Osama pics

It seems that my initial reaction to the (now withheld) dead Osama pics was pretty common: both David Levi Strauss (here at TIME) and Sean O'Hagan (here at The Guardian) make the analogy to the dead Che Guevara image from 1968. Both columns are worth reading. And here I thought I was being sooooo insightful!

The Passion of the Osama: The Political Lives of Dead Bodies (3)

Well, as I suggested yesterday morning, the military did indeed photograph Bin Laden's corpse after killing him. And the "controversy" is on as to whether, why and how the government might release the images. It is, of course, simply a matter of time.

This issue has popped up here at The New York Times. And, over breakfast I heard this report on npr; it is an interview by host Steve Inskeep with Obama administration counter-terrorism boss John Brennan. Here is the concluding exchange:

INSKEEP: In a few seconds, Mr. Brennan, why haven't you released photos of Osama bin Laden?

Mr. BRENNAN: We are in the process of releasing a lot of information to the American public. We want to do it in a thoughtful manner.

INSKEEP: But why not photos?

Mr. BRENNAN: We are considering, at this point, releasing additional information, but that is a decision to be determined.

INSKEEP: So you may release photos, but not yet.

Mr. BRENNAN: So we may release photos, yes.

INSKEEP: What would prompt you to do that?

Mr. BRENNAN: There is not a question at this point, I think, in anybody's mind that bin Laden is dead. And so I know that there are some people who are interested in having visual proof. This is something that we're taking into account, but what we don't want to do is to release anything that might be either misunderstood or that would cause other problems.

INSKEEP: OK.

MR. BRENNAN: We are looking at these decisions and we'll make the right decisions.

INSKEEP: Mr. Brennan, thanks very much for your time.

Mr. BRENNAN: Thank you, Steve.

INSKEEP: John Brennan is assistant to the president for Homeland Security and counterterrorism, part of the team that made decisions that led to the death of Osama Bin Laden. . . . It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.

Ghosts walk among us. Not everyone wishes to acknowledge them. No one agrees what they might do. And everyone seems worried about how others might respond to them.
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Update: Here is a post from "The Lede" blog at The New York Times this afternoon:

3:29 P.M. U.S. Has 'Gruesome Photograph' of Bin Laden's Body

Pressed by reporters to explain why no photographs or video of Osama bin Laden's body have been released yet, the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, said Tuesday afternoon, "It's fair to say that it is a gruesome photograph.

Mr. Carney also said: I'll be candid that there are sensitivities here in terms of the appropriateness of releasing photographs of Osama bin Laden and in the aftermath of this firefight. And we're making an evaluation about the need to do that because of the sensitivities involved. And we do– we review this information and make this decision with the same calculation as we do so many things, which is what, you know, what we're trying to accomplish, and does it serve or in any way harm our interests. And that is not just domestic, but globally.

Update (2): Here are some more interventions:

[i] A News report from "All things Considered" here;
[ii] A plea to withhold the photograph from Phillip Gourevitch at The New Yorker here.

The Political Lives of Dead Bodies (2) - Osama Bin Laden as Tee Shirt Icon

"Different people can invoke corpses as symbols, thinking these corpses mean the same thing to all present, whereas in fact they may mean different things to each. All that is shared is everyone's recognition of this dead person as someone important. In other words, what gives a dead bofy symbolic effectiveness in politics is precisely its ambiguity, its capacity to evoke a variety of understandings. [. . .] This, it seems to me, is the mark of a good political symbol: it has legitimating effects not because everyone agrees on its meaning but because it compels interest despite (because of?) divergent views of what it means." - Katherine Verdery

I have written posts here several times in the past that refer to a terrific book by anthropologist Katherine Verdery called The Political Lives of Dead Bodies (Columbia UP, 1999). Verdery wrote insightfully about the symbolic politics trailing in the wake of the collapse of communism. Today, the news again is fraught with the discussions of the political actions and interactions with and among the dead. Here is a passage from Obama's announcement last night:

Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.

