Humanitized violence: Targeted killings and civilian deaths in the US war against the Islamic State

2018 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 438-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Bonds
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Total War ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
More Care ◽  
Administrative Procedures

Based on a qualitative content analysis of human rights reports, US military statements, and newspaper accounts, this article describes the ascendency of ‘humanitized violence,’ which characterizes airstrikes in the US war against the Islamic State (2014–2017). This hyper-rationalized violence utilizes precision weaponry, technical and administrative procedures to limit civilian deaths, and calculations to achieve goals in ‘proportionality.’ This method of violence is further accompanied by a discourse of precision, care, legality, and regret. The article further shows that leading nongovernmental critics of this violence largely accept its logic. Consequently, rather than offering opposition, humanitarian NGOs instead reinforce the humanitization of violence by calling on governments to be more precise and to exercise more care when striking enemy targets. Noting the high numbers of civilian deaths that can accompany humanitized violence, along with the US government’s continued capacity for total war, the author cautions that its rise does not necessarily portend a more peaceful future.

Framing the news on the Syrian War: A comparative study of antiwar.com and cnn.com editorials

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 487-505
Author(s):  
Rayeheh Alitavoli
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Strategic Plan ◽  
Framing Theory ◽  
Chemical Weapons ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
The Us

This study identifies the dominant frames presented in opinion articles published from 20 August to 17 September 2013 on the alternative website – antiwar.com – and the mainstream website – cnn.com; this timeframe includes articles published a week before and a week after the US administration’s decision to attack and withdraw from Syria. The article employs qualitative content analysis and Entman’s framing theory to code the data and extract the themes and dominant frames present in a total of 87 opinion articles. The study concludes that cnn.com provided frames that presented Bashar al-Assad as a ‘brutal villain’ who uses chemical weapons on his own people, while providing frames that stress Barack Obama’s incompetency in carrying out a strategic plan and highlight the negative consequences of a strike. However, antiwar.com articles are more resonant and consistent than cnn.com articles, and provide frames that encourage readers to protest against engaging in another war, reminding them of the failures of similar past wars such as the Iraq War and its negative consequences, as well as stressing the major players that benefited from a military intervention.

Brothers in arms: Visual commonalities between US and IS recruitment strategies

2019 ◽  
pp. 175063521988777
Author(s):  
Lawrie Phillips ◽  
Maha Ghalwash
Keyword(s):  
Visual Image ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Recruitment Strategies ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Multimodal Discourse Analysis ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
The Us

This article claims that the visual image contributes to, reflects and supports the dominant discourse of two powerful armed groups that have operated in Iraq and Syria: the US military and the Islamic State (IS). This research uses multimodal discourse analysis to explore two crucial insights into the ideological power of the visual image: the power of the image as spectatorship or spectacle and the sublime or transcendental nature of the visual image. The authors conclude that US and IS recruitment and propaganda videos share these two crucial ideological elements: pride in the spectacle of their military power, discipline and technologies, and sublime commitment to the act of killing and dying for the cause. In this sense, the US military and IS are brothers in arms.

scholarly journals AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE US AND THE TALIBAN: START A DIALOGUE

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
D.A. Aitzhanov ◽  
◽  
L.N. Nursultanova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Economic Situation ◽  
Domestic Policy ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us

The authors of the article analyze the situation in Afghanistan: establishing dialogue with Taliban and signing an agreement on a ceasefire, timing of withdrawal of the US military, the economic situation and the protracted political crisis. The role of Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan in addressing this issue is touched. The positions of Russia and China on Afghanistan are similar: strengthening of national army, law enforcement agencies, as well as respect for human rights and freedoms. Iran fears that Pakistan will be able to intervene in Afghanistan’s domestic policy and is therefore taking steps to establish cooperation with the Taliban. The main goal of Pakistan in Afghanistan is to further strengthen its influence in this country and prevent a strong rapprochement with India.

A new US-Iran war will play out in Iraq and beyond

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Oil Prices ◽  
External Action ◽  
Personal Networks ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Islamic Revolution ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
The Us

Significance The operation, authorised by US President Donald Trump, killed Qassem Soleimani, longstanding chief of the Quds Force -- the external action wing of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC). Others also died, notably Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the leader of Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kata’ib Hezbollah, which had been targeted in earlier US strikes. Impacts Baghdad’s parliament will consider a bill to evict the US military presence. The confrontation with Iran will undermine efforts to combat the residual Islamic State presence. As the responses play out, oil prices are likely to rise further. The 2015 Iran nuclear deal could at last collapse. Damascus may increase its dependence on Moscow in the absence of Soleimani’s personal networks.

