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The Scripting of Private Jessica Lynch: Biopolitics, Gender, and the "Feminization" of the U.S. Military Author(syf 9 U R Q L T X H 3 L Q ) D W D Q G 0 D U L D 6 W H U n Source: Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Jan.-Mar. 2005yf S S 3 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40645147 Accessed: 17-04-2017 13:09 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40645147?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Alternatives: Global, Local, Political This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Alternatives 30 (2005yf 3 The Scripting of Private Jessica Lynch: Biopolitics, Gender, and the 'Teminization" of the U.S. Military Véronique Pin-Fat and Maria Stern* Supplementing the insights of Georgio Agamben with feminist research contributions, this article develops a biopolitical reading of the debate surrounding the "feminization" of the U.S. military. We argue that an examination of the role gender plays in myths of sacrifice reveals that the military is already fully "feminized." Crit- ical engagement with the scripting of Jessica Lynch re-introduces the political to the question of military sacrifice by rendering its impossibility conspicuous. Keywords: Gender, war, politics, iden- tity, U.S. military. I'm an American soldier, too. - U.S. Army Private Jessica D. Lynch Private Jessica D. Lynch1 became what many have referred to as a "modern American war myth," an "icon" of the U.S.-led war on Iraq.2 Her experiences of being captured, held as a prisoner of war, and dramatically rescued from an Iraqi hospital by U.S. Special Operations forces can be read as the scripting of a war hero(ineyf - in-the-making.3 For many in the United States in particular, Lynch became a symbol of the righteousness of the U.S. "War on Terror," of "American values," of modern femininity.4 Oliver North, for example, remarked that "the rescue of Private Lynch is a story from which the critics can learn a lesson. It is a story about the value of life and how the world's most powerful military employs its extensive resources and risks its most elite forces to save and rescue a single soldier - because they view every life as precious."5 ♦Véronique Pin-Fat, Dept. of Government, International Politics and Philosophy (GIPPyf , Univ. of Manchester, 30 Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK; e-mail: Véronique. [email protected]. Maria Stern, Univ. of Gothenburg (PADRIGUyf * W H E R U J 6 Z H G H Q ; e-mail: [email protected]. 25 This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 26 The Scripting of Private Jessica Lynch However, the idolatry, as well as the many controversies, sur- rounding her "story" and "rescue" also offer us a window into the politics of what may be at stake in thinking about women in the U.S. military, the relationship between gender and war more gen- erally, and, indeed, the relationship between sovereign power and bare life. Georgio Agamben's claim that the "production of a biopoliti- cal body is the original activity of sovereign power" presents a deeply disturbing series of challenges to the "the story about the value of life" in Western political practice.6 Drawing upon and sup- plementing Agamben's analysis, we aim to show the central role that gender plays in the constitution of homo sacer - Agamben's seminal figure of modern biopolitics - within the military. We begin by highlighting the complex interplay of gender and war through a reading of the U.S. military's production of the Jes- sica Lynch rescue story in the context of the current war in Iraq. Secondly, we examine how the military may be understood as a "zone of indistinction" in order to highlight the ways in which notions of masculinity and femininity inform the constitution of homo sacer, on the one hand, and the myth of sacrifice on the other.7 Finally, we argue that the recognizable controversies sur- rounding the debate on the "feminization" of the military have a limiting and narrow understanding of what the "feminization" of the military may encompass. Instead, following the interpretation put forward by numerous feminist scholars that the "feminine" has been coded as belonging to the realm of the private, the apolitical - as outside of the public domain regulated by the laws and institutions that define "public," political life - we conclude that the military is already feminized. As critics, our hope is to offer a biopolitical reading that may serve to reintroduce the political into the debate and, as Oliver North invites us to do, "learn a lesson" from Lynch's rescue story. Who Is Jessica Lynch? According to most media depictions and the official account given by the U.S. military, Pfc. Jessica Lynch was a nineteen-year-old female supply clerk in the U.S. Army from Wirt County, West Vir- ginia. She enlisted before finishing high school. Lynch was serving in Iraq when her division, the 507th Maintenance Company, was ambushed as they neared Nasiriya, Iraq, on March 23, 2003. Eleven soldiers (including one womanyf Z H U H N L O O H G / \ Q F K Z D V F D S W X U H G , as were six other soldiers. Lynch having suffered injuries, she was This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Véronique Pin-Fat and Maria Stem 27 transferred as a prisoner of war (POWyf W R D Q H D U E \ K R V S L W D O Z K H U e she allegedly suffered abuse. "Mohammed," an Iraqi lawyer whose wife worked in the hospital, was disturbed by the treatment she received and, placing his family at risk, alerted the U.S. military to her whereabouts and condition. On April 1, U.S. Army special operators launched and successfully executed a rescue mission to "liberate" Lynch. This rescue mission was videotaped, and the five- minute film of her dramatic rescue was then released to media net- works in the United States and broadcast to the public. After her rescue, Lynch was moved to a U.S. military hospital in Germany and later to the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., before being transferred home.8 Lynch's rescue has come under considerable scrutiny. For ex- ample, the BBC aired a damning documentary that portrayed the Pentagon's version of the "rescue" as falsified and intended as war propaganda.9 However, Lynch's story reflects more than just the difficulty of discerning "reality" from its virtual and textual repre- sentations. In addition to its relevance as an example of what James Der Derian has called ΜΙΜΕ-net ("the military-industrial-media- entertainment network"yf / \ Q F K V S U R P L Q H Q F H K D V D O V R E H H n offered as a performance from which to review the gendered understandings of identity upon which the military is (imyf S R V V L E O y founded.11 In response to the question "Who is Jessica Lynch?" answers - possible and impossible answers - abound, and all of them, we con- tend, tell us a great deal about the gendered nature of the military and its reliance on a particular form of masculine identity that is both reinforced and unsettled, both at the same time, by represen- tations of Lynch as woman in the fighting ranks. Representations of Lynch that reinforce the U.S. military's understanding and representation of its identity pervade the U.S. media as discursively dominant (possibleyf D Q V Z H U V W R Z K R - H V V L F a Lynch is. She has appeared on the cover of Newsweek against the backdrop of an enormous U.S. flag, and references to her as "female Rambo," "soldier," "American hero," and POW are com- mon currency.12 On the one hand, it is clear that one implication of these pos- sible Jessicas is that, as female soldier, she is the equal of her male counterparts in the U.S. Army. The message is overt: women, like Lynch, can be Rambo; they can be heroes. But equally, it is a spe- cific masculine notion of soldiering that is being privileged here and against which Lynch is being measured. It is difficult to read references to Rambo as anything other than the evocation of a hypermasculinist, ail-American, patriotic, hard guy. On the other This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 28 The Scripting of Private Jessica Lynch hand, lest Lynch become a "butch "/sexually-deviant representation of the female soldier, her "femininity" is also highlighted in media and political portrayals. This is interesting because, while required as an accompani- ment to the marker "woman," her "femininity" is also simultane- ously unsettling for the U.S. military. References to Lynch's desire to become a kindergarten teacher, where the nurture of children as a female role is implicitly emphasized, alongside descriptions of her as a "waif-like thing," a "poor girl," a child who played with Barbie, and so on, serve to add a "feminine" dimension to the Rambo-esque American-hero image. The message then becomes mixed: this is a Rambo who aspires to nurture other people's infants and to raise a family of her own, an example of the ail- American, small-town girl-next-door. Unsurprisingly, for