To skip this introduction and go directly to read Jeff Weintraub’s In-Depth Analysis “Some Partial, Preliminary & Unfashionable Thoughts Toward Reassessing the 2003 Iraq War – Did Anything Go Right and What Were The Alternatives?” click here.

I was sure in the lead up to the Iraq War that it wouldn’t happen. It seemed obvious to me that it made no sense, and I couldn’t believe that the U.S. would embark on such foolishness. One of my big mistakes, obviously. While Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden and American capacity to wage two wars, one clearly by choice, seemed to be a huge strategic mistake, the war proceeded and escalated, and we have paid.

Nonetheless, I did understand why deposing Saddam was desirable. His regime was reprehensible. I respected those who called for opposition to its totalitarianism, from the informed Kanan Makiya to my Central European friends, Adam Michnik, Vaclav Havel, et al. I even said so at an anti-war rally.

Yet, connecting the means at our disposal with the desirable end of a free and democratic Iraq seemed to me to be an extraordinarily difficult project, and I had absolutely no confidence that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Company could pull it off. How could my intelligent friends who supported the war not see that? I actually had a number of heated public discussions with Michnik about that.

Once begun, I hoped that the intervention would be short and sweet, and hoped that a democratic transition could be managed, but as we now know these hopes were frustrated. From every point of view, the war was a disaster: for the Iraq, the region, the U.S., and the project of democracy, and the way the war was fought, as it was part of a purported global war against terror, compromised American democratic principles. As time has passed many of the early supporters see all this and have changed their judgments, and those who haven’t, such as John McCain, choose not to focus in their speech and action on the question of entrance into the war, but rather on the exit, the so called surge, which they purport explains limited American successes.

But I am curious: what have become of those who as a matter of principle supported the war? And what have become of their arguments? A few brave souls have stuck to their positions. To have a richer understanding of our recent past and to reflect on the challenges of the day, I think it is worth paying attention. Thus, today’s In-Depth post: Jeff Weintraub’s “Some Partial, Preliminary & Unfashionable Thoughts Toward Reassessing the 2003 Iraq War – Did Anything Go Right and What Were The Alternatives?”

To read Jeff Weintraub’s In-Depth Analysis, “Some Partial, Preliminary & Unfashionable Thoughts Toward Reassessing the 2003 Iraq War – Did Anything Go Right and What Were The Alternatives?”click here.

A friend on Facebook declared: “if you want to know everything wrong in the world, all you have to do is watch the stupid bowl.” Written during the course of the great event, I missed the comment in real time, as I missed the game. But I suspect she is right. And for this reason, I generally stay away, though with some ambivalence.

As a good American boy, I enjoyed playing the game and watching, and the memories of pleasures past linger (including watching games, in the less distant past, with my son, who was without my provocation a fan). Yet, football is more and more clearly brutal, with its special cult of violence becoming increasingly problematic. And the Super Bowl is not just another game; it has specific repulsive dressing. The ads are a spectacle of consumerism and all I hate about capitalism. Even though I begrudgingly offer capitalism two cheers, seeing no practical alternative in our world, I see no reason to see virtue in necessity, and it is off putting to celebrate. Super Bowl Sunday is a media event from which I abstain.

Last night, I followed my Super Bowl tradition, and went to the movies. I finally pushed myself to go see Zero Dark Thirty, with less than ten other people in the audience. I very reluctantly went. Following the debates about the film, I didn’t want to support a work that apparently credited torture for the killing of Osama bin Laden. I expected to be repulsed, not by the gratuitous violence of the film  (in football’s spirit). It was the violence of the message that concerned me. Proponents of torture applauded this Hollywood production as the exception that proves the rule of Hollywood’s liberal bias. Opponents of the use of “enhanced interrogation” denounced the film. And esthetes of various sorts, including the film’s director, claimed that as a work of art, one based on our very recent past, Zero Dark Thirty is intentionally without a clear political message, depicting the facts, opening discussion. I decided to decide for myself, and what better day to do so than the day of the “stupid bowl.”

To my surprise, my first impression was that the film isn’t nearly as objectionable as I had expected. Zero Dark Thirty is a successful Hollywood flick, flawed by political and moral mixed messages. Using the language of Malgorzata Bakalarz, it was presented as an important film and a work of art, but seemed to be, rather, an entertaining unimportant movie, which despite itself poses serious and important problems.

The film is gripping. Torture, the tortured and, especially, the torturers are immediately revealed, all properly repulsive. Knowing the end of the story heightens rather than reduces the drama, as one feels and doesn’t only view the advanced military maneuver, the attack on Bin Laden’s hideout. The unlikely hero, a young, petite, obsessed, female intelligence officer, attractively dominates the screen, alongside of her CIA superiors and the super macho Navy Seals of the successful operation. All, strikingly, offered her the proper deference in the end. This, along with the killing of Osama, provided for the required Hollywood happy ending.

Yet, the moral and political problems of this entertainment are very real. It is pretty clear that both torture and more acceptable forms of interrogation were used by the CIA and military intelligence in the pursuit of bin Laden. It is a matter of debate which was more important. Although the film doesn’t take a stand on this issue, it is notable that the story moves from torture to the capture and killing of bin Laden. Non-violent forms of interrogation are hardly noticeable. I think because torture makes for good pictures, while the more conventional and acceptable questioning of subjects doesn’t film as well or as easily, the film seems to argue, even when it doesn’t explicitly, that torture was a necessary evil, this, despite the fact that the evil was portrayed.

