Good Intentions Full Text
Good Intentions Full Text
Good Intentions Full Text
Edited by
Maximilian C. Forte
Front cover image: According to the official caption, this is US Navy Hospi-
tal Corpsman 2nd Class Porfirio Nino, from Maritime Civil Affairs Team 104,
practices speaking Kinyarwanda, one of the official languages of Rwanda,
during a civil observation mission in Bunyamanza, Rwanda, August 7, 2009.
(DoD photo by Senior Chief Mass Communication Specialist Jon E. McMillan,
US Navy. Public domain.) This particular photograph was also used as the
lead image for 2011 presentation by AFRICOM titled, “United States Africa
Command: The First Three Years”. On the image the following words were
superimposed: “‘Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngamantu’ I am a person through
other people. My humanity is tied to yours.~ Zulu proverb”
Back cover image: According to the official caption, these are US Airmen
assigned to the 23rd Equipment Maintenance Squadron, 75th Aircraft Main-
tenance Unit “downloading” an A-10C Thunderbolt II aircraft during an op-
erational readiness exercise at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, August 4,
2009. (DoD photo by Airman 1st Class Joshua Green, US Air Force. Public do-
main.)
Printed in Canada
CONTENTS
Preface..................................................................................... ix
Introduction
Imperial Abduction Lore and Humanitarian Seduction
Maximilian C. Forte.....................................................................1
Chapter 1
Iatrogenic Imperialism: NGOs and CROs as Agents of
Questionable Care
Émile St-Pierre ..........................................................................37
Chapter 2
US Imperialism and Disaster Capitalism in Haiti
Keir Forgie ................................................................................57
Chapter 3
Who Needs Me Most? New Imperialist Ideologies in
Youth-Centred Volunteer Abroad Programs
Tristan Biehn ............................................................................77
Chapter 4
Queers of War: Normalizing Lesbians and Gays in the
US War Machine
Hilary King .............................................................................. 89
vi CONTENTS
Chapter 5
The International Economic Sovereignty of the
United States of America: Integrating the Exception to
Our Understanding of Empire
Karine Perron .........................................................................105
Chapter 6
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Wage Labour: The
American Legislative Exchange Council and the
Neoliberal Coup
Mathieu Guerin.......................................................................121
Chapter 7
The Terrorist, the Tyrant and the Thug: “Anti-Anti-
Imperialism” in American Media and Policy
John Manicom.........................................................................149
Chapter 8
Glorification of the Military in Popular Culture and
the Media
Laura Powell ...........................................................................167
Chapter 9
A Flickr of Militarization: Photographic Regulation,
Symbolic Consecration, and the Strategic
Communication of “Good Intentions”
Maximilian C. Forte.................................................................185
CONTRIBUTORS....................................................................281
INDEX ....................................................................................283
FIGURES
H
ow do “good intentions” pave the road for em-
pire? There is some confusion, especially in North
America, that reflects the dominant ideological
charter for interventionism abroad and increased moral
regulation at home (that is, politics masked as morality),
with one result being increased militarization in order to
forever be at the ready to intervene. The confusion is de-
liberate by those doing the work of mystification, feigned
by those who spin multiple simultaneous contradictions in
order to distract and distort, and innocent on the part of
those who trust experts and authorities. The confusion in
question has multiple facets that take the form of various
myths and inaccuracies: a) that the intentions are good,
and thus they justify all actions taken, while expressions of
anti-interventionism are to be judged as born of malice and
ill-will; b) that the motivations have little to do with pro-
tecting or enhancing corporate power and neoliberal socio-
economic restructuring; c) that our violence is civilized,
while the violence of others is barbaric; d) that our political
systems are democracies, while regimes rule others; e) that
there really is no imperialism, and if there is then it is both
eternal and a fundamental part of an unchanging human
nature; f) that we must never stand idly by while others
suffer, except for when it is suitable to our leaders, espe-
cially when we commit atrocities; g) that there is no basic,
underlying political uniformity within our dominant po-
litical and media institutions; h) that we practice good
governance, both transparent and accountable, without
pandering to private interests; and, i) that we encourage
and tolerate a broad range of views, and do not narrow
down discourse to a select few allowable perspectives.
These myths and a few more form part of the orthodoxy of
what is now a post-liberal society.
It is thus with honour and pleasure that I present the
salutary works of advanced research students who have
x PREFACE
T
wo of the most enduring beliefs, among at least the
political elites and a substantial portion of the wider
population in North America, are that military in-
tervention abroad and all sorts of other less forceful inter-
ventions, are: (a) for the good of other societies, whose
lives and whose very nature as human beings will experi-
ence progress as a result of our intervention; and, (b) that
the security of the intervening society will thus be en-
hanced, while its global leadership will also be secured.
These constitute beliefs akin to any other beliefs that an-
thropologists and sociologists have studied in the value
systems of other, discrete populations: as beliefs they
maintain contradictions without resolving them, and as be-
liefs they can thrive in the absence of serious questioning,
and in the absence of empirical support. One main differ-
ence about these beliefs, however, is that situated as we are
2 M A X I M I L I A N C. F O R T E
Outsourcing Empire,
Privatizing State Functions: NGOs
First, we need to get a sense of the size and scope of the
spread of just those NGOs that work on an international
plane, or INGOs, many of which are officially associated
with, though not part of, the UN. Estimates of the number
of INGOs (such as Care, Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières)
vary greatly depending on the source, the definition of
INGOs used, and the methods used to locate and count
them. In broad terms, INGOs numbered roughly 28,000 by
the mid-1990s, which represented a 500% increase from the
1970s; other estimates suggest that by the early years of
this century they numbered 40,000, while some put the
number at around 30,000, which is still nearly double the
number of INGOs in 1990, and some figures are lower at
20,000 by 2005 (Anheier & Themudo, 2005, p. 106;
Bloodgood & Schmitz, 2012, p. 10; Boli, 2006, p. 334; Ma-
koba, 2002, p. 54). While the sources differ in their esti-
mates, all of them agree that there has been a substantial
rise in the number of INGOs over the past two decades.
INTRODUCTION 7
Notes
1 From Duke University Libraries’ “NGO Research Guide” ar-
chived at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100611063147/http://librar
y.duke.edu/research/subject/guides/ngo_guide/igo_ngo_c
oop/ngo_wb.html.
2 This brought back a slightly ironic realization. While Mont-
gomery McFate, the anthropologist who worked as the sen-
ior social scientist of the US Army’s Human Terrain System,
argued that anthropologists would anthropologize the mili-
tary by joining HTS, dismissing claims that they would
make anthropologists seem like US military agents (even
though in uniform, and some carrying weapons), her own
husband was saying something different at the same time.
INTRODUCTION 31
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32 M A X I M I L I A N C. F O R T E
M
ilitary interventions by powerful nations have
increasingly occurred under the justification of
humanitarian values and principles. In deploy-
ing a moral imperative to act for the benefit of the maxi-
mum number of innocent lives, the destructive aspects and
politics of intervening are often overlooked. This chapter
concerns a similar pattern being reproduced in healthcare
worldwide. In the wake of the retreat of the state in mat-
ters of welfare provoked by the pressures of International
Financial Institutions (IFIs), various actors have filtered
into the daily lives of people across the world and have of-
fered themselves up as options for providing care. I will
speak here only of certain health-oriented non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) and contract research
organizations (CROs) as they relate to neoliberal imperial-
ism.
A modality of empire, in this case, emerges from good
intentions and the provision of care to bodies that are said
to desperately need it: a humanitarian movement that con-
structs itself as unexploitative and outside political consid-
erations, but dominates people therapeutically and
reproduces global inequalities (Calhoun, 2010, p. 41; Fas-
sin, 2010, p. 273; McFalls, 2010, p. 318). NGOs and CROs
38 É M I L E S T -P I E R R E
Non-Governmental Organizations
With the retreat of the state in many countries of the
Global South, NGOs have stepped in to fulfill some of its
roles. As organizations that are not elected by the people
they are helping, their direct accountabilities lie elsewhere.
In many respects NGOs function like modern states and
corporations: they often adopt managerial practices ori-
ented towards efficiency to maximize their objective of
saving as many lives as possible. It should be clear in stat-
ing this that I am not referring to all NGOs and all their
practices, but certain influential NGOs and prominent ten-
dencies in humanitarian practice. The practices of NGOs
have many effects: they fill gaps and give legitimacy to the
state while also undermining state governance (as previ-
42 É M I L E S T -P I E R R E
ously argued), they can inflate housing costs, and they of-
fer opportunities for advancement for middle-class, public
sector workers in the Global South which reproduces
global inequalities (Schuller, 2009, pp. 85, 87, 92, 97).
