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CULTURALPOLITICS

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JEAN BAUDRILLARD

itself, of a power now aimless and purposeless since it has no

plausible enemy and acts with total impunity. All it can do now

is inflict gratuitous humiliation, and, as we know, the violence we

inflict on others is only ever the expression of the violence we do to

ourselves. And it can only humiliate itself in the process, demeanand deny itself in a kind of perverse relentlessness. Ignominy and

sleaze are the last symptoms of a power that no longer knows what

to do with itself.

September 11th was like a global reaction of all those who no

longer know what to do with and can no longer bear this world

power. In the case of the abuse inflicted on the Iraqis, it is worse

still: it is power itself that no longer knows what to do with itself and

can no longer bear itself, other than in inhuman self-parody.

These images are as lethal for America as the pictures of the

World Trade Center in flames. Yet it is not America in itself that

stands accused, and there is no point laying all this at the Americans

door: the infernal machine generates its own impetus, freewheeling

out of control in literally suicidal acts. The Americans power has

in fact become too much for them. They no longer have the means

to exorcize it. And we are party to that power. It is the whole of the

West whose bad conscience crystallizes in these images; it is the

whole of the West that is present in the American soldiers sadistic

outburst of laughter; just as it is the whole of the West that is behind

the building of the Israeli wall.

This is the truth of these images; this is their burden: the excess

of a potency designating itself as abject and pornographic. The truth

of the images, not their veracity, since, in this situation, whether

they are true or false is beside the point. We are henceforth and

forever in a state of uncertainty where images are concerned. Only

their impact counts, precisely insofar as they are embedded in war.

There isnt even a need for embedded journalists any more; its

the military itself that is embedded in the image; thanks to digital

technology, images are definitively integrated into warfare. They no

longer represent; they no longer imply either distance or perception

or judgement. They are no longer of the order of representation, or

of information in the strict sense and, as a result, the question ofwhether they should be produced, reproduced, broadcast or banned,

and even the essential question of whether they are true or false,

is irrelevant.

For images to constitute genuine information they would have to

be different from war. But they have become precisely as virtual as

war today and hence their own specific violence is now superadded

to the specific violence of war. Moreover, by their omnipresence, by

the rule that everything must be made visible, which now applies

the world over, images our present images have become in

substance pornographic; they therefore cleave spontaneously to thepornographic dimension of war.

There is in all this, and particularly in the last Iraqi episode, a

justice immanent in the image: he who stakes his all on the spectacle

CULTURALPOLITICS

24

JEAN BAUDRILLARD

itself, of a power now aimless and purposeless since it has no

plausible enemy and acts with total impunity. All it can do now

is inflict gratuitous humiliation, and, as we know, the violence we

inflict on others is only ever the expression of the violence we do to

ourselves. And it can only humiliate itself in the process, demeanand deny itself in a kind of perverse relentlessness. Ignominy and

sleaze are the last symptoms of a power that no longer knows what

to do with itself.

September 11th was like a global reaction of all those who no

longer know what to do with and can no longer bear this world

power. In the case of the abuse inflicted on the Iraqis, it is worse

still: it is power itself that no longer knows what to do with itself and

can no longer bear itself, other than in inhuman self-parody.

These images are as lethal for America as the pictures of the

World Trade Center in flames. Yet it is not America in itself that

stands accused, and there is no point laying all this at the Americans

door: the infernal machine generates its own impetus, freewheeling

out of control in literally suicidal acts. The Americans power has

in fact become too much for them. They no longer have the means

to exorcize it. And we are party to that power. It is the whole of the

West whose bad conscience crystallizes in these images; it is the

whole of the West that is present in the American soldiers sadistic

outburst of laughter; just as it is the whole of the West that is behind

the building of the Israeli wall.

This is the truth of these images; this is their burden: the excess

of a potency designating itself as abject and pornographic. The truth

of the images, not their veracity, since, in this situation, whether

they are true or false is beside the point. We are henceforth and

forever in a state of uncertainty where images are concerned. Only

their impact counts, precisely insofar as they are embedded in war.

There isnt even a need for embedded journalists any more; its

the military itself that is embedded in the image; thanks to digital

technology, images are definitively integrated into warfare. They no

longer represent; they no longer imply either distance or perception

or judgement. They are no longer of the order of representation, or

of information in the strict sense and, as a result, the question ofwhether they should be produced, reproduced, broadcast or banned,

and even the essential question of whether they are true or false,

is irrelevant.

For images to constitute genuine information they would have to

be different from war. But they have become precisely as virtual as

war today and hence their own specific violence is now superadded

to the specific violence of war. Moreover, by their omnipresence, by

the rule that everything must be made visible, which now applies

the world over, images our present images have become in

substance pornographic; they therefore cleave spontaneously to thepornographic dimension of war.

There is in all this, and particularly in the last Iraqi episode, a

justice immanent in the image: he who stakes his all on the spectacle

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PORNOGRAPHY OF WAR

will die by the spectacle. If you want power through the image, be

prepared to die by the image playback.

