While the United States regards itself as a highly transparent democracy, columnist Enrique Lynch of Argentina’s La Capital writes that the photo taken during the killing of Osama bin Laden in the White House Situation Room reflects a blatant and dangerous exclusion of the public more reminiscent of a monarchy than a 21st century democracy.
For Argentina’s La Capital, Enrique Lynch writes in part:
What’s the significance of the photo showing Obama, Clinton and their collaborators watching the planned assassination of Osama bin Laden live? It displays a flagrant prohibition: we’re not allowed to see it – that is, those of us who are unlikely to be seen in such a photo. It stands for the sanctioning of illegality and a self-portrait of prohibition. The spectators looking on right in front of our noses at something we can’t see is a sacramental vehicle for unquestioned command. You may observe how we watched, but you can’t see what we saw. As gestures go, it couldn’t have been more impolite.
But it would be too frivolous to dwell on manners. What’s relevant about this image is that it establishes a demarcation, and this brief instance of censorship creates an impregnable wall separating us from the “Forbidden City.”
This snapshot reveals the true face of power: the authority to establish a barrier between what is said and what is allowed to be seen; between what has occurred, and, when necessary, what can disappear, much like Stalin did to Trotsky in that famous photo at a Lenin rally. The difference being, Stalin made a photo disappear, whereas now, one is being concealed. It’s no accident that the media are partners in this beloved ontological task. They do it all the time: where have those “rebels” in Bengazi gone, who were once featured on the front page? They have disappeared, much like the corpses the Argentine military threw into the Rio de la Plata River in an effort to hide evidence of their genocide; or the way bin Laden’s body has been made to forever disappear. Where there’s no corpse, there’s no crime.
Something very serious is happening in plain sight. A world without rules is being built – a world in which the U.N. authorizes neocolonialism interventions like the one in Libya, assassinations are tolerated, the use of torture is legitimized and directly emulates the behavior of terrorists, and wars are fought in the name of preserving peace, while at the same time, concentration camps like Guantanamo are maintained.
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