However, these are only some of the externalities of the
capillary forms of therapeutic domination that take place
when NGOs exert the power over life and death in situa-
tions of emergency. HIV/AIDS treatment programs offer a
good example of what I mean. Lack of access to treatment
for HIV/AIDS became a global humanitarian emergency
in 2000. Vinh-Kim Nguyen (2009) argues that it was bio-
medical advances in therapy and diagnosis that allowed
decades of neglect to be reframed as a crisis (pp. 196, 200).
The newly-constituted HIV emergency invited interven-
tion from NGOs in the name of saving lives. Ironically,
their actors and even their tasks are increasingly seen as
indistinguishable from those of intervening military forces.
Indeed, both are concerned with the management of popu-
lations to ensure that lives are saved (Nguyen, 2009, p.
201). In the case of HIV, massive treatment programs have
involved enrolling patients, deploying unprecedented
funding, drugs and technologies to better manage the well-
being of populations of individuals with the most intimate
detail.
PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief)
launched under George W. Bush, became the prime exam-
ple for the administration of its humanitarian foreign pol-
icy (Nguyen, 2009, pp. 202–203). Its implementation was
mostly left to local faith-based organizations advocating
abstinence and fidelity as prevention measures, part of a
set of intimate technologies deployed in order to save lives
that change the way people care for and talk about their
bodies and their families. Though PEPFAR differs in its
singularity from assemblages of NGOs, it operates in a
similar mode of therapeutic domination (Nguyen, 2009,
pp. 204–205; McFalls, 2010, p. 318).
To prove the effectiveness of treatment, certain meas-
ures of efficiency like the number of lives or years of life
saved then become the basis for experimentation and the
CHAPTER ONE 43
Conclusion
In sum, NGOs and CROs have become powerful actors in
global healthcare, mobilizing the idea of emergency and
CHAPTER ONE 51
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CHAPTER ONE 55
A
t 4:53 PM, on Monday, January 12, 2010, a 7.0
magnitude earthquake shocked Port-au-Prince,
Haiti. It was the most devastating earthquake the
country had experienced in over 200 years, with estimated
infrastructure damage between $8 and $14 billion (Donlon,
2012, p. vii; Farmer, 2011, p. 54). This is particularly as-
tounding considering that Haiti is recognized as the poor-
est country in the Western Hemisphere, with 70% of
individuals surviving on less than $2 US per day (Farmer,
2011, p. 60). The quake’s epicentre was located 15 miles
southwest of Port-au-Prince, which is the most heavily
populated area in all of Haiti (Donlon, 2012, p. vii). Ap-
proximately three million Haitians, one third of the coun-
try’s population, live in Port-au-Prince and every single
individual was affected by the disaster: the Haitian gov-
ernment reported 230,000 deaths, 300,600 injured persons,
and between 1.2 to 2 million displaced people (Donlon,
2012, p. vii). The country presented a “blank slate,” with
all manner of political, economic, and social services in ab-
solute ruin—an ideal circumstance to exercise the arms of
the new (US) imperialism: notably, NGOs, the UN Stabili-
58 KEIR FORGIE
US Military Intervention
The US military has a long history of intervening in Haiti
to impose imperial interests: noteworthy US interventions
include the military occupation of 1915-1934, support for
the Duvalier dictatorships of 1934-1986, the CIA sponsored
coup of 1991, and the CIA orchestrated exile of President
Aristide in 2004. In 1915, US Marines invaded Haiti and
occupied the country for a period of 19 years in order to
secure US interests. The US privatized the National Bank,
re-instituted forced-labour, and left behind a military force
that would become the precursor for the Haitian Army
(Podur, 2012, pp. 13–14). From 1957 to 1986, the US sup-
ported the dictatorial regimes of the Duvaliers because of
their anti-communist agendas and their favouring US cor-
porate investors (Smith, 2010/1/14). The Duvalier reign
was overcome by revolt in 1986, and in 1991 Jean-Bertrand
Aristide of the Lavalas political party was elected presi-
dent with a campaign of progressive reforms to serve
Haiti’s poor (Podur, 2012, pp. 16–17). Following a CIA
military backed coup in 1991, Aristide was removed from
power only to be restored to the presidency by the Clinton
administration under the condition that Aristide impose
the US neoliberal plan (referred to by Haitians as “The
Plan of Death”) (Chossudovsky, 2004/2/29; Smith,
2010/1/14). In February 2004, the Pentagon and Haiti’s
elite organized yet another coup that exiled Aristide to
South Africa. To quell the pro-Aristide uprising, the US in-
stigated a UN military occupation of Haiti and appointed a
puppet government led by René Préval to enforce the US
neoliberal plan (Chossudovsky, 2004/2/29; Frantz, 2011;
CHAPTER TWO 61
MINUSTAH
MINUSTAH functions to enforce US politico-economic in-
terests in Haiti by suppressing democracy and contribut-
ing to ontological insecurity that interferes with national
sovereignty. MINUSTAH’s continued occupation of Haiti
is based on the proposition that the international commu-
nity is threatened by local political violence (Frantz, 2011).
However, with the US paying one-quarter of
MINUSTAH’s budget, the support for occupation is much
more sinister.
MINUSTAH enforces US government objectives by
preventing social and political movements that run
counter to neoliberalism and US corporate investment. Ac-
cording to a US Embassy cable from October 2008, then
Ambassador Janet Sanderson explicitly states, “The UN
Stabilization Mission in Haiti is an indispensable tool in
realizing core USG (US government) policy interests in
Haiti,” including the prevention of resurgent “populist
and anti-market economy political forces” (US Embassy
Port-au-Prince [USEP], 2008/10/1). MINUSTAH has sup-
pressed electoral democracy and free speech in Haiti
though fraudulent elections and the killing of civilians
during peaceful protests, thereby eliminating any oppor-
tunity for the poor majority to be heard (Frantz, 2011). Ac-
62 KEIR FORGIE
NGOs
NGOs function as arms of US imperialism by undermining
the Haitian government: NGOs confuse the locus of sover-
eign authority for Haitians, possess agendas tied to global
political influence, and offer a means for the US to invest
aid money towards projects that suit imperial ambitions. It
is estimated that prior to the earthquake of 2010, between
3,000 and 10,000 NGOs were present in Haiti, earning the
country the title “Republic of NGOs” (United States Insti-
tute of Peace [USIP], 2010).
The excessive number of non-state organizing bodies
produces a sense of hypergovernance, thereby undermin-
ing the authority of the Haitian government. A perception
of statelessness among residents ensues and a confusion as
to who governs the country results from a dependence on
NGOs for essential services. A lack of coordination be-
tween NGOs and the state results in a mismatch of social
development projects that are unsustainable, further con-
tributing to the impression that no local authority is truly
in charge (Kivland, 2012, pp. 248, 261; USIP, 2010).
Furthermore, NGOs provide a channel through which
foreign governments and donors can funnel aid money,
which draws away from potential state resources. This
funding greatly increases NGO infrastructure, which in
turn lures educated personnel from the public sector to-
wards the greater financial opportunity, benefits, and im-
proved working conditions offered by NGOs. The result is
a “brain-drain” and further incapacitated government
(USIP, 2010, pp. 1–2).
NGOs also possess their own agendas and political in-
fluence while being heavily influenced by donor interests,
therefore decisions are made to support the donors and de-
liverers more than the recipients (Cunningham, 2012, p.
113). Humanitarian aid is inherently political, which fos-
64 KEIR FORGIE
Disaster Capitalism
Disaster capitalism describes the predatory actions of gov-
ernments and corporations that identify market opportuni-
ties in times of crisis and take advantage of incapacitated
nations to carry out extensive neoliberal reform that would
otherwise be highly resisted and difficult to implement.
Once the US military had established emergency control of
Haiti in 2010, the US government overtook the state and
enforced a series of policies that favored neoliberalism and
US corporations. In this regard, the US possessed a pre-
conceived ideology of structural reform that it sought to
impose on Haiti immediately following the earthquake.
Following from that, the US took control of the aid money
that was destined for Haiti and invested it in corporations
68 KEIR FORGIE
Conclusion
The behaviour of the US towards Haiti can be described
most accurately as imperial. This is evident from well-
documented US military and CIA interventions, US
masked political influence via MINUSTAH, disguised
state manipulation through NGOs, forced occupation fol-
lowing the earthquake, and predatory neoliberal imposi-
tions and exploitative capitalism during Haiti’s
incapacitated state. It is true that the US presence in Haiti
72 KEIR FORGIE
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Moselle, T. S. (2008). The Concept of World Order. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard Kennedy School.
