning of the End for al-Qaeda
Al-Seyassah, Kuwait: Osama Now Being Licked by the 'Hottest Flames in Hell'
Les Dernieres Nouvelles d'Alsace, France: Osama's Photo: 'The Impossible Truth'
Der Spiegel, Germany: Donald Trump and the 2012 'Campaign of Lunacy'
Excelsior, Mexico: Obama Quiets 'Right-Wing Witch Hunters' ... for Now
Izvestia, Russia: Osama bin Laden: From Abbottabad to Hollywood
Frontier Post, Pakistan: U.S. Raid Exposes Pakistan's 'Unnerving Vulnerability'
Al-Madina, Saudi Arabia: Osama Died, But those Who Gain from Terror War Live
Dar al-Hayat, Saudi Arabia: Osama and His Whole Way of Thinking - are Dead
Daily Jang, Pakistan: Operation Against Osama Spells Trouble for Pakistan
Kayhan, Islamic Republic of Iran: Obama Seeks to 'Vindicate Bush'
Outlook Afghanistan: U.S. Must Pursue Mullah Omar as it did bin Laden
Pak Tribune, Pakistan: Senators Call U.S. Operation a Breach of Sovereignty
Frontier Post, Pakistan: Osama Episode Puts Safety of Nuke Assets in Peril
El Pais, Spain: Obama 'Decapitates' the al-Qaeda Hydra
Folha, Brazil: Bin Laden's 'Second Death'
Folha, Brazil: Death Won't Kill Osama's Violent Ways or Speech
Dawn, Pakistan: The Urgent Importance of Showing 'Mutual Respect'
The Independent, U.K.: Killing of bin Laden 'Huge Blow' to Islamist Terror
The Telegraph, U.K.: OBITUARY: Osama bin Laden
Telegraph, U.K.: Taliban Commander Vows to Avenge bin Laden's Death
Guardian, U.K.: Hamas Praises bin Laden as Holy Warrior
Telegraph, U.K.: Death of bin Laden is Rough Justice, Wild West-Style
Dawn, Pakistan:
Pakistanis Hold Rally in Honor of bin Laden
Dawn, Pakistan: Pakistan Asks U.S. Envoy to Avoid bin Laden 'Spin'

Xinhua. China: Six Children and Two Wives of bin Laden Arrested By Pakistan
Daily Star, Lebanon: Prime Minister Hariri: 'Bin Laden Got What He Deserved'

Daily Star, Lebanon: Lebanese Muslim Preachers Hail Osama for U.S. Attack

 

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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 of   an 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 Jacobins cut 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.

 

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[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US June 20, 4:24pm]

 

 







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