feminist thinkers, these aspects of her "fem- ininity" almost exclusively refer to her time outside the military - that is, to her "private" life. They are, in a sense, impossible Jessicas in the discursive space of the U.S. military (hence, the media focus on her "rescue" and homecomingyf W K H V H I H P L Q L Q H D V S H F W V R I K H r identity, such as vulnerability and "softness," are precisely what the prototypical male U.S. soldier does not and should not possess for fear that he will no longer be able to soldier effectively. Thus, there appear to be at least two Jessica Lynches: the possible "masculine" soldier/hero and the impossible "feminine" girl-next-door who, like any other girl [sic], dreams of marriage and children. We refer to this tension between possible and impossible aspects of identity within the U.S. military as an (imyf S R V V L E O H F R Q V W L W X W L Y H G \ Q D P L F W K D t constitutes not only the military's understanding of its own identity but also its attendant myths of sacrifice. To this, we now turn. Gender and War as an (Imyf S R V V L E O H & R Q V W L W X W L Y H ' \ Q D P L c Claims that war depends upon representations of gender and that representations of war inform articulations of masculinity and fem- ininity have become almost commonplace in the analysis of inter- national relations. Similarly, the efforts of many scholars who have documented the particular ways in which war affects women, in both the long term and the short term, have enriched the com- posite of understandings about the workings of war and its after- math upon societies and individuals. The connections between gender and war are no longer mostly trivialized and disregarded. Gender obviously matters. Nevertheless, from claiming that gender bears significance to seriously engaging This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Véronique Pin-Fat and Maria Stem 29 in the different ways gender informs the politics of war and the politics of war informs gender entails much unsettling of sedentary "truths" and reimagining the central concepts and practices of modern politics. In order to explore the U.S. military as a gendered zone of in- distinction, we aim to contribute to readings of the co-constitutive relations of the politics of gender and war by addressing gender and war as an (imyf S R V V L E O H F R Q V W L W X W L Y H G \ Q D P L F 6 X F K D G \ Q D P L F V K R Z s how representations of gender make war possible, and vice versa. Addressing the connections between gender and war as relations of possibility highlights the ways in which attempts are made to create and sustain specific forms of knowledge, power, and identity in rela- tion not only to war and gender as separate issues, but together. Implicated in these enabling possibilities is also that which is neces- sarily excluded in specific articulations of war, such as particular rep- resentations of "the feminine": that is to say, the impossible. Whether implicitly or explicitly, what is taken to be possible not only implies what shall be taken as impossible, but more impor- tantly what shall be kept at bay, excluded, as the "outside." Indeed, we contend that articulations of the possible are privileged as legit- imate but that this can be adequately understood only by paying attention to the role that the impossible plays. One implication of reading gender and war this way is that rep- resentations of, for example, "masculinity" or "femininity" can never be complete. Full representation is never possible because the inside/possible must always rely on the outside/impossible for its constitution, and vice versa. This means that what "masculinity" or "femininity" means will always include, by exclusion, its opposite and therefore, a clear demarcation between "masculinity" and "femininity" cannot be successfully maintained. This may seem like a variation of the notion of gender as rela- tional insofar as meaning is provided only in opposition. However, identifying an (imyf S R V V L E O H F R Q V W L W X W L Y H G \ Q D P L F G L I I H U V L Q W K D t (imyf S R V V L E L O L W \ L P S O L H V W K D W Z K D W L V H [ F O X G H G L V D Q L Q W H J U D O F R Q V W L - tutive part of that which is included. (Imyf S R V V L E L O L W \ K L J K O L J K W V W K D t any seemingly coherent representation is always an unstable con- figuration insofar as "it" is constituted by, and indeed haunted by, that which is excluded. These hauntings, or constitutive outsides, are forever present. However, they are not rendered obvious except in the revelatory power of the exception, or the marginal, that threatens the stability and coherence of the subject.14 Anomalies are more than just exceptions; they are best understood as embodiments of hauntings where what is supposed to be excluded (the impossibleyf F R Q I U R Q W V X V D Q G K L Q W V D W W K H F R F R Q V W L W X W L Y H G \ Q D P L c of the normal and the deviant, the feminine and the masculine, the This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 30 The Scripting of Private Jessica Lynch inside and the outside, and so on. These hauntings disturb and unsettle the ordering and seemingly stable foundations of aspects of "reality" such as identity and gender by revealing them as essentially unstable. Exorcism is never fully possible. Thus, the significance of the presence of women in the military is precisely as this: a ghostly embodiment of a confrontation with that which is "normally" excluded that serves to rupture "normality" itself. Our reading, therefore, focuses on the ways in which the effects of haunting rup- ture and unsettle a variety of sedimented "truths" about gender and the military, which we examine throughout the course of our dis- cussion. More specifically, we show that female soldiers disclose the military as a zone of (imyf S R V V L E L O L W \ R U P R U H D F F X U D W H O \ D V D ] R Q H R f indistinction.15 Discussions about how the military reproduces gendered and sexualized discourses and the specific identities interpellated through them,16 as well as how gendered discourses reproduce the military and its identities, has been the subject of wide and varied scholarship as well as several ongoing debates.17 Rather than repro- ducing this work in its fullness, we use as a starting point the debate about the "feminization" of the military as articulated by Martin van Creveld.18 While we begin with his now (inyf I D P R X s articulation of the debate, what concerns us most is the grammar of the debate that his work embodies since it also appears in dis- cussions that evoke Jessica Lynch in support of, or against, the case for women in the military.19 We propose that there are two main grammatical features of van Creveld's discussion of the debate on the "feminization" of the military.20 First, it exemplifies the ways in which the taken-for- granted masculine identity of the military is unsettled by the inclu- sion of women (or, indeed, homosexualsyf D V W K H I H P L Q L Q H R W K H U " Thus, the remarkableness of Jessica Lynch's presence in the Iraqi line of fire can be read as deeply unsettling this masculine identity and therewith in need of rescripting. Given that we posit that rep- resentations can only be (imyf S R V V L E O \ F R Q V W L W X W H G Z H V K R X O G W K H U H - fore not be surprised to see ghosts of the feminine other appearing in this debate. Second, because we read the "feminization" debate as a demonstrable expression of an unsettling of the identity of the military, we also read the debate as a strategy that simultaneously attempts to resettle its identity. The "Feminization" of the Military The commitment of various governments to include women in their militaries has generated considerable opposition.21 In a recent This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Véronique Pin-Fat and Maria Stem 31 controversial articulation of the debate, van Creveld argues that the advanced military is in decline and that the "influx of women" is "part symptom, part cause" of this.22 He argues that as the likeli- hood of war lessens, the number of women in the military rises, and he cites numerous historical examples in support of his claim. Most importantly for him, the end of the Cold War has meant that the armed forces seem to have lost their rationale. As he puts it, "Throughout recorded history, the function of the military had been to fight wars; now ... all of a sudden it was to keep the peace."23 Women in the military are a symptom of decline in that their rising numbers correspond with a decreased risk of full-scale war. Following this logic, van Creveld wonders if "many women, and enlisted ones in particular, are entering the military precisely because they hope they will not be obliged to fight."24 However, he also claims that women are a cause of decline insofar as "the more of them [women] there are around the less capable those military are of acting as effective combative units."25 Indeed, the