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E-book Kill Boxes: Facing the Legacy of US-Sponsored Torture, Indefinite Detention, and Drone Warfare

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Penilaian

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In late April 2004, photographs taken in the Iraqi Abu Ghraib prison and electronically shared among American troops were leaked, causing outrage around the world. The images showed American military personnel torturing, humiliating, and sexu-ally abusing Iraqi detainees, in some cases to the point of mur-der, in flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions. Among all the photographs, one of a hooded Iraqi man standing on a box with extended arms, his hands attached to wires indicating the imminent danger of electrocution, became an icon for the gross human rights violations and war crimes committed by the US military in Iraq and in other “theaters of war,” as was discovered after the Abu Ghraib revelations.As Peter Selz notes, this image “has for many people around the world replaced the Statue of Liberty as the symbol of what the United States stands for.”1 In a now-famous mural in Sadr City, the largest Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad, the Iraqi artist Sallah Edine Sallat juxtaposes the hooded man on the box with a Statue of Liberty portrayed as a “Klansman/torturer.” Instead of holding the torch of freedom, the latter reaches up to “pull the electrical switch” that activates the wires attached to the hooded prisoner of Abu Ghraib . Far beyond the countries of the Middle East, the Abu Ghraib photograph has achieved worldwide notoriety. The reasons for this fact converge, I contend, in the shock of recognition the im-age causes in the viewer. On the one hand, there is the recogni-tion by scholars like Alfred McCoy, eminent historian of the CIAand its torture programs, who immediately recognized the CIA’s signature in the photo. It is equally significant, that the photo’s global resonance responds to a subconscious or even uncon-scious recognition: the uncanny resemblance of the victim with the crucified Christ. I will return to this point shortly.I open this book with a reflection on this image, because it haunts the illegal or extralegal practices addressed in the chap-ters that follow. Thus, acknowledging and analyzing the shock of recognition face to face, as it were, with the hooded man from Abu Ghraib opens the way for registering similar shocks of recognition in other scenes of massive violation of individuals’ rights. We cannot think these extralegal practices, if we assume them to be occurring in a faraway world against a faraway enemy, who by his hostile actions, often portrayed as “barbaric” and utterly alien, has provoked such retaliation, as illegal as it may be. The readings of literary, philosophical, and artistic texts that follow draw on what Jacques Derrida calls the two “ages of cru-elty,” one that is scientifically and technologically sophisticated, allegedly surgical and precise, the other that is characterized as archaic, indiscriminate, and bloody. They set out to explore a mutual implication not only in these “ages of cruelty,” but also in the suffering caused by both cruelties. In other words, the chapters of this book attempt to register and explore shocks of recognition in the “other’s” cruelty and the “other’s” suffering. To initiate and explore such shocks of recognition is, I maintain, one of the major responsibilities but also one of the major prom-ises of the practice called “the humanities.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

303.66 WEB k

Penerbit

USA : Punctum books., 2017

Deskripsi Fisik

278 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780998531847

Klasifikasi

303.66

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

War

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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