CHAPTER TWO 75
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/cchrp/research/ConceptOfWorldOrder_Mo
selle.pdf
Podur, J. (2012). Haiti’s New Dictatorship: The Coup, the Earthquake
and the UN Occupation. London, UK: Pluto Press.
Quigley, B., & Ramanauskas, A. (2012/1/13). Haiti After the
Quake: Where the Relief Money Did and Did Not Go.
Counterpunch.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/1/03/haiti-after-the-quake/print
Smith, A. (2010/1/14). Catastrophe in Haiti. Socialist Worker.
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───── . (2010/2/8). The “Shock Doctrine” for Haiti. Socialist
Worker.
http://socialistworker.org/print/2010/02/08/shock-doctrine-for-haiti
United States Institute of Peace (USIP). (2010). Haiti: A Republic of
NGOs? Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace.
http://www.usip.org/events/haiti-republic-ngos
US Embassy, Port-au-Prince (USEP). (2008/10/1). Why we need
continuing MINUSTAH presence in Haiti [Diplomatic
cable]. Port-au-Prince, Haiti.[08PORTAUPRINCE1381_a].
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08PORTAUPRINCE1381_a.html
───── . (2010/2/1). Embassy Port au Prince Earthquake
SITREP [Diplomatic cable]. Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
[10PORTAUPRINCE110].
http://wikileaks.org/cable/2010/02/10PORTAUPRINCE110.html
Way, J. (2010/2/2). Haiti: The Impacts of Militarized Aid. Upside
Down World.
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2346-the-
impacts-of-militarized-aid
Webster, D. (2012/1/10). Fault Line: Aid, Politics, and Blame in
Post-Quake Haiti: Two Years After the Earthquake, Where
Did the Money Go? Global Post.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/haiti/1201
10/haiti-earthquake-aid-rice?page=0,3
CHAPTER 3
D
avid Harvey describes the new imperialism as the
imposition of American neoliberal values and
policies on other nations (Harvey, 2003). The new
imperialist project is supported in part by narratives which
aim to produce good neoliberal capitalist subjects both at
home and abroad. One of the spaces in which this becomes
evident is in the messages, both explicit and implicit,
within student or youth-centred volunteer abroad pro-
grams. Examinations of the narratives produced by these
programs in their recruitment efforts and mission state-
ments reveal deeply ingrained and unquestioned neolib-
eral values and assumptions. Youth are encouraged to
consider self-improvement and individual efforts as solu-
tions to issues of global inequalities, rather than address-
ing political and economic systems and underlying
relationships of exploitation and domination. The lan-
guage used in these recruitment messages to youth en-
forces neoliberal, capitalist understandings of the problem
of and potential solutions to global inequalities. Problems
are thus decontextualized and depoliticized. The messages
reinforce a desired image of the Western youth as a power-
ful actor, an impetus for change, and an inspiration to the
78 TRISTAN BIEHN
References
Baptista, J. A. (2012). The Virtuous Tourist: Consumption,
Development, and Nongovernmental Governance in a
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651.
Cross Cultural Solutions (CCS). (2014a). High School Volunteer
Abroad.
http://www.crossculturalsolutions.org/discover-what-you-can-do/high-
school-volunteer-abroad
───── . (2014b). Our History.
http://www.crossculturalsolutions.org/about/our-history
─────. (2014c). Our Philosophy.
http://www.crossculturalsolutions.org/
Harvey, D. (2003). The New Imperialism. Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press.
International Student Volunteers, Inc. (ISV). (2014a). Our Story.
http://www.isvolunteers.org/our-story
───── . (2014b). Responsible Travel.
http://www.isvolunteers.org/responsible-travel
───── . (2014c). What to look for in a Volunteer Provider.
http://www.isvolunteers.org/what-to-look-for-in-a-volunteer-provider
───── . (2014d). Why Students All Over the World Prefer ISV’s
Volunteer Program.
http://www.isvolunteers.org/why-isv
───── . (2014e). Why Pay to Volunteer?
http://www.isvolunteers.org/why-pay-to-volunteer
Jakubiak, C. (2012). “English for the Global”: Discourses in/of
English-Language Voluntourism. International Journal of
Qualitative Studies in Education, 25(4), 435-451.
Katieannie09. (2014). Overwhelmed with Generosity.
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ed-with-generosity
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2whqVlglIg
CHAPTER 4
Queers of War:
Normalizing Lesbians and Gays
in the US War Machine
ÕÕÕÕÕ
Hilary King
W
hen considering the legacy of the US as a nation,
of all the characteristics available, “gay-friendly”
should not be one that readily comes to mind
first. Being a nation born of white supremacy, settler colo-
nialism, and patriarchy, it is perhaps not remarkable that
the nation has been a site of heteronormativity since its in-
ception. Yet in recent years, the US (as well as other west-
ern countries) has begun to represent itself as a leader in
rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people
(LGBT), setting examples for the rest of the world in the
view of some US human rights activists. Much of this ex-
citement has to do with the work the Obama administra-
tion has done putting forward laws that allegedly further
said rights. From expanding the legal scope of “hate
crimes” to include those attacked as a result of their sexual
orientation, to repealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” (DADT),
Obama has been deemed a favourite amongst mainstream
gay and lesbian activists (HRC, 2011). Through producing
exceptional narratives of the US as an advocate of gay and
lesbian rights, the Obama administration has thus not only
effectively erased America’s history of violence against
LGBT individuals, but has also oversimplified this vio-
lence as one that can only be stopped through what many
90 HILARY KING
Homonationalism
Homonationalism describes the contemporary racial and
economic relations in western sexual rights discourses, and
explains the global narratives around sexual human rights,
immigration, freedom and democracy. Natalie Kouri-Towe
explains how it functions similarly to Orientalism:
“Homonationalism functions in complementary ways to
Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism, which describes
how the West produces knowledge and dominates ‘the
Orient’ through academic, cultural and discursive
processes. Like Orientalism, [it] speaks to the ways
Western powers circulate ideas about other cultures (like
Arab and Islamic cultures) in order to produce the West
as culturally, morally, and politically advanced and
superior. However, unlike Orientalism, homo-
CHAPTER FOUR 91
Producing Exceptional
Narratives of Citizenship
In 2009, after tireless lobbying by the HRC, Barack Obama
signed into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate
Crimes Prevention Act (2009). A response to the horrific kill-
ing of Matthew Shepard, this act expanded on the 1960 US
federal hate crime law to include crimes prompted by a
victim’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability
(US Senate, 2009). It aimed to protect LGBT rights by pro-
viding millions of dollars to enhance police and prosecuto-
rial resources (Spade, 2011, p. 89). This law, however, was
also the rider to the controversial National Defense Authori-
zation Act for the fiscal year of 2010, an act that had author-
ized $680 billion for the Pentagon in the fiscal year 2010,
making it the largest military budget ever (Martin,
2009/10/30). Therefore when people were rallying around
what they considered to be the advancement of gay civil
rights in the US, they were also rallying around increased
US military spending, as well as military expansion over-
seas (US Senate, 2009).
In reference to the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, Dean
Spade questions how the veterans of stonewall and Comp-
ton’s cafeteria uprisings against police violence would feel
about an act that provides millions of dollars to police and
prosecutorial resources (Spade, 2011, p. 89), to the extent
that this Act effectively erases the state’s role as a perpetra-
tor of this violence. At the reception commemorating the
enactment of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, Barack Obama
made the following statement:
“We have for centuries strived to live up to our
founding ideal, of a nation where all are free and equal
and able to pursue their own version of happiness.
Through conflict and tumult, through the morass of
CHAPTER FOUR 95
Conclusion
Angela Davis notes that in order to dismantle US imperial-
ism, it is important not to view peace as merely the cessa-
tion of war. The anti-imperialist battle is not one that looks
toward only an end goal, but rather is one that engages
constantly in a critique of the methodologies it deploys
(Davis, 2008, p. 22). Thus to view struggles against imperi-
alism as one separate from struggles against patriarchy,
CHAPTER FOUR 99
References
Agiesta, J., & Cohen, J. (2009/8/20). Poll Shows Most Americans
Oppose War in Afghanistan. The Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2009/08/19/AR2009081903066.html
Amnesty International (AI). (2013/12/20). Uganda: Anti-
Homosexuality Bill must be Scrapped. Amnesty International.
http://www.amnesty.ca/news/news-updates/uganda-anti-
homosexuality-bill-must-be-scrapped
Arat-Koc, S. (2002). Hot Potato: Imperial Wars of Benevolent
Interventions? Reflections on “Global Feminism” Post
100 HILARY KING
C
hampioning itself as the leader of capitalism, more
obviously so since the Cold War, the US has led the
world into an era of neoliberalism in which the free
market is deemed to be the ultimate way to prosperity
(Ellwood, 2010). In fact, after memories were cleared of the
factors that led the US into the Great Depression of the
1930s, the end of World War II was followed by the rebirth
of the belief in the free market, a belief which was best ex-
pressed through the creation of the Bretton Woods trio: the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the
latter succeeded by the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Since then, the US has controlled a good deal of the finan-
cial world and it can be argued that the country has both
written the rules and enforced them.
