[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> what's in a mission?

[<ana.viseu@utoronto.ca>]

Hi,

i read today in the paper that the U.S. gov is actually going to change
the name of the (in)famous 'operation infinite justice' because its arab
and muslim 'allies' complained that 'justice' is something that only Allah
delivers.

Now we only have to hope that the same happens to the entire operation.

best. ana viseu



On Fri, 21 Sep 2001, Pit Schultz wrote:

> operation infinite justice
>
> somebody over here said immediatly: "bad ad agency..". *operation desert storm*
> had some kind of glory, a territorial reference and an intense temporality.
> today's mission title carries a new quality, one which is "beyond the art of
> war" and "beyond imagination" carrying a strange mix of biblical revenge and
> flashy totality.
>
> - isn't infinity a claim a worldly government should leave to the religious
>    institutions and their leaders? even if we "want to 'hunt'em' down" it
>    shouldn't take forever. the *infinite* fight with the evil is a task for
>    church represenatives. in our time of sensitive cultural differences
>    insulting the religion of "the enemy" looks like longing for a medieval
>    crusade but not like professional militarism. it looks like a mirror of
>    fanatics.
>
> - infinity is not a particular lucky goal to aim at in an economic context.
>    the promise of an *infinite goal* in an 'open market' with small margins
>    and tight business plans will simply confuse investors who just
>    came out of the end of the "long boom" which lasted too shortly. people
>    on the other side have to spend their money and not keep it for the future.
>    so the desire to consume now becomes the first duty of a patriot. to
>    generate consumer confidence is the true territory to fight for and needs
>    completly new forms of warfare. investing into transports, low wage work
>    and high-tech weapon industry alone will hardly change this situation. it
>    needs a psychological element which promises more worldly satisfaction than
>    "infinite justice" which simply sounds like "peaceful death".
>
> - as "justice" can only exist in reference to an opposite, e.g. "injustice",
>    the concept of "infinite justice" carries a suicidal tendency.
>    once the goal will be fully achieved and injustice is defeated
>    the concept vanishes. if it is not there anymore it is
>    indistinguishable with its former opposite.
>
> - which kind of justice? is there really only *one* in the world? justice
>    according to which law, culture, country? to god's law? which god?
>    old testament? koran? pre-christian? justice according to which court
>    or criminal evidence? justice of the stronger one? law of the war?
>    this simply sounds like confusion and a lot of 'collateral damage'.
>
> - if it is not a god in which place infinity is fought for,
>    it could be just a lobby group or "luzifer". for a mythical conclusion
>    similar to this, the composer k.h. stockhausen is witchhunted at the moment
>    by the german cultural bureaucracy. there is a need for alternative
>    narratives in order to prevent a deadly redundancy experienced after
>    the shocking events. a democracy which is 90% in favour of revenge
>    must be in a state of a trauma or hypnosis.
>
> - *infinite justice* is not a military campaign but a neverending analysis,
>    it tries to merge with a conservative magic spell and remains a title
>    for a cheap western movie, it spreads open an omnipresent panopticon
>    of planetary hegemony and has to rely heavily on the 'intelligence'
>    of all kinds of allies, it comes with work ethics which reminds
>    to the mythos of sysiphos but doesn't come with unlimited resources.
>
> - infinite justice in time, from the past to the future reveils an absurd
>    sense of the own roots of ethics and power in history, one of an
>    absolute justice not even the pope could claim for. what kind of
>    advisors wrote this program?
>
> - the only healthy wish and hopelessly hopeful option of a
>    mission under such a title might be a childish one. the one of a war as
>    an organized swindle, a demonstration of power, a treaty of tricksters,
>    the militarization of disneyland, a gigantic media opera in the style
>    of a 'rogue spear' computer game, to gain consumer confidence, with
>    digital blood and extensive computer fx establishing a distance between
>    fiction and facts but keeping poeple alive, limiting the number of
>    'innocent' deaths. for the ritualisation of this new type of warfare
>    there is no cultural consensus yet - it has to be created.
>
> WHY? will *we* finish the job? will young american soldiers
> discover that they are guided by a remote controled cyborg? how to
> exit this loop? the only way to stop this deadly program might be failure.
> an alternative: change the title (and doctrine) together with the
> christian fundamentalist advisors...
>
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