Washing- ton Post's description of Jessica Lynch "hiding under the sheets" (in the hospitalyf D V K H U U H V F X H U V E X U V W L Q F O L Q J L Q J W R D P L O L W D U \ G R F W R U s hand and pleading "don't let them leave me" seems to reinforce this view.26 Furthermore, the "fact" that Lynch required "rescuing" surely supports claims that women present a threat to combat efficacy if military resources need to be utilized to free damsels in distress rather than to do the "real" task of engagement with the enemy. In mainstream political discourse, the backdrop to the debate about whether or not women should join the ranks of the military beside men is often framed as a question of equality; that is to say, the equality of opportunities and rights for both men (male bod- iesyf D Q G Z R P H Q I H P D O H E R G L H V \f. In this framework, gender be- comes subsumed under sex and is naturalized as biological. As van Creveld puts it, women in the military "demanded equal rights for themselves. The military tried to resist but, obeying their political masters, invariably ended up by swallowing their rage and yield- ing."27 This fractious, contentious affair is often reduced to asking whether female soldiers can or should have a combat role in mili- taries in order to secure "full equality" and thereby full citizenship. Needless to say, the answers range from "no" to "yes" and all stops in between.28 In the enactment of this debate in reaction to the Jessica Lynch saga, there was considerable dispute over the "facts": Did she fight back like a female Rambo or were her injuries simply caused by a vehicle crash? In sum, did she prove her "sex's capacity for steely heroism" or did her feminine constitution result in her becoming a damsel in distress, thereby putting others at risk?29 Regardless of the answers to these questions about Lynch or female This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 32 The Scripting of Private Jessica Lynch soldiers more generally, what is salient is that the so-called politics of women in the military is cast as a question of equality between the sexes that occurs in the military domain as it has in other "pub- lic" domains of society. In this sense, van Creveld frames the ques- tion of women's participation in the military as nothing particu- larly special or different from any other equal-opportunity issue. However, when we examine the grammatical features of the debate in more depth, it becomes clear that much more than equal oppor- tunities are at stake here. Within the debate on the "feminization" of the military, equality appears in a form that betrays the dominance of an assumption that equates it with "sameness" and that therefore implicitly demands that women be capable and willing to become their male counterparts in order to avoid emasculating the military.30 In this context, mas- culinity is thereby firmly tied to the male body, and "equality" within the military is doomed to fail given that female bodies can- not become male. Thus arise the familiar themes of the debate: Does the inclusion of women "really" represent "progress" for women?31 Can women fight? Do women want to fight? What if women are mothers?32 Does the presence of women provide sexual "temptation" that would undermine military "cohesion and con- centration"?33 Are women more vulnerable as POWs, thereby plac- ing the military doubly at risk since men would "naturally" try to protect them?34 Does the military employ double standards when assessing the capability of men and women?35 Is the inclusion of women just "political correctness" gone awry? Obviously, the questions asked of women can similarly be asked of men: the physical fitness of men is questionable;36 men in the military are just as likely to be fathers as women in the military are likely to be mothers; not all men in the military are heterosexual,37 and the rape of men is possible, as it is of women. Yet, that the abil- ities of particular male bodies within the military can be ques- tioned does not seem to raise the specter of emasculation: it is the inclusion of women's bodies that seemingly brings that issue into the debate. That women in the military pose a threat of emascula- tion can be made conspicuous only by focusing on the grammatical elements that van Creveld and others' arguments exhibit regarding the inclusion of women. Since these elements constitute the multi- horned "dilemmas" that the debate constructs, it is to these that we now turn. The most tangible danger from the "feminization" of the mili- tary derives from the physical presence of women's bodies. The very existence of women's bodies within the space of the military threat- ens both the identity of the military and its capacity to execute its This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Véronique Pin-Fat and Maria Stem 33 duties. This threat occurs in two interrelated ways. First, women's bodies are represented in such a way that they cannot, by defini- tion, perform the critical duties of warring because of their consti- tution. Second, women's bodies, dwelling in the space of the mili- tary, emasculate and thereby weaken it as a masculine fighting machine. There are a number of familiar assumptions at play here that create the boundaries of the debate and indeed police them.38 First, the debate expresses an association of women with peace and men with war. Second, women (and the "feminine"yf D U H U H O H J D W H d to the domestic, private, sphere of reproduction, and the polis is designated as belonging to men (and the "masculine"yf 7 K L U G W K e debate echoes the common coding of women as inherently in need of protection and men as the protectors of both women and the nation. Finally, the military is marked as a masculine hyper/hetero- sexual space that demands careful management. In short, van Cre- veld's argument, in common with others, expresses a fear that the military, as it should be, cannot sustain the inclusion of women. If women are included on "equal" footing with men, then not only would the military lose its fighting prowess because of the impossi- bility (and indeed inadequacyyf R I I H P D O H E R G L H G V R O G L H U V E X W D O V o because "masculinity" and therewith the military depends upon the maintenance of zones of distinction between men/women, home/polis, war/peace, inside/outside, and protector/protected, and so on. In other words, the markings of masculinity and feminin- ity make possible the workings of the military only if they are main- tained as seemingly distinct and, indeed, dichotomous. Biopolitics: Gender, Zones of Indistinction, and Bare Life We now revisit the familiar separation of the public/male/mascu- line and the private/female/feminine in order to explore how the inclusion of women in the military does not simply just unsettle these very zones of distinction, but rather reveals the military as a zone of mdistinction. Also, as a supplement to the work of Agam- ben, we explore the ways in which gender plays a role in the consti- tution of the figure of homo sacer through the myth of sacrifice.39 When read with a sensitivity to the constitutive dynamics of (imyf S R V V L E L O L W \ D Q G L Q U H O D W L R Q W R W K H D Q D O \ V L V G H Y H O R S H G E \ $ J D P - ben, the "feminization" debate reveals that the military, as a zone of indistinction, requires the inclusion by exclusion of the femi- nine to produce homo sacer, myths of sacrifice, and sovereign power. This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 34 The Scripting of Private Jessica Lynch (Imyf S R V V L E O H = R Q H V R I ' L V W L Q F W L R n Gendered divisions, because of their associations with the "nat- ural," provide a powerful mechanism for creating seemingly stable categories, or zones of distinction. Gender coding creates a "nat- ural" order of distinctions whose grammar serves as an organizing principle for political life. Attempts at sustaining boundaries be- tween the military and civilian life, men and women, war and peace, and so on reveal how these boundaries rely on clear coding of masculinity and femininity and how the taken-for-granted iden- tity of military and the boundaries upon which it rests are unset- tled by the inclusion of the feminine. Van Creveld's logic that women are both symptom and cause of decline makes a clear association of women with peace and men with war. This particular gendered coding has been well docu- mented elsewhere.40 In van Creveld's arguments against the inclu- sion of women in the military, women become so integrally linked with peace that their presence in the site of warring both evidence and promise the decline of war. Van Creveld claims that as peace becomes more probable, the number of women in the military rises. Likewise, since militaries are more likely to serve as peace- keepers than engage in active combat, van Creveld claims that women's increased presence makes it more difficult for the mili- tary to fight. Even in the field of private