However, a simple look at the course of US economic
history allows one to realize that the US feels free to break
the rules of capitalism it advocates whenever the occasion
demands it for the benefit of the country and especially its
corporations. Michael Ignatieff has addressed the excep-
106 KARINE PERRON
US Influence in Multilateral
Economic Institutions:
The International Monetary Fund
International economic institutions have proven to be
some of the most effective organisms through which the
US has advanced its economic agenda. After World War II,
there was a desire among developed countries to create a
set of rules that would prevent crises such as that of the
1930s (Ellwood, 2010). The “challenge of peace,” as the
post-war period was heralded, was to produce economic
growth and to locate markets for the productive capacity
of the US in a period when vast regions of Europe and
CHAPTER FIVE 107
and the IMF itself has been forced to recognize their inef-
fectiveness in some cases (IMF, 2013; Stevis, 2013/6/5).
However, debtor nations were not given the privilege of
choice:
“Countries were forced to adopt the austerity measures
if they wanted to get the IMF ‘seal of approval’. Without
it they would be ostracized to the fringes of the global
economy”. (Ellwood, 2010, p. 56)
Unilateral Decisions:
Using and Disregarding WTO
While the IMF plays a central role in multilateral interna-
tional economic decisions and influence, most trade
agreements are made on the bilateral level (Laïdi, 2008).
Considering the necessity for US companies to sell their
products outside the home country, because of the domes-
tic market saturation, US trade policy consists of what can
be called an offensive or market access strategy (Laïdi,
110 KARINE PERRON
Regime Change
The previous sections intended to present the ways in
which the US seeks to achieve its economic goals through
both multilateral means, with the use of the IMF, and
through bilateral agreements settled by the WTO. What is
striking from the examples provided is the inconsistency
of the US’ policy regarding free trade, which is at once
strongly advocated or ignored according to the situation.
In spite of official statements from Presidents, of IMF deci-
CHAPTER FIVE 113
Discussion
The evidence presented in the previous sections point to-
wards the conclusion that the US strategy of enlargement
and of economic growth heavily relies on declarations of
exceptions, whether official or not. US action within the
IMF and the influence it has over the policies of the or-
ganization, as well as its power to impose structural ad-
justment programs on other countries while itself
disregarding the measures advocated by the IMF, give an
idea of how the US can both set the rules and break them.
The same can be said about American leadership’s relation
with the WTO: simultaneously advocating for the princi-
CHAPTER FIVE 117
References
Agamben, G. (2003). State of Exception. Chicago, IL: The
University of Chicago Press.
Ashbee, E., & Waddan, A. (2010). The Obama Administration
and United States Trade Policy. The Political Quarterly, 81(2),
253–262.
Boot, M. (2001/10/15). The Case for American Empire. The
Weekly Standard, 7(5).
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/000
/318qpvmc.asp
Brockett, C. D. (2002). An Illusion of Omnipotence: U.S. Policy
toward Guatemala, 1954–1960. Latin American Politics and
Society, 44(1), 91–126.
CHAPTER FIVE 119
A
challenge in studying the new imperialism lies in
overcoming the expectation of features belonging
to archetypal empires, for example: colonies, mili-
tary might, state infrastructure, technological and eco-
nomic superiority, or national identity and the demo-
graphics of a corresponding citizenry (Magdoff, 2003).
Here, Harry Magdoff proposes that we examine monopoly
capitalism, because it characterizes the contemporary
global system (Magdoff, 2003, pp. 91–92). In parallel with
this proposal, David Harvey argues that the rise of neolib-
eral hegemony in the early 1970s endowed the American
empire with the “financial orthodoxy” of free market en-
terprise, a timely way to assert itself around the globe
(Harvey, 2003, p. 62). The proliferation of neoliberal values
and the advent of Americanization (imperialistic cultural
capitalism) are historical contingencies of today’s global
state of affairs (Harvey, 2003, pp. 62–74), and the oligarchs
that head the monopolies that create and manage this
dominance are thus themselves a key part of contempo-
rary empire. This assumption proves valid in light of evi-
dence that the corporate imperium, like the nation-state,
imposes its interests on both domestic and foreign policies.
122 MATHIEU GUERIN
Conclusion
The emergence of a corporation-oriented rule-of-law, em-
bodied in the American Legislative Exchange Council, is
tantamount to the emergence of a social order which oper-
ates on the basis of free enterprise logic without impunity,
which is to say “without recognizing human needs”. This
is empirically salient, for example, in ALEC’s proliferation
of legislature akin to that which legitimated the killing of
Trayvon Martin, ALEC’s devotion to climate change dis-
avowal, and ALEC’s espousal of (and foundation upon)
neoliberal ideologies which would encourage Silicon Val-
ley’s nonchalant take-over of the San Francisco area. ALEC
constitutes an organization by which the corporate im-
perium, emerging out of the established imperial state of
the US, comes to practice a domestic imperialism that op-
erates primarily with respect to capital, and secondarily
with respect to other modalities of imperialism such as
ethnicity, beliefs, and so on. It achieves this by permeating
and co-opting the existing imperial state’s infrastructure
and altering the rights of individuals via legal apparatuses,
and through the violence of dispossession ensuing from
the free enterprise logic of neoliberal orthodoxy.
Notes
1 Each of these corporations are or were recently members of
ALEC. I include certain members that have reportedly cut
ties with ALEC because I only wish to demonstrate the
breadth and scale of this organization via its typical mem-
bership, not to produce an up to date list of current mem-
bers, their task force affiliations, financial contributions, or
level of involvement within ALEC, which would be beyond
the scope of this paper (for a detailed account, see CMD,
2014/1/23).
144 MATHIEU GUERIN
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Doucet, I. (2014/1/28). The Fight for the Soul of San Francisco.
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Gramsci, A. (2000). The Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings 1916-
1935. Ed. Forgacs, D. New York: New York University Press.
Greenwald, G. (2011). With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the
Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful. New
York, NY: Metropolitan Books
Ferguson, J., & Gupta, A. (2005). Spatializing States: Toward an
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CHAPTER SIX 145
M
odern imperialism can be seen as the militariza-
tion of neoliberal ideology seeking to maximize
the area of the market available for capitalist
penetration (Hanieh, 2006, p. 171). In order to maintain
support for the near-permanent war entailed by this logic,
manufacturers of public opinion in core capitalist states
must produce and propagate moral and ideological justifi-
cations for the invasions, airstrikes, and interventions con-
stituting the more overt forms of imperial aggression
(Wood, 2006, p. 16). Proponents of imperialism have selec-
tively applied liberal conceptions of humanitarianism to
legitimize interventions (Fassin, 2010, p. 270) and oppo-
nents of imperialism are discredited by being painted as
opponents of the moral imperatives of humanitarianism,
or worse. Recently the narrative surrounding the war on
terrorism has been an integral part of US efforts to discur-
sively construct catastrophes to which interventionist
strategies can be administered, as another set of justifica-
tions for war.
Mainstream western media routinely participate in the
perpetuation of such narratives. Along with US politicians,
the media habitually treat governments and non-state ac-
150 JOHN MANICOM
Words Matter:
US Media as Private Propaganda
Discourses surrounding war and intervention are not all
created equal. Anti-war graffiti scrawled on an underpass
does not carry the same authority and commonly ascribed
legitimacy as an opinion piece in a national newspaper.
Foucault, writing of medical professionals, argues that
those agents judged to produce legitimate discourse bene-
fit from a privileged status in relation to society including
“criteria of competence and knowledge [and] legal condi-
tions that give the right…to practice and extend one’s
knowledge” (Foucault, 1972, p. 50). Like medical profes-
sionals, those working in media enjoy conditions allowing
them to diagnose problems with the appearance of scientific
detachment, and their statements are imbued with a cer-
tain discursive authority.