Our attractive hero observed and condoned torture, and even actively tortured. The normalization of this, its presentation without criticism is disturbing. I fear that this will become a dominant story line. A problem with film as the popular democratic form of telling history is that it has a way of becoming definitive.

On second thought maybe the Super Bowl would have been more benign thing to do yesterday. And perhaps there is a connection between American reading of our recent past and the collective ritual that is Super Bowl Sunday. As H. Rap Brown, the radical black nationalist in the sixties, once said, “violence is as American as cherry pie.”

Today, we remember “9/11.” It’s a depressing day. I feel it personally, having lost one of my best friends, Michael Asher, 11 years ago, a victim of a terrorist attack, an attack that initiated deep and wide global suffering. Distant suffering, the deaths and mortal wounds of individuals and groups large and small, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan and elsewhere, including the four corners of the United States, combines with personal loss. The day is doubly depressing in my judgment because, tragically, remembering poorly has provoked more suffering than the terrorist act that started the whole mess, and this continues, guaranteeing that the suffering will not end. The term “9/11” and its remembrance are dangerous.

When I went to the ceremony commemorating the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks with my dear friend Steve Assael, a survivor, I heard too many blind patriotic cries, saw too many signs celebrating retribution and military might.

On the day Osama bin Laden was killed: I viewed with dismay the wild celebrations of young people outside the White House and elsewhere in the country. As I wrote here, their enthusiasm confused me. I didn’t understand it, though later with irony, I pretended I did as a way to call for the end of the war on terrorism.

And even as I shared my enthusiasm for the clarity and fundamental soundness of the Democratic Convention last week, specifically as it contrasted with the Republican Convention, the repeated reminders that Obama killed Osama turned me off. “Osama Bin Laden is Dead and GM is Alive,” Biden’s favorite slogan, I believe points the American public in the wrong direction. I understand why this served good partisan purpose, but find this deeply depressing.

Action is the major antidote for depression, and I have been self-medicating here at Deliberately Considered. Thus, over the past year, I have published at Deliberately Considered pieces that try to open up more careful remembrance. These are all highlighted on the home page today, as featured pieces and as favorites. My modest attempt to contribute to a higher quality memory is to invite readers to take a look at these, organized as they are around two themes: 9/11 and Osama bin Laden.

Note how forgetting is natural, as Gary Alan Fine explains, but also consider what should and what should not be forgotten. My suggestion: remember the loss, forget the impulse for revenge. It is interesting to me that this morning NPR reported that now three quarters of the American population doesn’t think the war in Afghanistan has made us safer.

Consider how we look in the eyes of the world with Anna Lisa Tota reporting from Italy. Perhaps wild chants of USA, USA, USA! is not in the national interest. Either at ground zero, or after the killing of Osama bin Laden, or at a national political convention. Read through the thoughtful reflections and debate we had here about this, and don’t stereotype all Americans, note the diversity of judgments and opinions.

I am committed to writing a more scholarly paper on collective memory. Its title will be “Against Memory.” It will be informed by the discussions here.

I was in New York at the end of April in the days preceding the anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s death, there to take part in a conference on Memory Studies at The New School for Social Research. An American colleague of mine, Alexandra Delano, along with Ben Nienass, presented a paper on the invisible victims of 9/11: the illegal Mexican workers who were in the towers at the time. During the conference, Alexandra movingly declared that these illegal workers had not had rights, alive or dead. Their names are not listed on the sides of the two big pools, which constitute the memorial for the victims of the terrorist attack of 9/11.

I really loved the idea of giving a voice to the invisible, so I decided that it was time to pay a visit to the 9/11 National Memorial. I set out for a long walk across Manhattan to reach downtown. I hoped that the walk would prepare me for what I was about to confront. Once I got to the vicinity of the commemorative site, I found countless signs that explained to me where to book my tour. Everything was organized in a very efficient way, and after waiting for less than an hour, I was able to enter.

I found myself standing in line together with many visitors, thoroughly watched by many kind and smiling policemen, and when I say many, I mean that they were so numerous that it came to mind that there must be a clear and present danger to watch out for. They asked me to let them scan my purse into a metal detector in order to make sure I did not carry a weapon. Finally, after walking along a closely watched path, I stepped into a garden.

There were two enormous water pools, as if they were two gigantic swimming pools with high walls from which two immense water falls flowed down with tremendous force and energy. I noticed that there was absolutely nothing one could tamper with, so I kept on asking myself why all those policemen had been standing there. It looked as if the intent of deploying so many involved a symbolic value rather than a functional one. It seemed that all those policemen were about to tell all the victims whom the memorial had been dedicated to: “We had not been able to protect you when you were alive, but we’ll make up for it now that you are dead.” In other words, the heavy deployment of police looked as if it wanted to speak to me of the sorrow of a nation and its dismay over the impossibility to protect its “sons and daughters” a sorrow to deal with through the activation of a kind of a- fortiori “militarization of suffering.”

