Posted on 01/16/2014 9:01:35 AM PST by Academiadotorg
Many have wondered what happened to the anti-war movement since President Bush left office. We think we found it, at the Modern Language Association (MLA).
Ten people attended the MLA session on War, Scar: Representations of US Torture and Imperial Violence since Vietnam. Philip Metres III of John Carroll College called U.S. government officials armchair conquerors because of their War on Terror in places such as Pakistan. As a professor, he recalled how one sensitive student wrote a poem on his tender childhood memory of his teddy bear as well as a reflective look at his bloodlust after playing violent, first-shooter video games. In the pieces written by this student, Metres said he sees a picture of Western imperialism. With the growing drone campaign in foreign countries such as Pakistan, non-Westerners and artists are looking at Obamas virtual war on terror and imaginative imperialism. Metres criticized the Obama policy of targeting suspected terrorists by drones, which replaced Americas detainment policy.
He saw the Obama strategy of double taps, where one missile hits a target and a second soon afterward, as terrorism. As a result of Obamas drone strikes, it reduces the human impact to talking point and statistics and Metres lamented that we also need a human cost, a narrative that is missing from the drone war. He termed the drone war imperial surveillance and drone surveillance. He praised an Internet project by a man named Wafa Bilal, whose brother was killed by drone strikes, and who created a virtual jihad game online called Domestic Tension. It involved loading a paintball machine and programming it to be used by webcast viewers. To Metres, this project laid bare the imperial psyches and these simulations led to a war scar for Bilal.
The organizers of the so-called “anti-war” movement are anything but anti-war. They are just anti-us military. They are supporters of Mao, Che and Stalin. Hardly men of peace. They’ve never met a leftist uprising or bloody revolution they didn’t support.
Ten people in attendance is pretty feeble, especially since it probably includes a couple of other speakers and the guys who host of this group.
Most of the big audiences are probably at the various gender-bending sessions, really living it up.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.