Assertions appearing in privately-owned mainstream
media are often assumed to stem from a professional com-
petence unavailable to most others, and draw upon the
privileged status of official sources to shore up their own
legitimacy. One journalist who was covering the invasion
of Iraq was asked by his Iraqi translator why he was quot-
ing US officials when what they were saying was clearly
misleading. He replied that a journalist must present both
sides and let the reader draw their own conclusions: “I
had to tell him I had no choice but to quote the American
officials, even if I knew that by doing so I would give their
half-truths a measure of credibility” (Fassihi, 2007, p. 171).
In the same breath he writes that journalists who write
“detailed contextual and emotional accounts of war” risk
being accused of bias, after having written that “the US
military has tried to manage the flow of information by
expecting reporters to practice a sort of self-censorship”
(Fassihi, 2007, pp. 169, 171). What is written between the
lines but left unsaid is this: rather than simply giving a ly-
ing US official credibility by quoting him, an individual
journalist risks losing credibility by refusing to quote a ly-
ing official or by frankly pointing out that he is lying. This
158 JOHN MANICOM
Conclusion
An accurate indicator of how foreign state or non-state ac-
tors will be rhetorically treated by US politicians can be
found in their relationship to US interests. Systematic hu-
man rights violations by allies are glossed over, but similar
violations by hostile actors are classified as being represen-
tative of imminent threats to be countered, perhaps by
military intervention. The logic of neoliberal imperialism
stresses the openness of markets to the penetration of US
capital and the willingness of actors to facilitate US mili-
tary objectives as being some of the most important ele-
ments of alliance, while the moral arguments of
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http://globalsecuritystudies.com/Price%20Pakistan.pdf
Rice, C. (2008/5/29). Payment of Navigation and Other Fees for
US Military Aircraft in Turkmenistan [Diplomatic Cable, ID:
08STATE67468_a]. Washington, DC: US Department of
State.
http://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08STATE67468_a.html
Rubin, J. (2013/3/6). Obama’s Atrocious Statement on Chavez’s
Death. Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-
turn/wp/2013/03/06/obamas-atrocious-statement-on-tyrant-chavezs-
death/
Shehata, S. (2004). Egypt after 9/11: Perceptions of the United
States. Social Science Research Council.
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http://conconflicts.ssrc.org/archives/mideast/shehata/
Uppsala Conflict Data Program. (2014). General One-sided Vio-
lence Information. UCDP Conflict Encyclopedia.
http://www.ucdp.uu.se/gpdatabase/printonesided.php?hsId=277
Wieseltier, L. (2014/1/25). Iran Is Not Our Friend. The New Re-
public.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116229/iran-not-our-friend-
diplomacy-shouldnt-blind-us-human-rights
Wood, E. M. (2006). Democracy as Ideology of Empire. In C.
Mooers (Ed.), The New Imperialism: Ideologies of Empire (pp. 9–
24). Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications.
CHAPTER 8
E
very day, images of the military are seen, whether
through television shows, movies, the news, or re-
cruitment ads. The tendency to portray the military
and its members as unstoppable forces is prevalent in all
forms of media. Is this tendency based on an accurate rep-
resentation? The Pentagon has been working with Holly-
wood film producers for decades, in what is considered to
be a mutually beneficial relationship through which the
Department of Defense gets professional filmmakers to
portray the military in the best possible light. Hollywood
producers, who agree to make the modifications necessary
to their films in order to get the Pentagon’s approval, are
granted access to millions of dollars’ worth of military per-
sonnel and equipment for use in their productions. This
relationship perpetuates the pristine image of the military
as seen by media audiences worldwide and thus attempts
to block a view of the darker side of the armed forces.
This pristine image in turn reinforces the idea that
“service” men and women are unstoppable heroes in cam-
ouflage. The men and women who lost their lives overseas
are welcomed home as heroes, yet those who are injured,
either physically or mentally, are not awarded that same
honour. In reality, when those injured return, they are
more likely to be seen as broken people, unlikely to be able
to resume their normal work, and many get discharged.
168 LAURA POWELL
speaks about any of them. Men and women who lost their
lives while deployed return home as heroes in caskets
wrapped in their country’s flag. The news media include
footage of ramp ceremonies, showing the caskets of the
fallen being unloaded from planes, in their broadcasts. The
military personnel who are injured during their deploy-
ment return home and do not get the same media coverage
as to those who lost their lives. Those soldiers not physi-
cally injured get to return home at the end of their de-
ployment, their injuries not as easily visible. The absence
of obvious physical injuries does not mean military mem-
bers returned home unscathed. PTSD is “an anxiety disor-
der characterized by reliving a psychological traumatic
situation, long after any physical danger involved has
passed, through flashbacks and nightmares” and is fre-
quently found in individuals whose life or wellbeing was
in jeopardy, such as individuals engaged in military com-
bat (Canadian Mental Health Association [CMHA], 2014).
In the US, estimates suggest that 11–20% of Iraq War
and Afghanistan War veterans, upward to 10% of Gulf
War veterans, and approximately 30% of Vietnam War
veterans were affected by PTSD (US Department of Veter-
ans Affairs, 2014). A study of individuals deployed in Op-
eration Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), Operation New
Dawn (Iraq), and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq) shows
that for the period of 2002 to 2014 (as of January 10, 2014),
there were 118,829 reported cases of PTSD (Fisher, 2014, p.
2). The number of individuals whose PTSD was reported is
substantial and it must be kept in mind that this number is
most likely not representative of the full number of indi-
viduals affected by PTSD. Even if there are over 100,000
American soldiers diagnosed with the disorder, there re-
mains a stigma associated with mental health issues which
may dissuade military members from seeking help, result-
ing in under-reported incidences of the disorder. Individu-
als who seek professional help for mental health issues are
not guaranteed the care they require.
180 LAURA POWELL
Conclusions
When men and women go fight wars in other countries,
those who remain home can easily feel as though they
have no connections to the deployed military or to the on-
going conflict. The media do nothing to engage their audi-
ences to the events taking place by misreporting the
information and by omitting to share the dirty side of war.
Fallen soldiers return home as heroes who sacrificed their
lives for democracy and for their country, but no one hears
about those gravely injured by friendly fire, those whose
182 LAURA POWELL
References
Astore, W. J. (2010/7/22). Every Soldier a Hero? Hardly. Los An-
geles Times.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/22/opinion/la-oe-astore-heroes-
20100722
Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA). (2014). Post-
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
http://www.cmha.ca/mental_health/post-traumatic-stress-
disorder/#.UxqISfmwLwk
Costs of War. (2013/3). US and Allied Killed.
http://costsofwar.org/article/us-killed-0
de Yoanna, M., & M. Benjamin. (2009/4/8). I Am Under a Lot of
Pressure to Not Diagnose PTSD. Salon.
http://www.salon.com/2009/04/08/tape/
CHAPTER EIGHT 183
A Flickr of Militarization:
Photographic Regulation,
Symbolic Consecration, and
the Strategic Communication
of “Good Intentions”
ÕÕÕÕÕ
Maximilian C. Forte
P
icture-perfect good intentions: healing babies, help-
ing mothers, playing ball with boys, laying bricks,
parading, working out, loving dogs. If one were to
take at face value the US Department of Defense’s photo-
graphic self-representations (which is what the leaders of
the institution explicitly prefer), then one could be forgiven
for believing that US military training involves learning
basic techniques for skipping rope, holding hands, deliver-
ing Christmas gifts, and of course polishing and maintain-
ing daunting machinery. The US Department of Defense
(DoD), has created a utopian virtual world through the use
186 M A X I M I L I A N C. F O R T E
and second,
“civilian agency efforts to promote an understanding of
the reconstruction efforts, rule of law, and civic
responsibility through public affairs and international
public diplomacy operations”. (DoD, 2010a, pp. 214–215;
DoD, 2012, p. xvi)
For its part, the White House under Barack Obama de-
scribed “strategic communication” as “the synchronization
of our words and deeds as well as deliberate efforts to
communicate and engage with intended audiences”
(White House, 2009, p. 1), thus some notion of “engage-
ment” came to be built into the process.4
Anthropology and Sociology have also been identified
as key areas of expertise needed for “mapping the cogni-
tive dimension,” in terms that echo the justifications for
launching the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System. The
Joint Forces Command articulated this “need” as follows:
because “cognitive factors can vary significantly between
locality, cultures, [and] operational circumstances,” the
military may need to “leverage outside experts” who pos-
sess “unique skill sets not normally found in a military or-
ganization”. The military would then have these experts
“support joint intelligence preparation of the operational
environment, planning, and assessment, either by deploy-
ing them forward or through ‘reachback’” (JFC, 2010, pp.
xv–xvi).