Although it is true that the anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s death was upcoming, I had gone there neither to investigate nor to bother anyone, but to just pray. I was there as an Italian and European citizen to commemorate the victims of terrorist violence. The idea that a place of prayer had to be protected by the police was incomprehensible at the time.

The memorial is astonishingly beautiful. I believe I have never seen such a spiritual memorial: so much water flowing onto the center of the pool toward a trapdoor that seems to be connecting directly with Hades, the kingdom of the dead. The names of the victims are written onto the pools’ sides, at least those who have been legitimately recognized as such by the U.S. Government. There is no doubt: Michael Arad and Peter Walker, the two architects who designed the memorial out of 5200 different projects from 63 countries, created a work of great impact, both esthetically and spiritually. The force of nature caps it all and makes the whole creation more vigorous: the wind whips up splashes of water onto the tourists, who then walk away. It’s those tourists that, taking pictures with their cameras in compulsive ways, try to exorcize the pain they’re feeling. Yes, because paying a visit to the 9/11 Memorial nags you with a pain that spreads all over your body and makes you burst into tears as rivers flow down from your eyes. I had been skeptical about places having their memory and energy, but not any longer. I have to admit that after this visit I have changed my mind. The memorial isn’t just a simple commemorative monument: it is the exact place where thousands of people died, where their bodies were scattered and crushed. That place is imbued with that pain, and looks as if a huge gap between two worlds opened up allowing those souls to keep on talking to us.

While I was looking for some spare space on the sides of the pools, some space that Michael Arad had left out for other potential names of potential victims, I happened to notice a young woman with long black hair. She didn’t take any picture, hiding behind the role of the “tourist.” Without  choice, she visibly let pain spread across her body. From a distance, I looked at her for a long time. When she left, I walked toward the place where she had been, and I found a tiny red rose beside a victim’s name. I rejoice in thinking that she left it there.

That delicate gesture clearly suggests how the semiotic device enacted by the commemorative space works. Those big pools can collect all our pain, and those waterfalls that seem to last forever have the power to cleanse all the violence and all the blood shed by the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

When I finally mustered my strength to walk away, I was very sure: that ever-flowing water would be able to wash away all that horror throughout the centuries and give peace again to Americans and their loved ones who died in the terrorist attack. All that water would help us, too, to remind us of that sorrow in Europe and to come to terms with the violence that caused it.

9/11 is a very difficult date in the recent past: it’s a date in which the horror of violence has been concentrated, in 1973 in Chile a U.S. backed coup and in 2001. I like to imagine that the big waterfalls honor the memory of all the dead. Such a difficult and painful past: we use words to commemorate, a way to elaborate and respect, so our sorrow is included in the future’s memory.

Are there words and actions that may recount this “cultural trauma” and heal its wounds at the same time? I hope my brief lines, along with my photo of the red flower at the extraordinary memorial may help as a little step.

This post was originally published in Italian on the blog LINKIESTA.

The new Obama campaign video, “The Road We’ve Traveled,” is a compelling piece of political expression. It’s not art. It’s not news. It’s a form of effective political speech. The Obama campaign calls the video a documentary, and that it is: a documentary advocating a partisan position that is meant to rally supporters, and convince opponents and the undecided.

Partisan Republicans have criticized the video for being propaganda: a serious charge coming from people who often label President Obama, a moderate left of center Democrat, as a socialist, and speak ominously about the end of America as we have known it if the President were to be reelected. Mitt Romney, more lightly, perhaps in fact revealing that he is a moderate, dismissed the video as an infomercial. I understand the Republican objections. They see a political move and are trying to counter it by suggesting it should be dismissed and not watched.

Less understandable is the performance yesterday of CNN talk show host, Piers Morgan, who aggressively criticized Davis Guggenheim, the director of the film, for not balancing its advocacy with any criticisms of the President. This baffles me. Just because the video is the creation of an award winning filmmaker doesn’t mean that his political expression in this work should be measured by the same standards as his art. Guggenheim, as he tried to explain last night in his interview with Morgan, is politically committed and the work on the video is his way of being politically active.

When I go to the movies, read a novel or see an art exhibit, I think it is important to distinguished between art and politics. Works that have noble messages do not necessarily make fine art. As Malgorzata Bakalarz examined in her last post, there is a difference between good and politically important art. On the other hand, and this is central here, it is just as important to not mistake political expression with art, or with news. The Obama campaign and Guggenheim do not do this. They are advocating, something important in democratic life, attempting to convince, not manipulate.

If, indeed, “The Road We’ve Traveled” were presented as news with state funding, it would be correctly understood as propaganda. If it pretended that it was presenting unbiased information with private funding, instead of an argument with campaign funding, it would be accurate to describe it as an infomercial. Republican labeling “The Road We’ve Traveled” as propaganda and an infomercial is an attempt to turn the viewer away from the video, to not see it at all, or to not seriously consider the argument. As I said this is understandable, but it is also cynical, a move to dismiss an argument in order not to confront it.

