The Spectacle of War: Security, Legitimacy and Profit Post-9/11

  • Ian Buchanan
  • Laura Guillaume
Chapter

Abstract

On the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, Martha Raddatz from ABC’s Good Morning America interviewed Vice President Cheney about progress in the war. The result was one of the most stunning admissions in recent memory of the irrelevance of ‘the people’ to the political process, particularly as it concerns war.

Keywords

Military Force Imperial Life Improvise Explosive Device National Security Strategy Humanitarian Mission 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Bibliography

  1. A. J. Bacevich (2005) The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
  2. J. Baudrillard (1994) Simulacra and Simulation S. Faria Glaser (trans.) (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press).Google Scholar
  3. Z. Bauman (2002) Society Under Siege (Cambridge: Polity Press).Google Scholar
  4. T. Beam and E. Howe (2003), ‘A Look toward the Future’, in Department of Defense, Office of the Surgeon General, US Army (ed.), Military Medical Ethics, volume 2 (Washington, DC: Borden Institute).Google Scholar
  5. A. J. Blinken (2003-4) ‘From Preemption to Engagement’, Survival 45/4, pp. 33–60.Google Scholar
  6. I. Boal, T. J. Clark, J. Mathews and M. Watts (2005) Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War (London: Verso).Google Scholar
  7. G. W. Bush (2003) ‘Remarks at West Point: New Threats Require New Thinking’ in M. L. Sifrey and C. Cerf (eds) The Iraq War Reader: History, Documents, Opinions (London: Simon & Schuster).Google Scholar
  8. R. Chandrasekaran (2007) Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Baghdad’s Green Zone (London: Bloomsbury).Google Scholar
  9. M. Cooper (2003) ‘A Year Later: What the Right and Left Haven’t Learned’ in M. L. Sifrey and C. Cerf (eds) The Iraq War Reader: History, Documents, Opinions (London: Simon & Schuster).Google Scholar
  10. M. Danner (2005) ‘The Secret Way to War’, New York Review of Books, LII: 10, pp. 70–4.Google Scholar
  11. M. Davis (2007) Buda’s Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb (London: Verso).Google Scholar
  12. G. Debord (1990) Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, trans. M. Imrie (London: Verso).Google Scholar
  13. M. DeLanda (1991) War in the Age of Intelligent Machines (Cambridge, MA: the MIT press).Google Scholar
  14. G. Deleuze and F. Guattari (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, B. Massumi (trans.) (London: The Athlone Press).Google Scholar
  15. J. L. Gaddis (2004) Surprise, Security, and the American Experience (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
  16. L. N. George (2003) ‘On Pharmacological War’ in B. Gőkay and R. B. J. Walker (eds) 11 September 2001: War, Terror And Judgement (London/Portland, OR: Frank Cass).Google Scholar
  17. C. S. Gray (2005) Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson).Google Scholar
  18. M. Hardt and A. Negri (2004) Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (London: Hamish Hamilton).Google Scholar
  19. C. Johnson (2006) Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (NY: Metropolitan Books).Google Scholar
  20. R. Kagan (2003) Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (London: Atlantic Books).Google Scholar
  21. G. Kolko (1994) Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience 2nd edn (NY: The New Press).Google Scholar
  22. C. McInnes (2002) Spectator-Sport War: The West and Contemporary Conflict (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers). The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (2002) Available at http://merln.ndu.edu/whitepapers/USnss2002.pdf.Google Scholar
  23. P. Patton (1997) ‘The World Seen From Within: Deleuze and the Philosophy of Events’ in Theory and Event 1/1 at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/v001/1.1patton.html (accessed 2 July 2009).
  24. F. Piven (2004) The War at Home: The Domestic Costs of Bush’s Militarism (NY: The New Press).Google Scholar
  25. E. Rhodes (2003) ‘The Imperial Logic of Bush’s Liberal Agenda’, Survival 45/1, pp. 131–54.Google Scholar
  26. M. Shaw (2006) The New Western Way of War: Risk Transfer War and its Crisis in Iraq (Cambridge: Polity Press).Google Scholar
  27. R. Slotkin (2000) Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth Century America (University of Oklahoma Press).Google Scholar
  28. R. Stewart (2006) Occupational Hazards: My Time Governing in Iraq (London: Picador).Google Scholar
  29. R. Suskind (2006) The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of its Enemies Since 9/11 (London/Sydney/New York/Toronto: Pocket Books).Google Scholar
  30. P. Virilio (1983) Pure War, M. Polizzotti (trans.) (NY: Semiotext(e))Google Scholar
  31. S. Žiž ek (2006) The Parallax View (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press).Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Ian Buchanan and Laura Guillaume 2009

Authors and Affiliations

  • Ian Buchanan
    • 1
  • Laura Guillaume
    • 2
  1. 1.University of CardiffUK
  2. 2.School of International RelationsAberystwyth UniversityUK

Personalised recommendations