In terms of the military bureaucracy charged with pro-
vision and supervision of images, in 2007 the Defense Me-
dia Activity (DMA) was created, working under the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs
CHAPTER NINE 199
“the Social Media Team will only post content that sup-
ports the Army mission and the Army themes” (US Army,
2010a, p. 2). The Army will not post photographs that, “do
not support the mission of the U.S. Army,” or those that,
“violate U.S. Army Operational Security (OPSEC) guide-
lines,” or, “images that could be used as propaganda by
enemies of the United States,” or, “images that contain any
content that could be construed as racist, derogatory, or
otherwise offensive,” or, “images that show military per-
sonnel or government/contracted employees acting in an
unprofessional manner or engaging in any act that would
damage the image or reputation of the Army” (US Army,
2010a, p. 3). The Chief of Public Affairs also states that the
way of “measuring success” of these photographs is to
count the number of “views” that they receive (US Army,
2010a, p. 3).
The combined effect of these restrictions is therefore
not one designed to simply tell a “visual story” of the US
Army, but to tell only some stories that have a prescribed
political motivation (along with an unspoken faith in the
capacity of images to tell such stories). If Army Public Af-
fairs positions itself against “enemy use” of its photos for
“propaganda,” it then implies what its objectives are,
which also constitute propaganda. Indeed, the notion that
it would be “propaganda” to use US Army photographs in
a critique of the US Army’s “mission,” is such a broad
view of “propaganda” that its aim is to remove any ques-
tion about the military’s role just as it labours to pry its
self-representation away from the realm of propaganda.
The US Army thus seems to declare: it’s propaganda when
they criticize us, but it’s not propaganda when we tell
them our glory stories. The thinking is thus structured in
terms of simple political absolutes, and the state of political
exception is the rule of representation.
The additional restriction under the umbrella of Opera-
tional Security is, as we have seen in the massive over-
classification of information that was leaked by Bradley
Manning, a particularly oppressive one. The caution about
racist images or displays of unprofessional behaviour is
CHAPTER NINE 209
This photograph, taken on May 13, 2014, was officially captioned as fol-
lows: “US Marines and Sailors with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit
(MEU) stand at attention during a formation aboard the amphibious
assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5) in the Gulf of Aden May 13, 2014. The
22nd MEU was deployed with the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group as a
theater reserve and crisis response force throughout the US Central
Command and U.S. 5th Fleet areas of responsibility”. (DoD photograph
by Sgt. Austin Hazard, US Marine Corps)
The official caption for this photograph, taken on June 16, 2010, was:
“School in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, June 17, 2010. Mercy is deployed
as part of Pacific Partnership 2010, the fifth in a series of annual US Pa-
cific Fleet humanitarian and civic assistance endeavors to strengthen
regional partnerships”. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist
2nd Class Jon Husman, US Navy)
This photograph, taken on July 28, 2012, was captioned as follows: “Jac-
quelyn Bilbro, a registered nurse, entertains a child during a medical
civic action project at Hun Sen Cheungkor Primary Elementary School,
in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, July 29, 2012, during Pacific Partnership
2012. Pacific Partnership is an annual deployment of forces designed to
strengthen maritime and humanitarian partnerships during disaster re-
lief operations, while providing humanitarian, medical, dental and en-
gineering assistance to nations of the Pacific”. (DoD photograph by
Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Roadell Hickman, US Navy)
226 M A X I M I L I A N C. F O R T E
Taken on June 21, 2012: “US Navy Musician 2nd Class Kori Gillis, as-
signed to the US Naval Forces Europe Band ensemble Flagship, sings
and dances with children at the Integracao Infantil Cristo Vida school in
Nacala, Mozambique, June 21, 2012. Sailors and Marines embarked
aboard high speed vessel Swift (HSV-2) visited the school during a
community service project as part of Africa Partnership Station (APS)
2012. APS is an international security cooperation initiative facilitated
by Commander, US Naval Forces Europe-Africa aimed at strengthening
global maritime partnerships through training and collaborative activi-
ties in order to improve maritime safety and security in Africa”. (DoD
photo by Ensign Joe Keiley, U.S. Navy/Released)
From April 12, 2013, this photograph had the following caption: “US
Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Ruben Ramirez, left, a warehouseman, and Cpl.
David Long, a packing specialist, both with Combat Logistics Regiment
35, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, III Marine Expeditionary Force, carry
students at Maruglo Elementary School in Capas, Tarlac province, Phil-
ippines, April 12, 2013, during a community relations event as part of
Balikatan 2013. Balikatan is an annual bilateral training exercise de-
signed to increase interoperability between the Armed Forces of the
Philippines and the US military when responding to future natural dis-
asters”. (DoD photo by Tech. Sgt. Jerome S. Tayborn, US Air Force)
From August 3, 2010, this was captioned as follows: “US Navy Petty
Officer 2nd Class Claire Ballante holds an Afghan child during a patrol
with Marines from 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment in Musa Qa’leh,
Afghanistan, Aug. 3, 2010. Ballante is part of a female engagement team
that is patrolling local compounds to assess possible home damage
caused by aircraft landing at Forward Operating Base Musa Qala”.
(DoD photo by Cpl. Lindsay L. Sayres, US Marine Corps)
From October 31, 2011, the official caption for this photograph was: “US
Army Sgt. Stephanie Tremmel, right, with the 86th Special Troops Battal-
ion, 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, interacts with an Afghan child
while visiting Durani, Afghanistan, Nov. 1, 2010. Soldiers visited the
village to dismantle an old Russian tank, which the villagers will sell for
scrap metal to buy food to get through the winter”. (DoD photo by Spc.
Kristina L. Gupton, US Army)
230 M A X I M I L I A N C. F O R T E
Taken on October 2, 2013, the original caption for this photograph read:
“US Navy Lt. Shayna Rivard, left foreground, a battalion surgeon at-
tached to Combat Logistics Battalion 13, 13th Marine Expeditionary
Unit, reads to students of the Bal Bhavan School in Panaji, Goa, India,
Oct. 1, 2013, during a volunteer outreach as part of exercise Shatrujeet
2013. Shatrujeet is an annual training exercise conducted by US and In-
dian service members to share knowledge and build interoperability
skills. (DoD photo by Sgt. Christopher O’Quin, US Marine Corps)
From September 17, 2010, the caption read as follows: “US Navy Cmdr.
Tim Burgis, embarked aboard the multipurpose amphibious assault
ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7), looks at a patient’s foot at a medical site in
Bluefields, Nicaragua, Sept. 17, 2010. Iwo Jima is anchored off the coast
of Nicaragua in support of the Continuing Promise 2010 humanitarian
civic assistance mission. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist
1st Class Eric J. Rowley, US Navy)
This photograph, taken on May 21, 2011, was officially captioned as fol-
lows: “US Marines with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit lead a run
to ground zero in New York City May 31, 2011, as part of Fleet Week
New York 2011. More than 3,000 Marines, Sailors and Coast Guardsmen
participated in community outreach events and equipment demonstra-
tions in the New York City area for Fleet Week. The week’s activities
marked the 27th year that the city has hosted the sea services for the
celebration”. (DoD photo by Sgt. Randall A. Clinton, US Marine Corps)
From February 10, 2012, the official caption for this photograph was as
follows: “US Soldiers, Marines and Airmen raise their right hands and
swear the oath of citizenship during a naturalization ceremony at Kan-
dahar Airfield in Afghanistan Feb. 10, 2012. The Service members were
granted citizenship after receiving their certificates and viewing a con-
gratulatory video message from President Barack Obama”. (DoD photo
by Sgt. Amanda Hils, US Army)
238 M A X I M I L I A N C. F O R T E
This photograph was taken on September 28, 2008, was officially cap-
tioned as follows: “US Soldiers with Fox Company, 52nd Infantry Regi-
ment, 2nd Battalion, 12th Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Stryker Brigade
Combat Team (SBCT), 2nd Infantry Division, United States Division-
Center, listen to a convoy brief Aug. 16, 2010, at Contingency Operating
CHAPTER NINE 239
Base Adder, Iraq, during their final convoy out of theater. The 4th SBCT
is the last combat brigade to leave Iraq”. (DoD photo by Sgt. Kimberly
Johnson, U.S. Army/Released)
Aside from the flag, the cross is the red cross, which has
become the internationally recognizable symbol of neutral
and impartial emergency medical care—except that in this
case, it is on a US military vessel. Moreover, the dominant
position of ships in Figures 9.25 and 9.26 may evoke a myr-
iad of deep historical associations involving deliverance,
rescue, migration, importation, invasion and, in sum, the
international reach of power. The ship is the first mass
medium of border crossing, and a symbol of globalization
that emerged centuries before the first satellite transmis-
sion.