I think the argument is compelling. It makes one major move, which I find quite convincing. It presents an overview of the accomplishments of Obama’s first term, drawing back from the messages of day-to-day political bickering and the calculations of who is up and who is down. Key achievements of the Obama administration in the voice of key members of the team and its supporters are presented. Adverting a financial collapse, saving the auto industry, health care reform, killing Osama bin Laden, withdrawal from the war in Iraq, restoring science to its rightful place, education and student loan reforms, consumer protection, ending “don’t ask don’t tell,” working to reduce foreign oil imports, passing legislation to insure equal pay for equal work for women, restoring the view of America and Americans in the eyes of the world. All of this is mentioned and explored, placed in the historical and comparative context. It is underscored that Obama took major risks in pursuing many of these policies, including his steadfastness not only in the operation against Bin Laden (this is a bit too gung ho for me), but also in the passing of the health care legislation. The video is artfully produced. I especially found the use of still black and white photos moving. It monumentalized decisions, highlighting the agency of Obama, when this is often lost in the noise of daily accounts. In sum, the video made a strong argument for achievement.

Of course, many will contest the argument. Partisan Republicans, true-believing conservatives, will not be convinced. But I think two groups may be moved by the video. Those to the left of Obama who have been dismissive of his presidency, who have accepted the story that he has not been resolute in supporting progressive causes. The video argues from the left from beginning to end (with the exception of the killing of Bin Laden). But I also think that the film appeals to the center and even to conservatives. It makes the argument for health care reform, an unbiased military, economic recovery and the rest in a way that appeals to common American sense.

The film expresses what I have long understood as Obama’s stance: in the center, attempting to move the center left. It’s power reveals that this is not only the project, promised by Barack Obama in the 2008 election. It is the achievement of the first term of the Obama Presidency, thus making a cogent and strong argument for re-election. It is the hope of the campaign that the video will go viral. If it does, it would reveal the way serious political argument still lives. “The Road We’ve Traveled” is not propaganda nor is it an infomercial. It is serious political argument in the age of the Internet.

Sitting quietly at my desk yesterday, thinking my thoughts about earthquakes, hurricanes, and the glorious Libya campaign, I was awakened by a phone call. A radio reporter from one of our major Chicago stations called, asking for my opinion about a newly minted coloring book that is designed to help children remember the “truth” of 9/11. This effort from a company named “Really Big Coloring Books” is what they describe as a “graphic coloring novel.” Perhaps we should think of this as a “Mickey Maus” effort.

While the coloring book, rated PG by corporate description, aims at teaching children “the facts surrounding 9/11,” it is not without its red-state politics. The company claims proudly that “Our Coloring Books are made in the USA. Since 1988.” The production of coloring books has not, yet, been outsourced to Vietnam. The book, We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids’ Book of Freedom, has as its target audience a group that can, in fact, never remember 9/11, but only know of the day through the visceral accounts that we provide. According to the publisher, “The book was created with honesty, integrity, reverence, respect and does not shy away from the truth.” When a publisher (no author is listed) suggests that a work does not “shy away” from the truth, he is suggesting that others are doing that very shying and that the truth is both unambiguous and uncomfortable.

The book is filled with accounts of brave Americans and dangerous Arabs, and the text reminds its readers, “Children, the truth is these terrorist acts were done by freedom-hating radical Islamic Muslim extremists. These crazy people hate the American way of life because we are FREE and our society is FREE.” Nice touch, particularly on the page in which “the coward” Bin Laden is shot, while using women and children as a shield. One wonders which age child is captivated both by Crayolas and by the moral philosophy of human shields.

But my argument is less about this canonical text than about the process by which hot memories become cool.

By the tenth anniversary, particularly after the shooting of Osama bin Laden and the organizational decay of the Al Qaeda infrastructure, September 11^th is barely with us. Yes, we have to remove belts, shoes, and wallets at the airport, and yes we make Canadians show border control agents their passports (and we, in return, are compelled to show them ours when we visit Canada). However, on most days we think no more about the World Trade Center than we think about Pearl Harbor. September 11^th remembrance has become ritualized – a calendrical custom – rather than firmly situated within our national identity.

And this is how it should be. Trauma has an expiration date: a time after which it is no longer relevant as an insistent reality. As a people, we have moved on. While there are terrorists about, they excite no more concern than a low-grade fever. The likelihood of an event on the magnitude and complexity of 9/11 occurring again is remote. Radical Islam is in retreat, if it ever were on the march. Yes, a few failed states exist in which radicals have found a home, but there are no states where the central authority actively pursues a radical Islamic agenda.

And so I call for the tenth anniversary of the September 11^th attacks to be our final collective gasp of über-patriotism, serving as a bookend for active memory rather than as a spark to inspire the furious. To be sure we will remember the attacks in the same modest way that we recall Fort Sumter, Pearl Harbor, or Hiroshima, but mostly as a historical curiosity.

Days that are said to live in infamy have a way, over time, to live as relics. This is to the good. Times change. Crises pass, and villains find their evil trimmed. The death of 3000 is no trivial matter, of course, and it deserved the shock and anger that we felt in 2001. But in the past decade, many have been targeted and many more have succumbed to disasters natural and manmade.

Perhaps I am exaggerating, but as I deliberately consider the celebratory response of Americans around the country to the killing of Osama bin Laden, I am coming to the judgment that the kids got it right. They revealed the wisdom of youth. While I am not sure that the chants: “USA! USA! USA!” and “We killed Osama, let’s party” were in good taste, I am coming to understand the outburst better than I initially did, thanks to a number of DC contributions and some reflection.

