From The Battle of Algiers to Alien vs. Predator : philosophical approaches to the globalization of terror

8/8/2019 From The Battle of Algiers to Alien vs. Predator : philosophical approaches to the globalization of terror

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From The Battle of Algiers

toAVP: Alien vs. PredatorPhilosophical approaches to the globalization of terror

by Mani Tadayongraduate student, CSUN Geography Dept.

Friday, April 23, 2010


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AVP and philosophyIntroduction



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The Americans are prosecuting this war as if

they were defending themselves against a wolfpack. But this doesnt work against viruses thathave already been in us for a long time. There isno longer a front, no demarcation line, the

enemy sits in the heart of the culture that fightsit. That is, if you like, the fourth world war: nolonger between peoples, states, systems andideologies, but, rather, of the human species

against itself.

(Baudrillard 2004)



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What if the true KGB Monster Plot was thevery project to put in circulation the idea of a

Monster Plot and thus immobilize the CIA andneutralize in advance future KGB defectors?

(iek 2006)



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Weve got to re-evaluate our definition of theword enemy.

(Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commander of

US forces in Helmand Province, Afghanistan,

quoted in the New York Times, April 3, 2010)



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Singularity inAVP

... AVP is Hollywoods version of afable, providing its audience not a

dramatic performance butirreducible conceptual

singularities...

... Like the singularity line at themiddle of a spiral galaxy, the

violence here is always so intensethat it cannot be outdone...



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War



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Acts of violence don't win wars. Neither wars nor revolutions.Terrorism is useful as astart. But then, the people themselves must act.

Ben MHidi, FLN leader in The Battle of Algiers



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Terror against terror, there is no more ideology behind this. One is, from this point

forward, far beyond ideology and politics. No ideology, no causenot even the Islamiconecan explain the energy that feeds terror. It no longer aims at transforming theworld.



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FLN leader Ben MHidi at a press conference after his arrest. After MHidis

death, Col. Mathieu publicly pays tribute to his moral fiber, courage and

commitment to his ideals.

Enem



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Battle

ALEXA WOODS:My dad broke his leg seven hundred feet from the summit of MountRanier... We reached the top and he opened a bottle of champagne... He suffered forfour hours before dying twenty minutes from the base.

CHARLES BISHOP WEYLAND: You think that's the last thing your dad remembers?

The pain? Or drinking champagne with his daughter fourteen thousand feet in the air? Ineed this.



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Victor

Ali La Pointe chooses to be blown up rather than surrender. He hugs the young

boy who has fought with him from the very beginning.



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Conclusion

Can we accept a world without existential

conflict?

Is the real viral threat in the war on terrorthe spread of the discourse of a war on

terror?

If so, how do you fight an enemy whoseonly goal is to convince you that you are at

war with him?

Documents

From The Battle of Algiers to Alien vs. Predator : philosophical approaches to the globalization of terror