The US government is impressed enough with the vis-
ual power of these images that Figure 9.26 now appears as
the headlining image on the US Agency for International
Development’s (USAID) site for the Office of US Foreign
Disaster Assistance (OFDA).6 Figure 9.26 also mentions the
presence of a Disaster Assistance Response Team
(DART)—not to be confused with Canadian teams, which
perform the same functions and have the same name—and
one can see the acronym on the back of the man’s baseball
cap, which itself is a recognizable symbol of American
identity.
CHAPTER NINE 241
The official caption for this September 2, 2011, photograph was: “Family
and friends watch as hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) docks at
Naval Station Norfolk, Va., Sept. 2, 2011, after returning from a five-
month deployment in support of Continuing Promise 2011. Continuing
Promise is a regularly scheduled mission to countries in Central and
South America and the Caribbean, where the US Navy and its partner-
ing nations work with host nations and a variety of governmental and
nongovernmental agencies to train in civil-military operations”. (DoD
photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Rafael Martie, US
Navy)
242 M A X I M I L I A N C. F O R T E
From January 26, 2010, the official caption was: “A member of the
United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Disaster
Assistance Response Team looks on as humanitarian relief supplies
from Puerto Rico arrive in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Jan. 26, 2010, as part of
Operation Unified Response”. (DoD photo by Mass Communication
Specialist 2nd Class Chris Lussie, US Navy)
This was photograph was taken on November 8, 2010. Its official cap-
tion was as follows: “US Navy Cmdr. Mark Becker, left, the mission
commander of Southern Partnership Station (SPS), greets Robenson
Lucceus, a public relations coordinator for International Child Care,
prior to turning over a mobile medical clinic to the organization in Port-
au-Prince, Haiti, Nov. 8, 2010. The clinic, donated as part of Project
Handclasp, was delivered by high speed vessel Swift (HSV-2) as part of
the SPS mission. Project Handclasp transports educational, humanitar-
ian and goodwill materials on a space-available basis aboard US Navy
ships. SPS is a deployment of various specialty platforms to the US
Southern Command area of responsibility”. (DoD photo by Mass
Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ricardo J. Reyes, US Army)
244 M A X I M I L I A N C. F O R T E
Construction Imagery
Given that the stated aim of this category of photographs
is to represent US forces constructing, repairing, or main-
taining buildings and other public facilities, this would
seem to be motivated to produce images that are the oppo-
site of the US’ once noteworthy COMCAM recordings of
buildings being bombed or struck by missiles. Rather than
destruction then, the US military here reaches for the op-
posite: construction. In fact, there is no single image in the
DoD Flickr account of any target destroyed in combat. It is
this direct and obvious avoidance of the very realities cre-
ated by the US military itself, which recommends use of
the term “propaganda” for these images, in the popularly
understood sense of the term propaganda. While Figure
9.15 might have also come under the heading of construc-
tion imagery, a more common example would be what we
CHAPTER NINE 245
From June 9, 2010, the caption for this photograph was: “US Sailors em-
barked aboard the Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Mercy
(T-AH 19) paint the living facilities at the Binh Dinh Leprosy Hospital in
Quy Nhon, Vietnam, June 10, 2010, during Pacific Partnership 2010.
Mercy is in Vietnam conducting the fifth in a series of annual US Pacific
Fleet humanitarian and civic assistance endeavors to strengthen re-
gional partnerships”. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist
3rd Class Matthew Jackson, US Navy)
Taken on May 13, 2014, this photograph’s official caption was: “Presi-
dent Barack Obama presents the Medal of Honor to former US Army
Sgt. Kyle J. White during a ceremony May 13, 2014, at the White House
in Washington, DC. White was recognized for exposing himself to en-
emy fire to save the lives of coalition troops during an attack in Aranas,
Afghanistan, Nov. 9, 2007. White had been assigned to Chosen Com-
pany, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade
Combat Team at the time of the battle”. (DoD photo by Sgt. Mikki L.
Sprenkle, US Army)
This photograph, from July 29, 2009, was captioned as follows: “US
Navy Lt. j.g. Peter Goodman greets his wife during a homecoming
248 M A X I M I L I A N C. F O R T E
ceremony for the guided-missile frigate USS Klakring (FFG 42) in May-
port, Fla., July 29, 2009. Klakring is returning from a deployment con-
ducting theater security cooperation engagements with regional nations
in the US 6th Fleet area of responsibility”. (DoD photo by Mass Commu-
nication Specialist 2nd Class Gary B. Granger Jr., US Navy)
Taken on November 27, 2013: “US Army Command Sgt. Maj. Norriel
Fahie, assigned to the Army Support Activity, serves Thanksgiving din-
ner to a member of Joint Task Force-Bravo in the dining facility at Soto
Cano Air Base, Honduras, Nov. 28, 2013. Members of Joint Task Force-
Bravo and their Honduran counterparts were treated to a Thanksgiving
Day meal with all the trimmings in celebration of the holiday. Joint Task
Force-Bravo leadership, as well as leaders from the Army Support Ac-
tivity, Army Forces Battalion, Joint Security Forces, 612th Air Base
Squadron, 1-228th Aviation Regiment, and Medical Element wore their
dress uniforms and served the members of the task force”. (DoD photo
by Capt. Zach Anderson US Air Force)
April 12, 2013: “US Air Force Senior Airman Logan Sponsel, a crew
chief assigned to the 169th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, South Caro-
lina Air National Guard, inspects the intake of an F-16 Fighting Falcon
aircraft during a phase II readiness exercise April 12, 2013, at McEntire
Joint National Guard Base, SC. The exercise was intended to evaluate
the 169th Fighter Wing’s ability to operate in a chemical warfare envi-
ronment”. (DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Jorge Intriago, US Air National
Guard)
CHAPTER NINE 251
April 15, 2014: “US Sailors observe the mooring process aboard the am-
phibious assault ship USS Boxer (LHD 4) after the ship arrived April 15,
2014, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. The Boxer conducted
a deployment in the US 5th Fleet and 7th Fleet areas of responsibility and
participated in Ssang Yong 14 during Marine Expeditionary Force Exer-
cise (MEFEX) 2014. MEFEX 2014 was a US Marine Corps Forces Pacific-
sponsored series of exercises between the US Navy and Marine Corps
and South Korean forces. Among the exercises were the Korean Marine
Exchange Program, Freedom Banner 14, Ssang Yong 14, Key Resolve 14
and the Combined Marine Component Command 14 command post
exercise. (DoD by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Diana Quin-
lan, US Navy photo)
252 M A X I M I L I A N C. F O R T E
April 21, 2013: “A US Sailor aboard the aircraft carrier USS John C.
Stennis (CVN 74) issues directions to line handlers pierside upon arrival
to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, April 21, 2013. The John C.
Stennis Carrier Strike Group was returning from an eight-month de-
ployment to the US 5th Fleet and US 7th Fleet areas of responsibility”.
(DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Diana Quin-
lan, US Navy)
October 9, 2009: “US Army 1st Lt. Steven Rose launches an RQ-11 Raven
unmanned aerial vehicle near a new highway bridge project along the
Euphrates River north of Al Taqqadum, Iraq, Oct. 9, 2009. Rose is as-
signed to Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry
Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, which is
assisting Iraqi police in providing security for the work site”. (DoD
photo by Spc. Michael J. MacLeod, US Army)
February 21, 2010: “Embarked Marines assigned to the 31st Marine Ex-
peditionary Unit (MEU) run, wearing gas masks on the flight deck for
an early morning physical exercise aboard amphibious dock landing
254 M A X I M I L I A N C. F O R T E
ship the USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49). Harpers Ferry is a part of the for-
ward-deployed Essex Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and is conduct-
ing Spring Patrol to the Western Pacific Ocean”. (US Navy photo by Gas
Turbine System Technician Mechanical Chief Joel Monsalud)
July 4, 2013: “The singer Ashanti performs during a concert for Service
members at the Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, July 4, 2013”.
(DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Krystie Martinez, US Air Force)
June 16, 2011: “Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Mike
Mullen, left, speaks with TV host Jon Stewart June 16, 2011, at the Stand
Up for Heroes dinner in Washington, DC. The event, sponsored by the
Bob Woodruff Foundation, gathered more than 800 people including
military officials, corporate executives, media members and congres-
sional leaders to increase awareness and raise funds to assist injured
Service members, veterans and their families”. (DoD photo by Mass
Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley)
CHAPTER NINE 257
July 5, 2009: “Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Mike
Mullen gives an interview to John Dickerson during the CBS news pro-
gram Face the Nation in Washington, DC, July 5, 2009. During the in-
terview, Mullen discussed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, North
Korea’s recent missile tests and his recent visit to Russia. (DoD photo by
Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley, US Navy)
258 M A X I M I L I A N C. F O R T E
October 15, 2009: “CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric greets
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Mike Mullen and his
wife Deborah during the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner
at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, NY, Oct. 15, 2009”.
(DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J.
McNeeley, US Navy)
October 3, 2012: “Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Joe Biden, speaks
about being a military mother as US Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno,
the chief of staff of the Army, looks on during an event for Operation
Educate the Educators, a Joining Forces initiative, Oct. 3, 2012, at George
Mason University in Fairfax, Va. During the event, it was announced
that more than 100 colleges and universities had signed the Joining
Forces commitment to help prepare educators to lead classrooms that
are more responsive to the social, emotional and academic needs of
military children”. (US Army photo by Staff Sgt. Teddy Wade)
260 M A X I M I L I A N C. F O R T E
September 15,
2009: “Liberian
President Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf
greets US Navy
Chief
Boatswain’s Mate
Timothy Kelker
in Monrovia,
Liberia, Sept. 15,
2009, during the
closing reception
for a two-week medical civil action project (MEDCAP) in support of Af-
rica Partnership Station (APS). During the MEDCAP, medical teams at-
tached to HSV-2 Swift provided medicine, examinations and treatment
to more than 2000 residents. APS is an international initiative under US
Naval Forces Europe/Africa that brings together US, European and Af-
rican partners to enhance maritime safety and security on the African
continent. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Dan
Meaney, US Navy)
CHAPTER NINE 261
December 11, 2010: “US Air Force Senior Airman Raheem Crockett, a
loadmaster with the 17th Airlift Squadron, inspects the engines of a C-
17A Globemaster III as the aircrew conducts pre-flight checks before a
mission in support of Operation Toy Drop at Joint Base Charleston, SC,
Dec. 11, 2010. Operation Toy Drop is an annual combined service phil-
anthropic project where, in exchange for a donated toy, thousands of
264 M A X I M I L I A N C. F O R T E
paratroopers receive a lottery ticket for the chance to jump with interna-
tional jumpmasters and earn foreign jump wings”. (DoD photo by Tech
Sgt. Manuel J. Martinez, US Air Force)
May 2, 2014: “A US Air Force C-130E Hercules aircraft takes off during
Emerald Warrior 14 at the Stennis International Airport in Kiln, Miss.,
May 2, 2014. Emerald Warrior is a US Special Operations Command-
sponsored two-week joint/combined tactical exercise designed to pro-
vide realistic military training in an urban setting”. (DoD photo by Sen-
ior Airman Colville McFee, US Air Force)
CHAPTER NINE 265
December 24, 2012: “US Marine Corps Gen. James F. Amos, left, the
commandant of the Marine Corps, speaks to Service members during a
Christmas Eve show at Camp Leatherneck, Helmand province, Af-
ghanistan, Dec. 24, 2012.” (DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Ezekiel R. Kitandwe,
US Marine Corps)
December 16, 2009: “U.S. Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sgt. Joseph
Haggins, dressed as Santa Claus, presents a gift to a Filipino child dur-
ing Operation Goodwill at the Manila Day Care Center in Manila, Phil-
ippines, Dec. 16, 2009. The operation gives US Marines and their
families stationed in Okinawa, Japan, an opportunity to spread good-
268 M A X I M I L I A N C. F O R T E
will in the region during the holiday season”. (DoD photo by Sgt. Leon
M. Branchaud, US Marine Corps)
What is Missing?
What is not shown in the DoD collection, that instead are
established facts of US military intervention abroad (such
as torture, bombardment of civilians, drone strikes, etc.)
could occupy volumes. However, what is important to
note here is what could have been shown that would not
have greatly disturbed the propaganda intent of the DoD’s
collection, and could even have served it, but was left out
nonetheless out of an apparent fear of any chance of politi-
cal contamination. For example, of the 9,963 photos exam-
ined for this project, only 73 showed Barack Obama, the
official Commander-in-Chief, and the only such Com-
mander since the Flickr account was instituted. Michelle
Obama herself is shown nearly half as many times. Ac-
counting for this minimization is difficult; one might
speculate that it is part of an attempt to create a neutral,
de-politicized veneer for the collection. This would com-
plement the de-militarized glaze, that is, where there are
no photographs of actual warfare, and no scene where
CHAPTER NINE 271
Notes
1 The US Department of Defense’s Flickr “photostream” is ac-
cessible at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39955793@N07/. The re-
view of photographs on which this chapter is based was
concluded on February 18, 2014. Periodic subsequent visits
were designed to take further samples of images on themes
already covered in this chapter.
2 The State Department distinguishes between “public affairs”
and “public diplomacy”. “Public affairs” refers to communi-
cation with a domestic, US audience. “Public diplomacy” in-
volves communicating to foreign audiences (White House,
2009, p. 7).
3 Information Operations have more to do with communica-
tion during combat, and can involve military deception, elec-
tronic warfare, and psychological operations. They are very
much related to “strategic communication,” but this chap-
ter’s focus is on the more ostensibly “benign” modes of mili-
tary media activity that are practiced on an everyday basis
and involve mostly civilian audiences worldwide.
4 Between the State Department, Pentagon, and intelligence
apparatus, there has been a growing proliferation of pro-
grams, concepts and terms relating to spreading information
designed to (win) support for US foreign policy, that even
attempts at charts tend to look like spaghetti, an almost in-
comprehensible nesting of loops and circles (see for example
JFC, 2010, pp. II-4, II-7).
5 Photography was invented at roughly the same time as the
Euro-American Anthropology began to take a more formal
shape, and at the same time as a new phase of western colo-
nial expansion was underway. It is interesting to see a simi-
lar set of convergences at work in the Pentagon’s attraction
276 M A X I M I L I A N C. F O R T E
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CHAPTER NINE 277
International Relations
-A- Task Force (IRTF), 131-
132
Afghanistan, 95, 96, 99, 151,
Keystone XL Pipeline, 131,
153, 169, 172, 175, 177, 179,
132-133
223 fig. 9.8, 224, 228 fig 9.12,
Magdoff, Harry, 121, 122
229 fig. 9.13, 237 fig. 9.22,
Manhattan Institute, 126
246 fig. 9.30, 257 fig. 9.42,
manifest destiny, 125
266 fig. 9.53, 267 fig. 9.54,
Silicon Valley, San
250 fig. 9.57
Francisco, 22, 122, 135-
139, 143
American Legislative Exchange
Snowden, Edward, 136
Council (ALEC), 22-23, 122,
standardized consumer,
123, 126-135, 130 fig. 6.1 139,
141-143
142, 143, 143n1
Twitter, 136, 137, 122
Adam Hanieh, 123, 140
Yahoo, 122, 130, 136, 137
Americans for Prosperity,
126
anti-anti-imperialism in
Business Roundtable, 126
American media and policy,
Cato Institute, 126
149-161
Center for Media and
catastrophizing discourse,
Democracy (CMD),
23, 69, 149-156, 161
investigations by, 122,
catastrophization, 150-153
127-128, 129, 131, 133,
imperial aggression, moral
143n1
and ideological
circuit of capital,140-141
justifications, 149-161
corporate imperialism,
democracy
123, 136, 139
undermined, 152,
corporate imperium, 121,
155, 156, 159
123, 131, 135, 137, 138,
freedom endangered,
140, 141-143
150, 156, 159,
corporation-oriented rule-
human rights abuses,
of-law, 143
154, 155, 160
cybersecurity, 131, 133-135
terrorism, 150-152,
domestic imperialism, 143
153, 154, 158, 159-
Facebook, 122, 130, 133,
160
136, 137
regime change, 152, 156
Google, 122, 130, 133-134,
selective demonisation,
136, 137
149-150
Harvey, David, 121, 132
Afghanistan, 151, 153
Heritage Foundation (HF),
Iran, 155
126
Iraq, 152, 154
284 INDEX
Magdoff, Harry, 121, 122 60, 61, 67, 68, 71, 72, 77, 78, 80,
86-87, 90, 91, 105, 117, 121,
manifest destiny, 64, 125 123, 125, 131, 138-139, 140,
142,
The Matthew Shepard and
James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes 143, 149, 160, 161
288 INDEX
Somalia, 232
-R- Syria, 17, 160
regime change, 112-114, 152,
156,
residential schooling,
globalization of, 13-18
INDEX 289
-V-
voluntourism, 86