The last phrase (stress supplied) struck me immediately. It raised the issue of how the U.S. military would proceed, having now assumed custody of a corpse. And that has become a theme in news coverage today. For instance, this report on Obama's speech at The New York Times quotes some of that passage and follow immediately with this remark:

Muslim tradition requires burial within 24 hours, but by doing it at sea, American authorities presumably were trying to avoid creating a shrine for his followers.

So, the speculation goes, American political and military officials are concerned to subvert Bin Laden's ability to coordinate and mobilize followers from the grave. And they are not alone. It seems that those ruling his own country of origin - Saudi Arabia - had similar concerns. Consider this passage from a Wall Street Journal report that takes up where The Times leaves off:

Mr. Bin Laden's body was buried at sea, in order to be in accordance with Islamic tradition that burial take place within 24 hours, according to a person familiar with the situation. The Saudis declined a U.S. offer to take the body, this person said.

Hundreds of onlookers gathered outside the White House—and at Ground Zero in New York City, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood—to mark the moment. Frank Cantwell, a 64-year-old operating engineer at the construction site there, said there were only a few people present when the news first broke. "It's long overdue," he said. "You can sort of hear the silent cheers of 3,000 ghosts."

Unsurprisingly, Bin Laden and his legacy are contested and his demise certainly will be invested by different people with very different sorts of significance. Even our own dead - those "ghosts" mentioned in the WSG report - are taking part in the conflict of interpretations. Another thing that comes clear in both news reports is the urgency to comply with Islamic prescriptions on proper burial. Can there be any doubt that this was part of the mission as planned in advance? We must interact with dead bodies in specific ways and others expect us to do so. We, therefore, act in anticipation of those expectations. After all, as Obama was at pains to make clear last night:

The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda.

Yet his death does not mark the end of our effort. There’s no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must –- and we will — remain vigilant at home and abroad.

As we do, we must also reaffirm that the United States is not –- and never will be -– at war with Islam. I’ve made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam.

In thinking about all of that, one set of images came immediately to mind. It is of Bolivian military personnel displaying the body of Che Guevara soon after they had captured and executed him.

The passion of the Che (10 October 1967, Vallegrande, Bolivia).
Photograph: Freddy Alborta.

There has, of course, been a persistent low-intensity political contest over Che's remains for almost half a century. Surely, having secured a DNA sample as "proof" of Bin Laden's demise, U.S. military and political officials wanted to minimize the possibility of an analogous fracas surrounding his corpse. Although we apparently lack (at least for current public consumption) a "Passion of Osama" photo*, the Bin Laden - Guevara analogy is hardly strained: massive U.S. mounted man-hunts in rugged exotic terrain for an extremely charismatic, ideological fanatic threatening to American security. And then, of course, there are the tee-shirts I've mentioned here before.
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*Does anyone doubt that such photos exist in the military files on this mission? If we have DNA samples to test we surely also have images to confirm events.

Walter Bagehot is Smiling

Well the Royals are going to have wedding. And the young prince has bestowed his late mum's engagement ring on the princess-to-be. (The baubles are reported to have been worth thirty thousand pounds in 1981, so with inflation ... not a bad pay day for the young lady!) No sooner had the excitement begun to gather than the London correspondent for The Nation had the temerity to point out that the nuptials would nicely distract everyone from the Tory budget cuts and from the deal to buy off torture victims. You can find her comments here. I suppose I am not quite cynical enough to buy this line of thinking. But then again, Walter Bagehot pretty much assigned this role to the Royals way back when (see The English Constitution - 1867). While the Cabinet is, on his view, the "efficient secret" of British politics allowing the government to exercise power, the Royals are the "dignified" or symbolic dimension of that politics, being mostly useful for distracting the attention of the common man from the machinations of real politics. So, on second thought, maybe I am cynical enough . . .