security, he remarks, "the more violent the kind of activities . . . the fewer the women who are engaged in it."41 When juxtaposed with the supposed ultimate goal of the mili- tary to provide and secure peace, one could argue that women's presence, in the capacity that van Creveld stipulates, need not be problematic at all. However, the representation of the military that is articulated seems to require that the military needs war - and vitally, that it needs "real men" - in order to continue as a fighting machine. Thus, the very presence of women's bodies within the military disrupts these dividing lines of women/peace and men/ war, thereby unsettling the identity of the military as "masculine" and combat-effective. All this is neither new nor surprising. One need only turn to any Hollywood war film and these gendered divisions provide the struc- ture of the script. Rather, as Cynthia Enloe and others have so aptly described, women's, and indeed femininity's, association with peace provides the constitutive other against which these "real" men are created and war is defined.42 However, the possibility of women's physical, or even symbolic, presence inside the military always looms; it provides a necessary line of distinction for the politics of creating This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Véronique Pin-Fat and Maria Stern 35 soldiers, and indeed, as we argue below, homo sacer. As Enloe has shown us, women have been present as wives, nurses, prostitutes, and, indeed, soldiers throughout history.43 What the "anomaly" of female and feminine bodies in the zone of warring may indicate instead is that the masculinity of the military, indeed the existential identity of the military as part of war, relies on this constitutive other. This reliance on the feminine constitutive other means that the identity of the military is, by necessity, inherently unstable, incomplete, and subject to change. The unsettling presence of the feminine inside the military - and the grammar of the debate - unmasks the lines of definition as already blurred: men were never men and could never be men, just as the military cannot wage war for the creation of a peace that exists outside war, outside the mil- itary, and inside domestic civilian life. Part of Jessica Lynch's purchase as an icon of American values and the promise of righteous victory in Iraq lies in the redrawing of zones of distinction between military and domestic, civilian life. This is implicitly the message behind the well-publicized "fact" that her sojourn in the military was brief. It apparently served only as a platform from which she could return to the "feminine" activities of being a daughter, the innocent, pure girl next door, as well as pur- suing her future dream career of being a kindergarten teacher.44 These dreams fit comfortably into the feel-good story of a pure wholesome American girl who, after her dramatic adventures, ulti- mately will return to the reproductive "feminine" sphere of nur- turing and caring for small children. Her sojourn in the military would then be revealed as a temporary site of a daring, and mas- culine, adventure that fit in with the tomboy persona of her youth- ful character. She would eventually grow up, though, and take her "real" place in a feminine, peaceful, domestic sphere marked by the values and freedom of the United States.45 Through the upholding of these private dreams as the virtuous desires of Private Lynch, her status as an American soldier would be unveiled as little more than a game of dress-up that got danger- ously out of hand because of the brutality of the enemy. One might say that her role in safeguarding the United States was much more powerful as a public reminder of what the United States was fight- ing for in the private, domestic sphere - the "private" core tenets of U.S. identity symbolized by Lynch's status as an ail-American girl as opposed to the very different values of a purportedly "fundamen- talist" and "misogynist" Islam - rather than as a soldier. Indeed, even the "enemy" (played by the Iraqi lawyer in the scripting of Lynch's rescueyf U H F R J Q L ] H G W K H Z R U W K R I W K H V H Y D O X H V D Q G U L V N H G K L s life to save them/her.46 This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 36 The Scripting of Private Jessica Lynch Hence, Private Lynch' s weapon against Iraq can be read as the superlative and invincible example of female virtue and goodness that the U.S. embodies in its private sphere. Furthermore, in this narrative, her presence in the military and the fact of her capture, and possible rape, need not unsettle the masculinity of the military because at the crucial moment of potential sacrifice, when she might perish at the hands of her capturers, her feminine body and soul begged for protection. Her female vulnerability warranted extreme measures (her rescueyf E \ W K H W U X O \ P D V F X O L Q H P L O L W D U \ . Thus, Lynch 's "true" identity as unmistakably "feminine" was rein- forced as belonging out of danger and safe at home. The successful relocation of Jessica Lynch back into civilian life and her private dreams as the "happy ending"47 to the "blockbuster suspense story"48 scripted by the Pentagon sheds light on a crucial aspect of the gendered role of the military: sacrifice. For whom, for what, shall the military sacrifice? What is the zone that requires protection by the military? In short, what is the constitutive "out- side" that serves to demarcate military (as opposed to civilianyf space? Part of the answer lies in reading the gendered constitution of "home" as the zone to be secured and protected. This summons the ongoing association of women and femininity with the domes- tic sphere of reproduction (oikos, the homeyf D Q G P H Q D Q G P D V - culinity with the polis as a constitutive grammar. As we show below, the "feminization" debate articulates the threat of emasculation as the blurring of the distinction between "home" and "military." There are several aspects to this. First, there are two necessar- ily gendered notions of "home" that serve to construct the identity of the military. On the one hand, we have the home of the house- hold as the sphere of reproduction and the care of children, where women reside and where Jessica lives happily ever after. On the other hand, we have the "homeland" - the nation, the particular and ordained polis that the military is constructed to defend by violent means if necessary and that Jessica also represented sym- bolically in the Iraqi hospital, thus warranting her well-directed res- cue. Second, the demarcation of zones that are to be secured (the "home"yf D Q G ] R Q H V W K D W V H F X U H P L O L W D U \ ] R Q H V \f implicate a dis- tinction between protected and protectors. With regard to the first aspect, the military camp is not supposed to be a "home" for reproduction; it is constructed precisely to secure oikos outside itself. Van Creveld articulates this, implicitly, as an impor- tant but threatened part of military identity. He expresses it thus: "[T]he military has now been turned into a safe-haven for very young mothers . . . many of them single. The military provides these women with housing, medical care, and child-minding facilities of a kind."49 This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Véronique Pin-Fat and Maria Stem 37 This reasoning is echoed in many of the critical responses to the "feminization" of the military and Lynch's status as hero(ineyf since her rescue.50 In other words, the implication is that "safe havens" into which children should be born are to be secured out- side the military camp, not inside it. A crossing of these borders threatens the military's masculinity insofar as it instates within the military a "safe haven" (a feminine sphereyf W K D W L V D Q W L W K H W L F D O W o the centrality of danger as a constitutive ethos, given that warring supposedly precludes caretaking. Caretaking (safe havensyf P X V t remain necessarily outside the zone designated to secure them lest they disrupt its antithesis - namely, killing, albeit of enemies, and not of "us." However, it is interesting that van Creveld raises the issue of caretaking in the "home" only in relation to military women. It is clear that such demarcations of home as "outside" have long been dissolved into a zone of indistinction. Military bases do provide for the wives and children of military men, in the form of housing, child care, and so on, on the bases themselves. Indeed, the military has put significant resources into making the life of military wives comfortable and secure.51 Thus, what we see is that the presence of a "home" within the military base is itself important and valorized by advanced militaries, albeit for reasons that reassert the place of women in a supporting role for their serving husbands. What van Creveld is articulating more precisely, is that military women unset- tle what is to be protected because they are not present