As I indicated in my first post, I immediately thought of the operation in terms of ongoing wars, about the mission. I thought the question was: How does the elimination of an important enemy leader affect our ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq? While I thought about ongoing military operations, the celebrants seemed to have understood that it meant the war was over. It was time to celebrate, not calculate. And perhaps, in a way, they were right.

I know from abroad, especially from the point of view of those from countries which have in the not too distant past experienced military dictatorship, such as Argentina, that there are serious legal problems. In his reply to my initial post, Emmanuel Guerisoli raised important issues, reminding me of the sorts of observations and judgments of his compatriot, Martin Plot. The US invaded a sovereign country and killed an unarmed man, apparently deciding it was better to get him dead than alive. The president acted more like a dictator than a democratic leader, adhering to the norms of international law. This continued the apparent illegality of much of American foreign policy, especially since 9/11. And the public cheered. This is indeed jarring.

I share the concerns and critical observations of others who joined the discussion here. I worry with Vince Carducci that Obama’s use of the word justice for killing is disturbing. I suspect with Rafael Narvaez, Tim and Radhika Nanda that there is a hyper-reality to the way Americans responded.  I am aware with Sarah and Elzbieta Matynia that the way we have used force against bin Laden and in general in “the war on terrorism” threatens democratic institutions and norms.

Dechen lost a family member. I lost a dear friend, and I agree with her that, “Killing bin Laden does not resolve anything for me,” but I am not so sure about her judgment when she notes, “I don’t think it will do much to end ‘war on terror’.”

We have had an extended series of reflections on the killing this week. In addition to the aforementioned responses to my initial post, there were many others, responding to the forum of DC contributors reflecting on the significance of the killing and the response. As the host of this site, I appreciate the variety of the perspectives expressed, though I want it to develop more dialogically, a technical – social problem we will work on. I am pleased with the diversity of the opinion and of the variety of insightful theoretical insights.

I found myself most challenged by Daniel Dayan’s post. He illuminates many problems with the way this important political event developed. Indeed, the four invisibilities he highlights potentially compromise the political significance of bin Laden’s death. The world has changed because of the assassination, or at least that is what the American (bi-partisan) political elite and a broad swath of the American population want to believe, however problematic that may be. But how can something so momentous be invisible, four times, as Dayan puts it? The iconic photo capturing the momentous act is not of the act itself but of the political – military leadership, perhaps, looking at the act. Because we don’t see it, the account of the event is particularly unstable. As DC contributor Robin Wagner Pacifici would put it, it is a radically “restless event,” because it is not pictured. Because the response to the event has been muted, by tactical concerns about inflaming the passions of bin Laden sympathizers, the practical impact of the killing as an expression of a mission accomplished is frustrated. Alas, few are declaring: Osama has been killed! Long live Obama!

I actually think not showing the corpse was a good idea. I was more moved by the silent dignity of the president’s visit to lower Manhattan than I would have been by a grand speech, which of course he is quite capable of giving. I am pretty sure that official celebration would have served little purpose. And the vehemence of Sarah Palin’s criticism of Obama for not showing the dead terrorist convinces me that that decision was wise one. Yet, I also know that Dayan is right. Monumental change has to be marked.

And thus, the kids were right. It might be that what they were thinking was not particularly insightful, perhaps it even was deeply problematic, as suggested by Jeffrey Olick. His point was very forcefully underscored in responses to his post that I shared on my Facebook page. Yet, a major event needed to be underscored, even though for good reasons Laura Pacifici and many others found it to be a generational embarrassment.

The kids were right because it is time to declare victory and bring the troops home. One of the greatest principles of sociology coined by the early 20^th century sociologist, W. I. Thomas, concerns “the definition of the situation.” “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences,” Thomas stated. It is not as easy as it sounds. Men and, of course, women, can’t just define any situation real in any way they want. But they work to define and re-define their situation. Bin Laden’s killing, and the kids’ response to it, began the changed definition of the war on terror. More thoughtful people are contributing, even Republicans such as Senator Richard Lugar. It’s over.

I take seriously the criticism of the killing of bin Laden. I don’t find myself comfortable in a happy country that is so pleased with the result that it doesn’t consider how it came about. Not only the killing but the illegitimate wars need to be critically appraised. But there is a time and a place for everything. Now is the time to end the war, and the kids response may have contributed to this definition of timing.

Other important topics fell by the wayside in the past couple of weeks at DC. There was an interesting post and discussion about Brooklyn and urban authenticity by Vince Carducci, and reflections on the role of empathetic leadership in post earthquake politics by Bin Xu, and Cecilia Rubino’s beautiful May Day reflections on her theater piece. There was Benoit Challand’s very interesting criticism of the media, of The New York Times, and lightly this blog, when it comes to the Palestinian Israeli conflict, and Gary Alan Fine’s broad criticism of liberal interventionist foreign policy. Other issues need to be addressed, and they will be in what perhaps is our emerging post war era.

