Flesh and steel: antithetical figures in the war on terrorism

ABSTRACT

The ongoing conflict in the war on terrorism puts two emblematic modes of violence into sharp relief: the drone, as an ostensibly rational, clinical and measured weapon of war, and suicide bombings, frequently portrayed as the horrid deeds of fanatics. In this article, I seek to challenge this juxtaposition and instead suggest that both modalities of killing are part of the same technologically-mediated ecology of violence. To do this, I examine the material-semiotic assemblage of the drone and of the suicide bomber, paying attention to the technological production of each mode of violence, as well as the narratives that render each figure intelligible in the war on terrorism. I argue that the strongly divergent narratives found in Western discourse serve as a politically expedient sense–making device, whereby suicide bombing is pathologised, thereby justifying ever more intrusive violent acts with seemingly rational technologies like the drone. Rather than “solving” the problem of terrorism, this creates counter-productive, or iatrogenic, effects, in which technological mediation escalates rather than diminishes cycles of violence. By way of response, I suggest that a better understanding of the relational nature of violence in the war on terrorism might be gained by reading the two not as antithetical figures, but instead as operating in the same technological key.

KEYWORDS:

• Drone warfare
• suicide bomber
• counterterrorism
• technology
• military-medical narrative
• iatrogenic effects

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. There are slight divergences between the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) and the Chicago Suicide Database, whereby the latter claims that the numbers reported on the GDT are too low. General trends and patterns between the two overlap, however.

2. Although accurate figures of strikes and casualties from drone operations are notoriously difficult to obtain under the clandestine mantle of CIA operations.

3. The number of suicides among active duty military personnel in the US more than doubled between 2001 and 2012. In 2015, 273 active duty member committed suicide. In 2013, more US troops died from suicide than combat in Afghanistan. The problem is most pertinent among active duty and veteran army personnel (Pilkington 2013). There are reports that suggest that suicidal ideation among drone pilots is disproportionately high (Askonas 2013).

4. See, for example, Ross et al. (2000), whose breakthrough identifies systemic variations in gene expression patterns in human cancer cell lines, or Calin (2006), who identification of MicroRNA signatures in human cancers which allows for the profiling of tumours.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elke Schwarz

Elke Schwarz is Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester, UK. Her research focuses on ethics and technologies of violence. She is the author of Death Machines: The Ethics of Violent Technologies. She is also co-convenor of the BISA working group Ethics and World Politics.