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Militarized interstate manhunts, "absent/presence" and the spectral logic of the U.S. war on terror: The Ballad of Pancho and Bin Laden.
Militarized interstate manhunts, "absent/presence" and the spectral logic of the U.S. war on terror: The Ballad of Pancho and Bin Laden.
- Source :
- Journal of International Political Theory; Feb2023, Vol. 19 Issue 1, p21-48, 28p
- Publication Year :
- 2023
-
Abstract
- The decade-long search for Osama bin Laden—in which a manhunt was conducted as part of a full-scale war—was a watershed moment for US foreign policy in the twenty-first Century. Bin Laden was not simply elusive, but ephemerally ghost-like. Similar Militarized Interstate Manhunts (MIMs) are also deeply ingrained in the security politics of the US at its Southwestern border. Specifically, the militarized cross-border pursuits of Pancho Villa in the 1910s and The Apache Kid in the 1890s, serve as analogs to the "War on Terror," especially regarding the allegedly-novel chasing of "ghostly" targets. Building on Jacques Derrida, we explore the role of an "absent/presence" by analyzing the claims of the ghostliness of the target in the context of concurrent claims about the unprecedented nature of events. These cases highlight the importance of the "absent/presence" in making military manhunts thinkable, and explain how the pursuit of "spectral" bodies authorizes exceptional military acts that would otherwise be violations of state sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 17550882
- Volume :
- 19
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Journal of International Political Theory
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 161970833
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1177/17550882221090993