<nettime> what's in a mission?

[Pit Schultz <pit@klubradio.de>]

operation infinite justice

somebody over here said immediatly: "bad ad agency..". *operation desert storm*
had some kind of glory, a territorial reference and an intense temporality.
today's mission title carries a new quality, one which is "beyond the art of 
war" and "beyond imagination" carrying a strange mix of biblical revenge and
flashy totality.

- isn't infinity a claim a worldly government should leave to the religious
   institutions and their leaders? even if we "want to 'hunt'em' down" it
   shouldn't take forever. the *infinite* fight with the evil is a task for
   church represenatives. in our time of sensitive cultural differences 
   insulting the religion of "the enemy" looks like longing for a medieval 
   crusade but not like professional militarism. it looks like a mirror of 
   fanatics.

- infinity is not a particular lucky goal to aim at in an economic context.
   the promise of an *infinite goal* in an 'open market' with small margins
   and tight business plans will simply confuse investors who just
   came out of the end of the "long boom" which lasted too shortly. people
   on the other side have to spend their money and not keep it for the future.
   so the desire to consume now becomes the first duty of a patriot. to 
   generate consumer confidence is the true territory to fight for and needs 
   completly new forms of warfare. investing into transports, low wage work 
   and high-tech weapon industry alone will hardly change this situation. it 
   needs a psychological element which promises more worldly satisfaction than
   "infinite justice" which simply sounds like "peaceful death".

- as "justice" can only exist in reference to an opposite, e.g. "injustice",
   the concept of "infinite justice" carries a suicidal tendency.
   once the goal will be fully achieved and injustice is defeated
   the concept vanishes. if it is not there anymore it is
   indistinguishable with its former opposite.

- which kind of justice? is there really only *one* in the world? justice
   according to which law, culture, country? to god's law? which god?
   old testament? koran? pre-christian? justice according to which court
   or criminal evidence? justice of the stronger one? law of the war?
   this simply sounds like confusion and a lot of 'collateral damage'.

- if it is not a god in which place infinity is fought for,
   it could be just a lobby group or "luzifer". for a mythical conclusion
   similar to this, the composer k.h. stockhausen is witchhunted at the moment
   by the german cultural bureaucracy. there is a need for alternative
   narratives in order to prevent a deadly redundancy experienced after
   the shocking events. a democracy which is 90% in favour of revenge
   must be in a state of a trauma or hypnosis.

- *infinite justice* is not a military campaign but a neverending analysis,
   it tries to merge with a conservative magic spell and remains a title
   for a cheap western movie, it spreads open an omnipresent panopticon
   of planetary hegemony and has to rely heavily on the 'intelligence'
   of all kinds of allies, it comes with work ethics which reminds
   to the mythos of sysiphos but doesn't come with unlimited resources.

- infinite justice in time, from the past to the future reveils an absurd
   sense of the own roots of ethics and power in history, one of an
   absolute justice not even the pope could claim for. what kind of
   advisors wrote this program?

- the only healthy wish and hopelessly hopeful option of a
   mission under such a title might be a childish one. the one of a war as
   an organized swindle, a demonstration of power, a treaty of tricksters,
   the militarization of disneyland, a gigantic media opera in the style
   of a 'rogue spear' computer game, to gain consumer confidence, with
   digital blood and extensive computer fx establishing a distance between
   fiction and facts but keeping poeple alive, limiting the number of
   'innocent' deaths. for the ritualisation of this new type of warfare
   there is no cultural consensus yet - it has to be created.

WHY? will *we* finish the job? will young american soldiers
discover that they are guided by a remote controled cyborg? how to
exit this loop? the only way to stop this deadly program might be failure.
an alternative: change the title (and doctrine) together with the
christian fundamentalist advisors...

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