I found it pretty disconcerting to watch the jubilation over Osama bin Laden’s death last week. In the first place, it just seemed all wrong—more like the reaction you’d expect to a football victory than a serious world event, especially one that began in horror and whose human and financial costs have since reached yet more unfathomable heights. One does not dance on graves, certainly not in a majority Christian country, in which “Love your enemy” is common enough a line that even a liberal and godless Jew like myself know it.

In the second place, I was uncomfortable because once again I felt like a complete alien, missing what was so obvious to everyone else, unable to give even a small yelp in a culture that often expresses itself in wahoos! and babys! What a relief, then, to see, over the course of the week that followed, that for once I wasn’t the only one. Numerous commentators, from across the spectrum, were disappointed as well. Not only those who question the legality of assassination found the tone all wrong. Many of those who had lost loved ones on 9/11 and in the wars since found little joy, even as they might have some “closure.” I was particularly moved by this one by Kristen Breitweiser, whose husband died in the towers.

Most interesting, though, is recognition that one of the major axes dividing celebrants from more sober observers is that of generation. To be sure, who else besides college students—and college students a few blocks from the White House—would assemble for a party at midnight on a Sunday (particularly given the desire for diversion during exam week!)? We also know from extensive research, particularly that of Howard Schuman and colleagues, that the age at which an event is experienced is a major determinant of collective memory. For Schuman, following in the tradition of Karl Mannheim, however, the critical age for definitive experiences is early adulthood. Mature enough to understand events, but not yet set in identities to withstand their disturbing effects as much as older people, young adulthood is the time when shared experiences constitute generations.

However, the celebrants were, in many ways, too young on 9/11. This is why some of the common themes younger commentators have drawn on to explain the reaction is particularly disturbing, especially to codgers-in-waiting like myself. For instance, in a Washington Post blog entry, Alexandra Petri explained: “Osama is our Voldemort. He’s our Emperor Palpatine. He is the Face of Evil, a mythical holdover from when we were too young to realize that evil has no face.”

To be sure, Charlie Chaplin mocked Hitler just as Superman was designed to vanquish him. Nevertheless, these were reactions to, rather than frames for, our understanding of evil. Petri may be right that some of the college students who hit the streets shouting USA! USA! were viewing events through the lens of Star Wars and Harry Potter. These were frames they acquired at about the same time they experienced 9/11. Those who are college students today were too young in 2001 to make a sharp distinction between the real and the fantastic; they were still equally, or even more, scared by the movies as by the news, with which they didn’t have much experience.

Nevertheless, it is concerning that, ten years later, many still do not seem to have learned the distinction. One could suppose it is a good thing that Voldemort and Palpatine, rather than Hitler and Pol Pot or Son of Sam, are the obvious frames for today’s college students—it means the losses and traumas were distant enough at the time to be childhood fantasies. For those of us who rushed to school to pick up these same creatures on that clear September morning and to hold them close all day while we slipped into the other room to view the horror, however, nothing about this will ever be a fantasy, and Osama will never be a comic book villain. So, I don’t feel the same urge to cheer as I did when I first saw Star Wars as a teenager, or again 30 years later with my kids. I guess we can hope that today’s college students—shaped as much by the Empire and Hogwarts as by televised war, never learn the difference the hard way. Then again, many in their cohort who aren’t in college today because they are in the military already have. Reasonable politics depends on their sobriety and realism.

Osama bin Laden has been killed and what do we get to see? A group of distinguished spectators watching an invisible screen. Vice President Joe Biden is close to the screen. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is seen covering her mouth with her hand, perhaps in horror. President-elect Barack Obama is leaning forward. A New York City subway newspaper has speculated that this was “the moment the president watched bin Laden die.” The visibility of an event has been replaced by the image of a group of officials who are watching what is invisible to us.

Bin Laden’s death is one of this year’s major events. Transpiring less than a week after the British Royal Wedding, it reveals the futility of the London bash. It reminds us that from time to time there are events that are truly historic, events that end a period of intellectual and affective unrest. Yet, there is something puzzling about the death of bin Laden. Important events tend to be visible. Can we believe in their magnitude if visibility is missing? In fact, can we believe they truly happened? Why do we feel short-changed, almost disappointed, waiting for the rest of the event to occur? Perhaps because bin Laden’s death was a deed but not a discourse, a blow but not an expressive event. Or perhaps we are not used to events that are both blind and mute.

A Blind Event

In the absence of images, testimonies and narratives curiously vacillate. They start to stutter. During the raid, bin Laden attempted to resist and was shot in the head. Bin Laden threatened the American commandos with a gun and was shot in the head. Bin Laden hid behind a woman, using her as a human shield, and was shot in the head. Bin Laden’s wife rushed the assaulter and was shot in the leg. Bin Laden was unarmed but shot and killed.

Here is another example of an indecisive account. “Bin Laden was buried at the North Arabian Sea from the deck of a US aircraft carrier at 2 am EST after having been washed following Islamic custom and receiving a religious funeral.” Military sources said that “his body was washed before being covered in a white sheet and religious remarks, translated into Arabic by a native speaker, were read over bin Laden’s corpse.” Counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan has confirmed “the burial of bin Laden’s remains was done in strict conformance with Islamist precepts and practices.” Yet, Reuters introduces a dissonant version by reporting, “Special Forces set out to kill Osama bin Laden and dump his body in the sea.”