in a sup- porting role for military men as wives but are serving alongside them. In short, women in the military can be present as "wives" since this does not threaten its masculine configuration, but in- deed serves to protect and enhance it. Military women, in contrast, are an emasculating threat. This leads us to how the spatial boundaries between home(syf and the military mirror the distinction between protector and pro- tected.52 Indeed, in van Creveld's grammar, the protector/protected distinction appears so embedded that it hardly seems even threat- ened by the "feminization" of the military. He claims that women in conflicts are there to be protected, and as such their role in conflicts "is overwhelmingly as eggers-on, camp followers and victims."53 Hence they are not true fighters but cheerleaders or are simply there to be protected. This is a "safe" configuration insofar as it resonates with the supporting role of woman as "wife." Yet van Creveld also warns of the military being turned into "safe-havens for very young mothers." The implication is that what is supremely dangerous is the transformation of the military into a protector of that which is within its ranks, thus blurring the distinction between feminine protecting This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 38 The Scripting of Private Jessica Lynch (caretaking in the realm of the homeyf D Q G P D V F X O L Q H S U R W H F W L Q g (defending and killingyf . Such danger is articulated in the concern about women POWs: "A woman PoW is the ultimate nightmare."54 However, this does not preclude the possibility that if her capture, successful rescue, and return "home" can come to reassert the ultimate masculinity of the military, as well as the unavoidable femininity and thus inappropriateness of her dwelling among protectors, then the nightmare can have a Hollywood ending for all.55 When Melissa Rathbun-Nealy was held as a POW by the Iraqis during the Persian Gulf War, her fellow soldiers were told by their commanders "that she had been raped, and/or found 'slit from [her] crotch to [her] neck, [her] head cut off, [her] arms were cut off and this and that was cut off. ' "56 Not only is this the "ultimate nightmare" in that the military was cast into the protector of that which is within its ranks, but, unsurprisingly, such stories were used as a motivation before combat thus reaffirming the male soldier as protector of the feminine/female. As it happens, Rathbun-Nealy was not raped or sexually assaulted while held captive, though she continually expressed her frustration at the failure of both her own forces and the U.S. media in believing that she could not have been. Unsurprisingly, these concerns were replayed in relation to Jessica Lynch, where there remains considerable ambiguity in the media as to whether she was raped while held captive.57 The blurring of the military's role of protector of a zone out- side itself (the feminineyf Z L W K W K D W R I S U R W H F W R U R I Z K D W L V D O V o inside (the feminine soldieryf L P S O L H V W K D W W K H R X W V L G H D Q G W K e inside can no longer be securely distinguished. Hence, what is being articulated by the debate is the need for the military to be protected from its own femininity, not the imposition or contagion of femininity as brought in on women's bodies. The feminine can- not be kept at bay since the "outside" is "inside," not only through the inclusion of women but through inclusion through exclusion. Our discussion has highlighted how the zones of distinction that serve to constitute the military's identity are fundamentally gendered and unstable. The impossibility of fully securing the mas- culine, and the feminine, within the military accounts for why the inclusion of women in the military not only generates a debate about its "feminization" but is cast as an emasculating threat. How- ever, the ways in which the inclusion of women in the military serves to haunt its configuration as (imyf S R V V L E O \ P D V F X O L Q H L V Q R t enough to mark it as a zone of indistinction in the way that Agam- ben posits. That is what we address next. This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Véronique Pin-Fat and Maria Stem 39 The Military as a Zone of Indistinction Agamben argues that Western political practice was originally based on the separation of the biological (zoëyf D Q G W K H S R O L V D Q d that this separation continues to be the "hidden foundation" of it.58 Zoë "expressed the simple fact of living common to all living beings (animals, men or godsyf D Q G E L R V L Q G L F D W H G W K H I R U P R r way of living proper to an individual or a group."59 Bios is not a nat- ural life but a specific form of life. Thus, we find that "simple nat- ural life is excluded from the polis in the strict sense and remains confined, as merely reproductive life, to the sphere of the oikos, 'home.'"60 However, although this is an exclusionary separation of zoé and bios, Agamben understands this separation to be an (imyf S R V V L E O H F R Q V W L W X W L Y H G \ Q D P L F L Q V R I D U D V W K H S R O L V L Q F O X G H V E y exclusion, zoé. Indeed, Agamben's main point is that the inclusion of bare life [zoë] in the political realm constitutes the original, if concealed, nucleus of sovereign power. It can even be said that the production of a biopolitical body is the onginal activity of sovereign powert What Agamben is highlighting is how sovereign power includes, by exclusion, bare life. This is what he calls biopolitics. Biopolitics, as sovereign power, is characterized by the dissolution of a distinction between zoë and bios. In short, no distinction is made between nature and politics such that our natural life is now the subject of biopolitics. Sovereign power understood this way gives the radical feminist slogan "the personal is political" a very different, more violent, resonance, which we trace below. The significance of the original separation of polis and oikos, and their related lives of zoë and bios, has not been lost on femi- nist writers. It serves as the foundation for the more familiar pub- lic/private dichotomy much analyzed in feminist literature.62 It has long been argued that a consequence of separating polis and oikos has been to render women invisible and politically unqualified, by associating women with the domestic and reproductive (oikosyf D Q d men with the public and the polis.63 In her seminal work Public Man /Private Woman, Jean Elshtain, like Agamben, traces the public/private distinction back to the ancient Greeks.64 She claims that modern liberalism reproduces this dichotomy such that what is valorized in the public sphere is scientism, rationality, and instrumentalism. This has meant the exclusion of women insofar as there was no language available for "women's experience to 'speak to' the public realm."65 The senses This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 40 The Scripting of Private Jessica Lynch and passions, associated with women, had no voice, and instead women were compelled (as they are nowyf W R S U H V V W K H L U F O D L P V L n the language of rights. For Elshtain, the danger of this is that it produces a condition of modern Western politics whereby politi- cally addressing this has resulted in some claiming that the "per- sonal is political."66 The problem for both Elshtain and Agamben is that if no distinction can be made between the personal and the political, if all relationships and activities, if politics is everything and everywhere, then no genuine political action and purpose is pos- sible, as we can never distinguish the political from anything else.67 For Agamben specifically, this means that all life is biopolitical and politics itself is, therefore, depoliticized. In other words, sov- ereign power is ubiquitous. The "private" is indeed political in the sense that biopolitics is all that remains: we are all bare life. It is now impossible to distinguish between private life and political life when what must be examined are "the zones of indistinction into which the oppositions which produced modern politics in the West - inside/outside, right/left, public/private [zoè/bios] - have dissolved."68 Drawing our attention to the relationship between sovereignty and the law, and indeed between violence and sovereign power, Agamben says that a zone of indistinction, consists in the materialisation of the state of exception and the creation of a space in which bare life and the juridical rule enter into a threshold of indistinction ... a space in which normal order is de facto suspended and in which whether or not atrocities are committed depends not on law but on the civility and ethical sense of the police who temporarily act as sovereign.69 The marker of sovereign power is its ability to suspend itself in a state of exception. A pertinent example in the context of our dis- cussion is war, where the killing of the enemy and the sending of one's own troops to die