by Tan Copsey
Our favourite warrior-intellectual General David Petraeus was on the wireless this morning and as usual his comments were rather enlightening. In amongst the standard issue army line, there was this little gem:
(US and Iraqi forces must) "control the demons responsible for the vicious sectarian violence of the past year - demons who have torn at the very fabric of Iraqi society"
Now beyond being factually untrue – I’m pretty sure those responsible for the violence are not from the 9th circle of hell, and despite having Forn sounding names, I’m yet to come across members of the Mahdi army named, Beherit, Hanan'el, or Pazuzu.
So for enlightenment I turn not to the sadly departed Jean Baudrillard, but instead to Foucault. Yes I hope you’re as excited as I am, cue the theme tune, because its time for some discourse analysis (‘Discourse, Discourse analysis, I wanna do some Discourse analysis..’). So what does it mean to describe Iraqi insurgents as demons? And where does such rhetoric fit in the larger war of words?
In the distant past many, including that angel of light – George W, referred to Sodom, the evil dictator of Iraq. This was rather memorably backed up with references to the crusades, a previous attempt to cleanse the world of evil-doers. Obviously supernatural-religious rhetoric has not been limited to the Americans, or should that be the cursed infidels, who reside in that greatest of Satan’s.
One wonders however what the purpose of describing ones enemy as demons might be. True as good Christian warriors there is an obvious incentive to kill them and cast them back to the pit. But the problem with demons is that they tend to be rather more powerful than the average soldier. In fact I can’t help thinking that US army has finally stumbled upon a convincing excuse for defeat in Iraq. Yeah we lost, but we lost to super-powerful supernatural beings! It’s a bit like Leyton Orient losing 2-1 to Barcelona - there’s a certain amount of glory in defeat. It also provides all the more reason to wage one last holy Christian battle at the very mouth of hell. And I’m pretty sure we all know where that is.