Let me note that the description of the ritual seems a bit surreal. Muslim blessings do not need to be translated into Arabic as they already are in Arabic. As a comparison, a sentence from Harry Potter would not turn into a Catholic rite, if translated into Latin by a “native.” Also, if Abbottabad is about 30 miles from Islamabad, the only sea to be found is at the other end of the country. This makes a sea-burial highly unusual, as Islamic custom requires the death to have taken place on a ship. Even then, a land burial is the preferred option. By the way, three other men and one woman were also killed during the raid. Where these, presumably Muslim people buried at sea as well?

So, was it a funeral, a burial or a dumping? Was it a body, or remains? Was bin Laden threatening the soldiers or hiding behind his wife? The dangerous bin Laden must have brandished a weapon. The coward bin Laden must have hidden behind a woman. In the absence of pictures, connotations overpower descriptions; testimonies turn into first hand rumors. One role of pictures consists of harmonizing eyewitness reports, in validating denotation, in eliminating the temptations of legend. Pictures do not replace narratives; they stabilize them. Yet, can this current major historical turning point merely consist of the pictures we got: a bed with scattered pillows and rumpled sheets, reddish stains on a carpeted floor, the medications and pill boxes of an aging recluse?

Possibly, the corpse of bin Laden is too gruesome to be shown, which could be inflammatory. Nevertheless, various media have offered us substitutes. The bloodstained face of a man that was pasted over an old photograph showing bin Laden’s mouth and beard was widely distributed on the Internet. Too static? Here is something livelier: A Nintendo team taking agile steps and making simplified gestures, breaks into bin Laden’s toy house. It is a brightly colored animation show involving martial dancers, a death mask. We are only one step away from Sicilian popular theater in which puppets reenacted strikingly similar events. In the absence of images, we get mythical scenography. Aren’t images more sober?

A Mute Event

In the strategic realm, the former Saudi millionaire no longer made much of a difference. Perhaps he had never made a big difference, except as the product of Western journalism that needed to put a face on a political movement. Just like in pop music, the disappearance of one group only leads to the proliferation of others. Osama is dead. Vive someone else. In other terms, the event only matters on the symbolic level.

As a symbolic event, the death of bin Laden ends a ten year parenthesis. It gives a sense of closure, completing what was perceived as unresolved business. It mends a gaping wound. However, is this really what bin Laden’s death has done? No! The symbolic importance of this event has been begrudged. As an “expressive event,” it would not only have provided a powerful editorializing of the meanings of what happened during the last ten years, it would also have organized an “abreaction” of the original event (9/11) and a way to symbolically declare the trauma over. This is precisely what has been missing. Despite a visit to ground zero and laconic statements about justice rendered, the event has been stripped of its expressive dimension.

One can understand the reasons that guided the decision to make bin Laden’s death an a-symbolic event. A ceremony of any kind would have to make strong statements. Such statements would hurt sensitivities; lead to reactions proportioned to the visibility of the event and would serve as “incitements to further violence.” A gruesome photograph of bin Laden’s destroyed face would unavoidably deliver an “imperial” message. Like the decapitated heads exhibited on poles by monarchs of earlier times, it would rapidly become an icon, a cult object, a Middle Eastern replica of the Che Guevara photograph. Yet, how can a symbolic event be devoid of any heightening of visibility? How can an expressive event be conducted behind closed doors? Can you just whisper that a page in history has been turned?

Imperial symbolism is what Obama wants to avoid at all costs. However, ironically, avoiding visibility only enhances the high-handed brutality of the killing. Bin Laden was shot without trial. American soldiers breached the sovereignty of Pakistan and assassinated him. Avoiding a trial may have a pragmatic dimension: not offering a target for terrorist retaliations, blackmail, kidnappings and ransoms. If there would have been a trial, bin Laden could have turned the tables and put the USA on trial. The result would have been an exchange of arguments, a display of reasons (good or bad), a “disputatio.” Yet avoiding a trial means avoiding the rule of law. Mengele and Eichmann had a trial. In the case of bin Laden, the trial was skipped. Ironically, the absence of a trial takes the president back to what his presidency was meant to avoid: the War on Terror.

Event as Searchlight

In addition to the invisibility of the attack, the invisibility of the corpse and the invisibility of the burial, the absence of a trial offered a fourth invisibility, an even more serious one, the invisibility of judicial process and of law. Despite this litany of invisibilities, the death of bin Laden has acted like a magnifier or a searchlight. It has pointed to the Pakistani situation, revealing a mixture of duplicity (the Pakistani army protecting those it received billions to combat) and incompetence (the same Pakistani army never reacting to an incursion on Pakistani territory). It pointed to the feelings of the Pakistani man in the street. Randomly chosen inhabitants of Abbottabad expressed their anger at the killing of bin Laden, their intention to pray for him, their view of him as a holy man. Such images were quite telling. They spoke of a quiet consensus among the Pakistani population. Of course, none of this is really a scoop. However, our knowledge of this ambivalence was in a way peripheral. It took the form of uneasiness, of doubts about the ally-enemy. After this event, it seems difficult to go on with the Chiaroscuro. The sadness of the Abbottabad mourners and the mere counting of miles between bin Laden’s mansion and the Pakistani capital are irrefutable. In this case, we have maps and images.