in the name of the state lies outside the commission of homicide.70 War is the sovereign exception that upholds the very notion of sovereignty itself alongside its associa- tion with the right to defend territorial integrity by violent means.71 The military as a zone of indistinction is a realm where the sovereign exception is made the rule as the means of estab- lishing, sustaining, and legitimizing the state itself. Formally, mili- tary law72 is the codification of the exception and relies wholly on This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Véronique Pin-Fat and Maria Stern 41 the "civility" and "ethical sense" of those who police it - the mili- tary themselves.73 That the military is, and must be, a zone of indistinction, or state of sovereign exception, is further betrayed by critics of the inclusion of women in the military. They argue that the application of domes- tic laws such as laws on sexual harassment, sexual equality, race equality, and so on is inappropriate to the "culture" of the military.74 Rather, the application of sovereign laws within this zone of indis- tinction is represented as political correctness out of control, with no regard for the maintenance of the military as "fighting machine": The purpose, the mission, the goal and objective of the military is to close with and destroy the enemy. We want and need our military to kill people and blow up stuff. You don't have to like that, but until YOU want to pick up a rifle and stand a post, you want and need the military to do that. That means you need arrogant, hard charging, more balls than brains, fighting machines. Machines more focused on kicking butt and taking names than any politically correct, outcome-based, sensitivity trained rat excrement.75 The soldier then is configured in the sovereign exception not as "man" but as "fighting machine." His (bareyf O L I H E H F R P H V W H F K Q R O - ogized and simply administered by the command structure of the military: he is a "cog in the machine," and apparently this should be valorized and embraced as the form of life of a soldier.76 Agamben argues that zones of indistinction, like the military,77 constitute and are constituted by the figure of homo sacer, or bare life - a figure "who may be killed and yet not sacrificed."78 Homo sacer is constituted by and constitutive of sovereign power because he is produced by the sovereign exclusion to the law. He is ex- cluded from human law (killing him is not wrongyf D Q G G L Y L Q H O D w (killing him is not sacrilegeyf : K L O H K H P D \ E H N L O O H G W K H O R V V R f his life is not sacrificial, for his life has no political currency, and in this sense is worthless. Sacrifice is impossible.80 Consequently, any notion of sacrifice is at best myth, and at worst it is a display of the violence of sovereign power. We suggest, following Agamben, that the military is best under- stood as a biopolitical site wherein sacrifice is impossible since there is no life that has political worth to be sacrificed (homo saceryf < H W D Q L Q W H J U D O S D U W R I W K H P L O L W D U \ V D Q G L Q G H H G V R O G L H U V , identity requires precisely that which is impossible here; a notion of sacrifice. The necessity of a militarized configuration of sacrifice is constituted by a grammatical separation of the "masculine" and "feminine," "protector" and "protected," "life giver" and "life taker," "home" and polis. This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 42 The Scripting of Private Jessica Lynch What needs to be traced, then, is the role that gender plays in constructing the mythical possibility of sacrifice within the military. Ultimately, we show that this can be read as impossible in two ways. On the one hand, the grammatical separation of the "masculine" and "feminine" upon which militarized sacrifice depends is unsus- tainable. On the other hand, the sacrifice of homo sacer is impos- sible in the way that Agamben suggests. In the end, they amount to the same thing. The myth of the possibility of sacrifice constitutes homo sacer and is constituted by him by his inclusion as exclusion. In a zone of indistinction, all life becomes bare life, and what remains is "politics" as biopolitics that administers, technologizes, and depoliticizes bare life. Bare life, exemplified by the figure of homo sacer in a zone of indistinction, is a politically unqualified life, and in that sense he, and the military that constitutes and is constituted by him, is already "feminized."81 Gender, Bare Life, and Myths of Sacrifice The making of the soldier who will sacrifice himself is produced by sovereign power as biopolitics. In the case of the military, the possi- bility of sacrifice fundamentally relies on implicit gender assump- tions. Thus, the inclusion of women in the military presents a sec- ond, much greater, threat that is targeted at the myth of sacrifice written by sovereign power in the military as a zone of indistinction. More specifically, the threat is this: Jessica Lynch's haunting presence as a soldiering body to be sacrificed by the U.S. military threatens to reveal the impossibility of sacrificing men because a militarized grammar of sacrifice requires that women cannot be sac- rificed by the state. Lynch symbolically stands for what the soldier is protecting; she is that for which the soldier sacrifices and, there- fore, cannot be sacrificed herself.82 This makes her claim "I am a [sacrificial] soldier, too" impossible. The U.S. military fundamentally requires a rescued Jessica Lynch and the notion of femininity she represents in order to produce and sustain fighters who are willing to die for their country. She is, we believe, constitutive of the militarized myth of sacrifice that heroically masks him/her as homo sacer, and in that sense she is constitutive of him as such. Read this way, representations of the "feminization" debate as articulations of the equality between the sexes is a depoliticizing and feminizing move since it fails to address how sovereign power both masks and, simultaneously, reveals this impossibility of sacrifice. Just as the home and protector/ protected distinction appear as part of the (imyf S R V V L E O H P D V F X O L Q H L G H Q W L W \ R I W K H P L O L W D U \ W K H y This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Véronique Pin-Fat and Maria Stern 43 appear in a different sense when we look at how the military as zone of indistinction produces soldiers as if they were not homo sacer. One of the primary goals of the military is to create fighters who are prepared to die fighting for the sovereignty of the state: the "homeland." The military configures the death of its combat- ants in this way as both a sacrifice and part of the role of protec- tor. To make sacrifice possible, the death of a soldier is configured not as a loss but instead as a gain for the polis. He has completed his duty by "sacrificing" himself and has accomplished immortality by living on as a constitutive myth through the memorialization of his heroics. His death secures the home, the nation, and even the rationale of the military itself, and thereby, his life has value for the polis. He is there to kill and, if necessary, be killed. As such the mil- itary represents the normalization of the sovereign ban. The life of the soldier is, in the final analysis, expendable, and necessarily so, for the military to function.83 In speaking of the political love for the nation-state that nationalism inculcates, and indeed that the military promotes and projects, Benedict Anderson explains: Something of this political love can be deciphered from the ways in which languages describe its object: either in the vocabulary of kinship (motherland, Vaterland, Volk,yf R U W K D W R I K R P H % R W h idioms denote something to which one is naturally tied. As we have seen earlier, in everything natural, there is always something unchosen. In this way nation-ness is assimilated to skin-colour, gender, parentage and birth-era - all those things one cannot help.84 This "imagined community" revolves around the structure of fam- ily and the roles and power relations it naturalizes. It is gendered in its very construction as it naturalizes the conventional under- standings of mother, father, and children. For Helena Lindholm, "the importance of gender is many times underlined in the very ideology of ethnicity and nationalism - being a kinship ideology - since it presents its followers with a view of biological reproduction. The ethnic or national group has been "born" at a particular time in history."85 It sanctions social hierarchy by placing the "private" and "natural" subordinate positions of women onto the collective: women, both symbolically and concretely, become the life-giving mothers/wives/daughters of the group, and men become the pro- tecting fathers/husbands/ sons. These hierarchies are thus cemented into the organic and immutable history of the collectivity: the home- land to be secured and defended, by means of war if necessary.86 This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 44 The Scripting of Private Jessica Lynch According to Anderson, the possibility of sacrifice relies on a notion of the nation ... as a deep horizontal comradeship. Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings.87 This kind of fraternity "favours a homosocial form of male-bond- ing" that is highly sexualized and achieves its pinnacle in the mili- tary.88 The sacrifice of dying for one's country, for one's symbolic mother or father, among one's brothers, is represented as the ulti- mate sacrifice and proof of "masculinity" - both the state's and the citizen-soldier's. This sense of fraternity, which the military embod- ies, reproduces a defining division between self (manyf D Q G R W K H r (womanyf . In contrast to men, women are portrayed as, for example, the Good Mother, the Beautiful Soul for whom the struggle is being fought. She woefully, but willingly, offers up her children (sonsyf W o "battle" for the sake of the "family" of the group.89 She embodies men's honor, their accomplishments, and is the repository of all that should be protected and conserved.90 While men are written as the protectors of women/children to maintain, and die, for the state, women represent and reproduce the object of protection through her children and her tears. The men sacrifice their lives for the sake of the "home," as both family and as sovereign state, because of the "natural," protective ties he has to them. In this mil- itarized myth, the male soldier's body itself (as male, as brother, as father, and so onyf L V F D O O H G W R V D F U L I L F H ) R O O R Z L Q J W K L V U H D V R Q L Q J L t is not surprising that Jessica Lynch's prepackaged familial identity as daughter, sister, and future-wife holds such currency in the unfolding of her drama.91 These aspects of sacrificial myth in the military cloak homo sacer in the garb of a hyper masculine figure. Placing women bod- ies in the role of fighting soldier and therefore demanding their sacrifice disrupts the organizing dichotomy of life takers and life givers.92 If a life giver (womanyf Z K R L V V X S S R V H G W R U H P D L Q L Q W K e "home," transgresses the borders that define her and her location, she ruptures the excluding dividing lines that define the zone of the protector from the protected - the life taker from the life giver. Thus, the meaning for which sovereign power kills the life takers disintegrates. Seen in this light, the cinematic rescripting of female soldiers' bodies as objects in need of protection, paradigmatically symbolized This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Véronique Pin-Fat and Maria Stem 45 by Lynch's rescue, is an attempt to resettle and conceal this rup- ture in meaning. Put more simply, the military demands that there be someone whom a cloaked homo sacer protects who is, essen- tially, feminine. Crucially then, in this militarized zone of indis- tinction, women like Jessica Lynch, cannot be sacrificed. They are the object, not subject, of sacrifice. Thus, the sacrifice of military women threatens to reveal the very impossibility of sacrificing mil- itary men. On our reading, therefore, the impossibility of a militarized configuration of sacrifice brings into terrifying relief the possibility that Agamben is right. If sacrifice is impossible because the distinc- tions upon which it relies have dissolved into a zone of indistinc- tion, as we argue, then the military lives lost in wars defending the "homeland" and all that it represents are (more literally than figu- rativelyyf Q R W K L Q J P R U H W K D Q F R J V L Q W K H P L O L W D U \ I L J K W L Q g machine." Sovereign power's writing of sacrificial myth, which seem- ingly puts a "soul" into the machine, fails: the very attempt to do so reveals that the "machine" cannot have a "soul," nor can it be rec- ognized as having one, for the sacrificial myth itself is both consti- tuted by, and constitutive of, homo sacer. That is what the sacrifice of military women brings into sharp relief as sovereign exception. As such, there can be no properly political debate about the "feminization" of the military as long as we fail to recognize that what is required is a biopolitical analysis of the military, as we have offered here. In a zone of indistinction, "[t]here is no return to classical politics . . . the possibility of distinguishing between our biological body and our political body - between what is incommu- nicable and mute and what is communicable and sayable - was taken from us forever."93 Thus, our claim that the military is already fully "feminized" is simply to say that politics is no longer possible when all we have is biopolitics - a condition traditionally associated with the "feminine." With regard to pleas for a combat role for women as recogni- tion of "full citizenship," as a form of politics, "one thinks about sending people off to war and [asks] whether equality really has anything at all to do with it at this point."94 * * * Jessica Lynch's political currency for the U.S. military, and by extension for the U.S. identity that it seeks to defend and protect, lay in the threat, but never the actuality, of her death. Lynch's res- cue ensured that her militarized "sacrifice" remained impossible and, therewith, hers is a "precious" life in its enactment of the This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 46 The Scripting of Private Jessica Lynch intolerable having not occurred. This seductive currency, packaged as patriotism, fails to question the gendered production of the pos- sibility of sacrifice upon which the military draws for its legitimacy, rationale, authority, and, ultimately, its identity. Rather, according to the well-rehearsed and stage-managed script of the U.S. "war on terror" in Iraq, the death of U.S. soldiers in Iraq promises the immortality of the U.S. sovereign subject. In reading the military as a zone of indistinction, we have chal- lenged this sovereign scripting of Lynch's rescue. We have sought to demonstrate that for the military to function in its production of soldiers who are willing to die for their country, it requires a gen- dered construction of a mythically possible sacrifice. Read in this way, the greatest threat to the military posed by the presence of women's bodies is that the sacrifice of soldiers' lives (whether male or femaleyf Z L O O E H U H Y H D O H G D V L P S R V V L E O H D Q G W K D W W K H U H I R U H V R O - diers are, in fact, homines sacri, and not heroes; no more and no less than soulless "cogs" in a "machine." The distinctions of war/peace, men/women, home/polis, and so on upon which the military and the "feminization" debate relies to depoliticize homo sacer are already dissolved in a zone of indis- tinction. They include, by exclusion, each other, and thus, the vir- tuous, superior, "feminine" homeland that will be resecured by the "masculine" heroism of the U.S. warriors against "terror" and sym- bolized by the successful return of Jessica Lynch cannot be held sep- arate and safe from the front line of injury, killing, and death. The possibility of maintaining their distinctiveness is a myth written by sovereign power and reproduced in made-for-television sagas of res- cued damsels in distress. The presence of women, far from being the emasculating threat the "feminization" debate would have us believe, reveal that the military is already fully "feminized," such that a failure to engage with the scripting of Jessica Lynch continues to leave the impossibility of sacrifice unquestioned, unquestionable, and, therefore, depoliticized. The Pentagon and the U.S. media's gendered scripting of Lynch's rescue covers the lives lost in the war against Iraq with a deadening red-white-and-blue shroud.95 Notes The authors wish to thank Jenny Edkins, Ian Hall, Nick Rengger, and par- ticipants of the panel "War and International Policies," British Inter- national Studies Association Annual Conference, London School of Eco- nomics, 2002. 1. The epigraph above cites words that apparently were the first words Lynch spoke to her rescuers. The American Forces Information Service This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Véronique Pin-Fat and Maria Stern 47 account reads: "As the rescue team entered Lynch 's hospital room, they called her name. She had been scared and had a sheet up over her head because she did not know what was happening. . . . One team member repeated, 'Jessica Lynch, we are the United States soldiers and we're here to protect you and take you home,' . . . she looked up to him and said Τ m an American soldier, too.'" Cited in Jim Garamone, "Lynch to Rescuers: 'I'm an American Soldier, Too,'" American Forces Information Service, April 5, 2003: www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2003/n04052003_200304051. See also Rick Bragg, I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story (New York: Knopf, 2003yf / \ Q F K K H U V H O I V D \ V R I W K H 3 H Q W D J R Q 7 K H \ X V H G P H D V D Z D y to symbolise all this stuff. It's wrong." BBC, "Jessica Lynch Condemns Pen- tagon," BBC News, UK Edition, November 7, 2003: news.bbc.co.uk/ 1 /hi/ world/americas/3251731.stm. The the focus of this article is the latter theme. 