Weapons of War :: Essays Papers

Weapons of WarWar on Iraq and sexual identity showcase instructive new simulated military operation for contemporary politics. If you cant beat em, join em. In conventional warfare. The US military no longer needs thermonuclear weapons for its better-publicized outings when theyve built a 10-ton conventional bomb and arent above firebombing civilian centers. At a moment when anti-militarist criticism had crystallized around activism against specialized forms of military machinery (the Bradley was too expensive, the schooldays of the Americas too brutal, the nuke too indiscriminate), all such criticism can be blown with the broadcasted desert winds to the enemy and yanked on for leverage - thus permitting/demanding all the kinds of actions (with or without marked technologies) that were the initial object of criticism. Now its Iraq who has dangerous WMDs, not the US (a country with a nuclear polity of first strike against non nuclear nations). What may once have been a critic ism of military violence became one of the weapons themselves (Depleted Uranium Bullets, land mines, distance weapons, bunker-busters), and now we shall fight clean against an enemy who (gasp) might not. Just as the crime becomes the criminal, Saddam becomes his weapons programs he is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of portion destruction (Bush). Programs that are mostly despicable because they arent supposed to have these weapons (according to international agreements, and abouttimes early 90s US mandates, to which, of course, US policy and rhetoric always shows such commitment). The trick is simultaneous with, and analogous to, the more than obvious game of peace versus threat. We are resolved today, to confront every threat, from whatever source, that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America (Bush), except threats from America, naturally. But, the weapon issue focuses on technologies in a way that makes the two rhetorical devices non-homologous and makes weapons more relevant here, because the question is not just of representations but also of instruments.Such conditions are not governed by bankers rules of an economy of power (we get some percent more, you get so much less), or by a monarchical power that runs roughshod over (innocent) individuals, trampling the green grass of knowledge. Rather, the bankers rules matter in the bank, and work only if there is a commitment to the illusion of the bank. Go ahead, tell Bush he isnt a good enough king, he isnt using power responsibly.