We continue our discussion about the killing and its implications in this, the third post of DC contributors reactions to the killing of  Osama bin Laden and its aftermath. In the first post, we considered reports from different places, in the second, different perspectives were offered. In this one, Kreider-Verhalle, Narvaez and Carducci, offer compelling judgments, although they are competing. I will add my reflections on these discussions later in the week.  -Jeff

Esther Kreider-Verhalle

When President Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden, I tried to imagine the deadly scene in the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan where the elusive terrorist had been surprised by a group of American fighters, most likely while he was asleep. We are accustomed to being continuously exposed to an avalanche of images of what happens in the world around us. The possibility to see happenings, either live or through photos and video, gives us a first row seat at the world’s events, both intimate and distant. Most people also have a bent for fairytale-like stories, with good guys and bad guys, suppressing the confusing complexities of daily life.

Now we have to cope with a lack of images. All media organizations have reprinted and rebroadcast the few available photos and videos of the terrorist leader a thousand times. Because the Obama Administration will not release the material that shows the lifeless body of Bin Laden, we are instead presented with exclusive photos of ransacked rooms in the secretive compound with unmade beds and bloodstained floors. We are offered an inside peek into Bin Laden’s life with some shots of his cooking oil, a couple dozen unused eggs, some nasal spray and petroleum jelly.

We also have been allowed to see the expressions on the faces of President Obama and his team, watching the operation to kill ‘Geronimo’ unfold. Amidst all the secrecy of the operation, the oddest details have become news. The whole world now knows that a White House staffer had picked up turkey pita wraps, cold shrimp, potato chips and soda at a local grocery for the security team members during the nerve-racking operation.

How to translate the dry information without the images? The pictures of President Obama’s visit to Ground Zero offers us a grip on how to politically process the latest developments. Obama performs the role of the hero who insisted on bringing the man who had plotted the mass murder of countless innocent people to justice. It is interesting to put Obama’s visit to New York City in contrast with the ones of former President Bush, who dressed up in a flight suit to make an arrested landing on a military aircraft carrier before preemptively announcing that the mission in Iraq was accomplished.

There is a complexity to this story. For Obama, it did not matter that Bin Laden’s killing had to take place in a village in Pakistan, a questionable ally. That he was killed and not captured did not matter. That he will not be  sentenced in court, and, as it has turned out, was unarmed did not matter. What mattered was that Obama had an opportunity to fulfill one of his political promises to the American people: bring Osama bin Laden to justice. It was the opportunity of a lifetime to pep up all Americans and to remind the world that one does not mess with the USA.

Rafael Narvaez

Zizek has argued that Bin Laden was not only a terrorist, but also a sort of media character fitting the image of a master criminal threatening not only this or that aspect of life but threatening total destruction, as though America were an insulated entity at risk. This image of “pure evil outside,” Zizek says, as it was a constant threat to the U.S., was also a constant reminder that evil was precisely “outside,” and thus our actions were always opposed to it. In this hyper real scenario, it seems to me, we could not quite see, for example, the reality of U.S. run “dark prisons,” or the reality of civilians, children and journalists included, who got killed in Iraq; civilians who appeared in the news as though they were anonymous extras in the larger drama. The killing of OBL (a fanatic and messianic terrorist, of course), has cast the sense, as it often happens in films, that something is over, that a new beginning is ahead, and that, in retrospect, the U.S. plotted this narrative according to a logic that makes sense.  Yet, my suggestion is that precisely at this point it is necessary to go back and examine the events that, for the past 11 years, lead to the killing of OBL.  His disappearance reminds me that, along with real events and real politics, there is also a dimension of politics in the U.S. which runs on a hyper real register, a dimension that is often hostile to reality as such.

I agree with the decision to not release photos of Bin Laden’s body (though Reuters released them, apparently from sources in Pakistan). Heads on pikes are not needed. Plus, risking a reaction from the radical end of Islam is not necessary.  The UN, if I remember correctly, has asked for evidence that OBL was not executed after capture. Photos are needed for such agencies, to establish how he was killed, etc., but not for the public.

Vince Carducci

Every media representation is essentially a ghost image – i.e., a specter floating in the ether of the spectacle. No less so Osama bin Laden, who, while his physical trace has been eradicated from this mortal coil, already is emerging as some kind of undead, a phantom that keeps on haunting us. First was the official announcement, then the subsequent reactions pro and con, perhaps most notably the spontaneous celebrations that prompted discussion of the issue on Deliberately Considered. Following Max Weber, my reaction is taken sine irae et studio. What appears to be the apparent execution of Bin Laden fits well enough into the trope of frontier justice, a villain being given what he deserves by the heroes of the story. As a narrative climax, the money shot, as it were, has elicited the expected cheers from the intended audience. But as deconstructionist theory has taught us, every text is ultimately unstable, a site of semantic play, open to a variety of interpretations. Thus, the meaning of the event is being debated right and left, with interesting contortions on both sides, and I suspect will continue to be so for quite some time to come. I wish I could say that I thought something useful will come from these exchanges. But as Richard Lachmann suggests in the current issue of Contexts, the dilemmas we face are far more intractable: America’s imperium appears to be on the downward slide and “The Hunt for Osama bin Laden” is merely another symptom.