scholarly journals Positionality in Embodied War Imaginaries: American Snipers

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-64
Author(s):  
Benjamin Schrader
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Military History ◽  
Active Duty ◽  
The Other ◽  
Wilderness Programs ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Embodied Experiences ◽  
The Military ◽  
Eventual Death

This paper maps the positionality of two soldiers embodied experiences as snipers for the US military. One, Chris Kyle who is labeled as “the most lethal sniper in US military history,” wrote a book uncritically glorifying his experiences, which was later turned into the Oscar nominated film American Sniper. His attempt to help veterans heal from PTSD by taking them shooting was a possible trigger that reignited the traumas of war, which can be traced to his eventual death. The other, Garett Reppenhagen, who was the first active duty member of the antiwar group Iraq Veterans Against the War, and currently works to help others heal from the traumas of war by getting them engaged in wilderness programs and environmental activism. Both stories expose a range of traumas of war, both within wartime and in peacetime, and we see the ways in which their narratives of war have different reflections of what it means to heal during times of peace. This paper juxtaposes these two stories, their war imaginaries, and how one works to reinforce the military dispositif, while the other works to impede it in favor of human rights.

Iraq's war against Islamic State will extend into 2017

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
National Guard ◽  
Oil Field ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Oil And Gas Development ◽  
Knock Out ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
The City

Significance The province's capital, Ramadi, fell to ISG on May 17 after the group launched a knock-out blow against embattled Iraqi Security Force (ISF) units. These units had been fighting intensively for nearly eighteen months and were on the point of exhaustion when ISG launched its offensive on the city, carrying out 30 suicide truck bombs in a matter of days. ISF exhaustion combined with ISG shock tactics meant that a thousand jihadists were able to outfight government forces. Impacts Iraq will remain in a state of high-intensity conflict into 2017. Sunni Arabs will be incorporated into the Iraqi army and paramilitary units. The National Guard initiative will cause controversy among Iraqi factions. The US military is likely to intensify airpower and special forces presence in Iraq. The conflict will set back oil and gas development, such as new licensing rounds and Kirkuk oil field.

Violentization Theory and Genocide

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Winton
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Extreme Violence ◽  
Compare And Contrast

The purpose of this article is to use Lonnie Athens’ violentization theory to explain the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides. These two case studies are used to compare and contrast how the brutalization, defiance, violent dominance engagements, and virulency stages emerged prior to and during the genocides. Using published texts such as interviews with perpetrators, human rights reports, and court transcripts, qualitative content analysis is employed to test the fit between violentization theory and the two case studies. The results demonstrate that violentization theory is consistent with the data and provides an explanation of how the genocides developed and were enacted. Similarities and differences between Rwanda and Bosnia are described to explain how the perpetrators went through the violentization process, and an additional stage is added to illustrate extreme violence. Suggestions for further research using this model are provided.

scholarly journals Global privatized power

Focaal ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (73) ◽  
pp. 114-124
Author(s):  
Maria Theresia Starzmann
Keyword(s):  
Global Scale ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
State Organizations ◽  
The Military

The practice of archaeologists and other heritage specialists to embed with the US military in Iraq has received critical attention from anthropologists. Scholars have highlighted the dire consequences of such a partnership for cultural heritage protection by invoking the imperialist dimension of archaeological knowledge production. While critical of state power and increasingly of militarized para-state actors like the self-proclaimed Islamic State, these accounts typically eclipse other forms of collaboration with non-state organizations, such as private military and security companies (PMSCs). Focusing on the central role of private contractors in the context of heritage missions in Iraq since 2003, I demonstrate that the war economy's exploitative regime in regions marked by violent conflict is intensified by the growth of the military-industrial complex on a global scale. Drawing on data from interviews conducted with archaeologists working in the Middle East, it becomes clear how archaeology and heritage work prop up the coloniality of power by tying cultural to economic forms of control.

scholarly journals Human rights in selected daily newspaper in Serbia: A content analysis

2011 ◽  
pp. 547-558
Author(s):  
Dubravka Valic-Nedeljkovic
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Daily Newspaper ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Daily Newspapers ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Government

The paper presents the results of quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the six most influential daily newspapers in Serbia with a focus on writing about topics that are directly and indirectly related to human rights. It was noted that the selected media content was presented as internal - political thing especially when the question of State responsibility and the measures that have been undertaken by the State were raised, or when the subject of activity of state institutions was questioned. Most often quoted were representatives of the government as centers of political power, though members of marginalized groups were also not absent. The journalists showed sensitivity to marginalized actors of social practice.

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