Drone Lyrics US Terrorism and Digital Biopower Erin A. Corbett Drone Lyrics 2014-2015 Committee Chair: Stephen Dillon Committee Member: Lorne Falk © Copyright Erin Corbett, 2015 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my family and friends for all of their support and excitement. Even though you still have to write down the title of my self-designed major in order to remember it, I thank you for that extra effort. Many thanks to my committee, Stephen Dillon and Lorne Falk for believing in my project and taking me on as an advisee. Your guidance and the time you have offered me throughout this project have helped me create this work, and I cannot imagine what it would look like without all of your support. Thank you to each professor at Hampshire College who has helped mold my critical lens and my studies over the past four years. You have impacted my studies, my interests, and most importantly my mind. For you— Contents Introduction: Digital Disposability and the Global War on Terror 1 VULNERABILITY The Drone, the Apparatus, the Human 14 Drone Imagery in the Digital Era 18 Marriage Industrial 22 IMAGINED IDENTITIES Invisible 28 Charlie Hebdo: The Case for Satire or Racism? 32 Free Speech to Terror Threat 36 Terror of “Illegality” 41 SPECTACLES Transportation Security 46 Intentional Language 51 Veterans Day and American Exceptionalism 55 BEYOND THE FRAME On Framing the Other 62 First Worldism 67 “They had lives beyond the violence by which they are known” 71 EROTICISM On the NSA, Privacy, and the Home 76 Blaming the Victim 80 On Nicknaming Predators 86 THE BODY The Case for Reproductive Justice 91 Jane Doe 95 Whiteness and Police Violence in the Land of the Free 101 Conclusion: An Era of Digital Biopower 106 Bibliography 115 0 Introduction Digital Disposability and the Global War on Terror Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American male, was killed by a US drone in Yemen on September 30, 2011. That was the day after I turned 18. I had no idea who he was at the time. Anwar’s 16-year-old son Abdulrahman—a US citizen born in Denver—was killed just two weeks later on October 14, 2011 in a CIA drone strike in Yemen. That was the day before my friend Mirwan’s birthday. At the time, I had no idea who Abdulrahman was either. I can tell you now what I was doing at the time, I can tell you about my birthday and Mirwan’s birthday. I can also tell you that I had no idea about the existence of Anwar and Abdulrahman. To this day, the only government statement about Abdulrahman’s death was made by former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs who said: I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children. I don't think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.1 Gibbs’ statement refuses to give reason for Abdulrahman’s death, treating him as disposable because of his association to al Qaeda via his father. As if all individuals are blamed equally for the actions and associations of their parents. The fact that Abdulrahman was killed by his own government is a tragedy. He was essentially blamed for 1 Obama’s Top Adviser Robert Gibbs Justifies Murder of 16 Year Old American Citizen, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MwB2znBZ1g&feature=youtube_gdata_player. his own death, stripped of his rights as a citizen, and stripped of his humanity. The fact that his death was never worthy of mourning or of a legitimate reasoning is another tragedy, a further manifestation of violence by erasure. In the summer of 2013, I started reading Jeremy Scahill’s Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield,2 and learned of the assassinations of Anwar and Abdulrahman. It took me two years to know who they were. The cases of Anwar and Abdulrahman are two examples of the names that will not be reported by the mainstream media. We are not supposed to mourn them. Anwar and Abdulrahman—individuals who are supposed to be treated as innocent until proven otherwise—were extralegally killed and never offered their constitutional rights. We must keep this in mind, especially as we are frequently reminded of this country’s supposed commitment to democracy, liberty, and justice. Abdulrahman was only sixteen when his life was taken. This kind of violence is not isolated to his case alone, but is known to individuals around the world. These imperial acts of State-sanctioned violence in the institutionalized Global War on Terror occur regularly and are unknown to people who do not go looking for the names of the dead— individuals whose lives are treated as disposable. These violent acts prompt me to wonder whose lives matter, whose lives do not, and why? As a cisgender, white, heterosexual female, I have never myself been a victim of racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, or Islamophobic violence. I say this, as I must acknowledge my privilege and positionality as I write about systems of violence that I have never and will never experience. I will never understand racism against my body. I will never experience violence based on my sexual identity. I will never know the experience of a black woman, man; a brown woman, man; an un/documented immigrant; a Muslim woman, man; a queer or trans woman, man; non-binary gender individuals; and everyone 2 Jeremy Scahill published Dirty Wars on April 23, 2013 with Nation Books as The Nation Magazine’s National Security Correspondent. The book is accompanied by a documentary and is an investigation into the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and the assassinations of Anwar and Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. 2 in between. I will never experience the violence inflicted against those at the intersections of these identities. I will never experience the stigmas associated to these identities, some of which are labeled across a number of my friends. I have remembered and reflected on my positionality throughout my process of researching and writing this project. I have often questioned my place in writing these essays, and my access to the knowledge that I have. However, it is also because of my positionality that I feel I have to write about the violence inflicted by the US with impunity. I have to talk about these systemic injustices because I cannot drown in the comfort of whiteness and not seek to change the systems that create vulnerable circumstances for communities from Chicago to the West Bank to Waziristan. My first week at Hampshire College, I remember someone speaking to my F11 class, and reminding us to step outside of our comfort zones. At the time, I thought of this notion specifically in a social context. I see now that it is much more than that. I have learned throughout my time at Hampshire, and especially over this past year, how important it is to step outside the comfort of my privilege and to be okay with discomfort. American Predators 3 Rewind to November 2008. 3 Wendy Piersall, Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/wendypiersall/ 3 I remember the excitement leading up to President Obama’s 2008 election and his campaign as the face of change. When he was elected on November 4, 2008 the city of Chicago—where I’m from—lit up with hope, excitement, and inspiration. Grant Park filled with 240,000 people to welcome our new president. I could feel the energy of my city as we welcomed Obama, a fellow Chicagoan. That night, he told the nation: It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.4 The following day, the RedEye, a free daily political and culture magazine featured a spread of Obama with the word “History” sprawled across. Copies ran out faster than ever. I did not manage to get my hands on one, but I remember a woman on the CTA red line offering me her extra copy on my way home from school. I remember her telling me to hold on to it, and that she would give it to me as long as I did not throw out this important piece of history. At the time, the Global War on Terror entered its eighth year with no foreseeable end, but Obama made promises to get our troops out of Iraq, to end the war, to close Guantánamo Bay. He was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. He signed an executive order to close Guantánamo Bay on January 22, 2009. On January 23, 2009, he authorized his first drone strike. Now it is March 2015. I sit in my college library writing these words, thinking about where this presidency has led us and how far we have come in the Global War on Terror. Six years later the US is back in Iraq; Guantánamo Bay Prison remains open with 122 detainees still to be released, some coming forward about the torture they endured during 4 Obama, Barack. Transcript: “This Is Your Victory,” Says Obama. Election Speech. Chicago, IL, 2008. http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/obama.transcript/. 4 their detention. There have been some 715 drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan. I say “some” because they are not accurately reported by any government agency, at least not publicly. I say “some” because when these strikes are reported, we are led to believe that all those targeted and killed are terrorists.