The Americans are learning this, and will continue to learn it, by

bitter experience. And this despite all the democratic subterfuge

and despite a despairing simulacrum of transparency commensuratewith the despairing simulacrum of military power. Who committed

these acts and who is really responsible for them? The military

higher-ups? Or human nature, which is, as we know, brutish even

in a democracy? The real scandal lies not in the torture but in the

perfidy of those who knew and remained silent (or of those who

revealed it?). At any rate, the whole of the real violence is diverted

on to the question of openness, democracy finding a way to restore

its virtue by publicizing its vices.

Leaving all that aside, what is the secret of these abject tableaux?

Once again, they are a response, beyond all the vicissitudes of strategy

and politics, to the humiliation of 9/11 and an attempt to respond to

it by a humiliation that is worse, much worse, than death. Not even

counting the hoods, which are in themselves a form of beheading

(to which the beheading of the Americans obscurely corresponds),

and not counting the piled-up bodies and the dogs, enforced nudity

is in itself a violation. We have, for example, seen GIs walking naked

Iraqis through the streets in chains, and in Patrick Dekaerkes short

story Allah Akhbar we see Franck, the CIAs man on the ground,

make the Arab strip naked, force him to put on a basque and fishnet

stockings and finally have him buggered by a pig, all the while taking

photographs that he will send to the village and to the mans family

and friends. In this way the other will be exterminated symbolically.

It is here we see that the aim of war is not to kill or to win but to

abolish the enemy, to black out (the expression is, I think, Canettis)

the light from his sky.

And what is it, in fact, that we want to make these men confess?

What secret are we trying to force out of them? We quite simply

want them to tell us how it is and in the name of what that

they are unafraid of death. This explains the zero-death soldiers

deep jealousy of and the revenge he takes on those who are

not afraid of death. For which reason they will have visited on themsomething worse than death . . . In the radical shaming, the dishonor

of nudity, the ravaging of all veils, we are back at the same problem of

openness and transparency: tearing off the womens veils or hooding

the men to make them seem more naked, more obscene . . . This

whole masquerade that tops off the ignominy of war, going so far as

the literal travestying in what is the most ferocious image (the most

ferocious for America), because it stirs up most phantoms and is

the most reversible of the prisoner threatened with electrocution

who has been turned completely into a hood, into a Ku Klux Klan

member, crucified by his own kind. This really is America havingelectrocuted itself.

Translated by Chris Turner

CULTURALPOLITICS

25

PORNOGRAPHY OF WAR

will die by the spectacle. If you want power through the image, be

prepared to die by the image playback.

The Americans are learning this, and will continue to learn it, by

bitter experience. And this despite all the democratic subterfuge

and despite a despairing simulacrum of transparency commensuratewith the despairing simulacrum of military power. Who committed

these acts and who is really responsible for them? The military

higher-ups? Or human nature, which is, as we know, brutish even

in a democracy? The real scandal lies not in the torture but in the

perfidy of those who knew and remained silent (or of those who

revealed it?). At any rate, the whole of the real violence is diverted

on to the question of openness, democracy finding a way to restore

its virtue by publicizing its vices.

Leaving all that aside, what is the secret of these abject tableaux?

Once again, they are a response, beyond all the vicissitudes of strategy

and politics, to the humiliation of 9/11 and an attempt to respond to

it by a humiliation that is worse, much worse, than death. Not even

counting the hoods, which are in themselves a form of beheading

(to which the beheading of the Americans obscurely corresponds),

and not counting the piled-up bodies and the dogs, enforced nudity

is in itself a violation. We have, for example, seen GIs walking naked

Iraqis through the streets in chains, and in Patrick Dekaerkes short

story Allah Akhbar we see Franck, the CIAs man on the ground,

make the Arab strip naked, force him to put on a basque and fishnet

stockings and finally have him buggered by a pig, all the while taking

photographs that he will send to the village and to the mans family

and friends. In this way the other will be exterminated symbolically.

It is here we see that the aim of war is not to kill or to win but to

abolish the enemy, to black out (the expression is, I think, Canettis)

the light from his sky.

And what is it, in fact, that we want to make these men confess?

What secret are we trying to force out of them? We quite simply

want them to tell us how it is and in the name of what that

they are unafraid of death. This explains the zero-death soldiers

deep jealousy of and the revenge he takes on those who are

not afraid of death. For which reason they will have visited on themsomething worse than death . . . In the radical shaming, the dishonor

of nudity, the ravaging of all veils, we are back at the same problem of

openness and transparency: tearing off the womens veils or hooding

the men to make them seem more naked, more obscene . . . This

whole masquerade that tops off the ignominy of war, going so far as

the literal travestying in what is the most ferocious image (the most

ferocious for America), because it stirs up most phantoms and is

the most reversible of the prisoner threatened with electrocution

who has been turned completely into a hood, into a Ku Klux Klan

member, crucified by his own kind. This really is America havingelectrocuted itself.

Translated by Chris Turner