2. See, in particular, the Web site dedicated to Jessica Lynch at jessica- lynch.com/. See also Toby Manhire, "Private's Life Becomes Public Property," Guardian, April 8, 2003: www.guardian.co.uk/editor/story/0, 12900,931 836,00; and Lawrence Donegan, "How Private Jessica Became America's Icon," Observer, April 6, 2003: observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/O^OS^OöSe^O. 3. An unofficial NBC movie, Saving Jessica Lynch, starring Laura Regan as Lynch, was aired in November 2003. See also Bragg, / Am a Sol- dier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story, note 1, which was made available in U.S. bookstores on Veterans' Day, November 11, 2003. 4. Steve Ritea and Jill Rosen, "A Little Too Perfect," American Jour- nalism Review 25, no. 6 (August/ September 2003yf I R U D F U L W L T X H R I U H V F X e as propaganda. 5. Oliver North, "On the Road to Baghdad," Human Events 59, no. 12 (April 7, 2003yf , Q L U R Q L F F R Q W U D V W V H H 0 R K D P P H G 2 G H K D O 5 H K D L H I Z L W h Jeff Coplon, Because Each Life Is Precious (New York: HarperCollins, 2003yf . The author is the Iraqi lawyer credited with assisting Lynch 's rescue. 6. Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Stan- ford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998yf S L W D O L F V L Q R U L J L Q D O \f. 7. Ibid. 8. John Kampfner, "The Truth about Jessica," Guardian, May 15, 2003: www.guardian.co.uk/iraq/Story/0,27363,956255,00; Barbara Starr, "Report: Fatigue, Errors Led to Fatal Convoy Ambush," CNN.com/world, July 10, 2003: www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/07/10/sprj.irq.int.con- voy.attack/index; Jim Garamone, "Lynch to Rescuers: Ί Am an American Soldier, Too,'" American Forces Information Service, April 5, 2003: www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2003/n04052003_200304051. 9. The BBC aired a "scathing documentary [reported by John Kampfner, May 18, 2003] accusing the U.S. government of exaggerating the heroics of her rescue and her mistreatment at the hands of the Iraqis, all to bolster public approval of the war." Patrick Rogers et al., "Jessica Lynch's Rescue: What Really Happened?" People 59, no. 23 (June 16, 2003yf . 10. James Der Derian, "9/11: Before, After, and In Between," in Craig Calhoun et al., eds., Understanding September 11 (New York: New Press, 2002yf S . 11. For further explanation of what we mean by an (imyf S R V V L E O e dynamic, see below. 12. A host of articles have debated Lynch's status as a hero and what type of hero she may be. For examples, see Michèle Orecklin et al., "The This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 48 The Scripting of Private Jessica Lynch Controversy over Jessica Lynch," Time, 161, no. 23 (June 9, 2003yf D Q d Frank Rich, "Pfc. Jessica Lynch Isn't Rambo Anymore," New York Times, November 9, 2003: www.nytimes.com/2003/ll/09/arts/09RICH "The Rambo Who Wasn't," Sun-Herald, November 9, 2003: www.smh.com.au/ articles/2003/11/09/1068243315124. Ruben Navarrette Jr., "Lynch May Not Be Rambo, But She's Still a Hero," Seattle Times, November 14, 2003: seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/200 1790732_navarrette 14. 13. See also Véronique Pin-Fat, "(Imyf S R V V L E O H 8 Q L Y H U V D O L V P 5 H D G L Q g Human Rights in World Politics," Review of International Studies 26, no. 4 (2000yf . 14. Judith Butler, for example, cites the instance of transvestism - drag - as a disturbance of the "naturalized" performance of heterosexual gender identities. See Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Sub- version of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990yf . 15. See section below, "Biopolitics: Gender, Zones of Indistinction and Bare Life." 16. S. Hall and P. Du Gay, eds., (Questions of Cultural Identity (London: Sage, 1996yf S . 17. For an overview of the issues involved in "gender and the mili- tary," see, for example, Elisabetta Addiss et al., Women Soldiers, Images and Realities (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994yf & \ Q W K L D ( Q O R H % D Q D Q D V , Beaches, and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990yf L G H P 7 K H 0 R U Q L Q J $ I W H U 6 H [ X D O 3 R O L - tics at the End of the Cold War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993yf - L O O 6 W H D Q V * H Q G H U D Q G , Q W H U Q D W L R Q D O 5 H O D W L R Q V 3 L V F D W D Z D \ 1 H Z - H U V H \ : Rutgers University Press, 1998yf D Q G 0 D U \ V L D = D O H Z V N L D Q G - D Q H 3 D U S D U W , eds., The "Man" (Question in International Relations (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1998yf . 18. Martin van Creveld, "The Great Illusion: Women in the Military," Millennium, 29, no. 2 (2000yf . 19. For arguments for and against women in the military, see "Jessica Lynch News: Analysis of Women in the Military," United Justice, January 26, 2004: www.unitedjustice.com/stories/jessica-lynch. 20. See, also Carol Cohn, "War, Wimps, and Women: Talking Gender and Thinking War," in M. Cooke and A. Woolacott, eds., Gendering War Talk (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993yf - H D Q % H W K N H ( O V K W D L Q , Women and War (New York: Basic Books, 1987yf ( Q O R H % D Q D Q D V Q R W H , and idem, The Morning After, note 17; Jan Jindy Pettman, Worlding Women: A Feminist International Politics (London: Routledge, 1996yf 9 6 S L N H 3 H W H U - son, "Transgressing Boundaries: Theories of Knowledge, Gender, and International Relations," Millennium 21, no. 2 (1992yf 9 6 S L N H 3 H W H U V R n and A. Sisson Runyan, Global Gender Issues (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993yf % H W W \ 5 H D U G R Q 6 H [ L V P D Q G W K H : D U 6 \ V W H P 1 H Z < R U N & R O X P E L D 8 Q L - versity Press, 1985yf % H W W \ 5 H D U G R Q : R P D Q D Q G 3 H D F H ) H P L Q L V W 9 H U V L R Q V R f Global Security (New York: SUNY Press, 1993yf 6 W H D Q V Q R W H & K U L V W L Q e Sylvester, Feminist International Relations in a Post Modern Era, Cambridge Studies in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994yf & K U L V W L Q H 6 \ O Y H V W H U ) H P L Q L V W , Q W H U Q D W L R Q D O 5 H O D W L R Q V $ Q 8 Q I L Q - ished Journey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002yf - $ 7 L F N Q H U , Gender in International Relations - Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Secunty (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993yf L G H P * H Q G H U L Q g World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001yf D Q G = D O H Z V N i and Parpart, note 17. This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Véronique Pin-Fat and Maria Stem 49 21. For example: "While it is good to fight the enemy on the beaches and on the shores and to never, never surrender, a greater danger, a more subtle enemy is attacking the military from within, the watering down of stan- dards to meet some fanciful ideological theory." Alan Barron, "Feminization of the Military," Endeavour Forum, March 1999: www. endeavour for urn. org.au/march9902. 22. Van Creveld, note 18, p. 429. 23. Ibid., p. 437. 24. Ibid., p. 438. 25. Ibid., p. 442. 26. Cited in Christopher Hanson, "American Idol," Columbia Journal- ism Review 42, no. 2 (2003yf . 27. Van Creveld, note 18, p. 436. 28. For contrasting views, see for example Jean Elshtain, "'Shooting' at the Wrong Target: A Response to van Creveld," Millennium 29, no. 2 (2000yf : 443-449; Cynthia Nantais and Martha F. Lee, "Women in the United States Military: Protectors or Protected? The Case of Prisoner of War Melissa Rathbun-Nealy," Journal of Gender Studies 8, no. 2 (1999yf D Q G $ Q L W a K. Blair, "In Search of the Noble Warrior," Women's Quarterly (Summer 1999yf Z Z Z I P G D U W L F O H V F R P F I B G O V P 2 , 8 . S O D U W L F O H . 29. Robin Gerber, cited in Kate O'beirne, "An Army of Jessicas," National Review 55, no. 9 (2003yf ) R U I X U W K H U G L V F X V V L R Q R I W K H V e contending views, see O'beirne, ibid. 30. One need only look at the media's and the Pentagon's portrayals of Lynch in overwhelmingly stereo typically "feminine" terms to discern a dis- cursive strategy to affirm that Lynch was indeed a female, an ail-American girl, and not a lesbian, butch-masculine wannabe-male, thus enabling the familiar plot of virtuously female (yet "spunky and plucky"yf G D P V H O L n (stagedyf G L V W U H V V Z K H U H K H U V D I H W \ Z D V Q H Y H U U H D O O \ D W V W D N H E H F D X V H R I W K e omnipotence of both U.S. values and U.S. military stealth (reinforced through the performance of her inevitable rescueyf ) R U U H I H U H Q F H V W R K H r "spunk" and "pluck," see, for example, Rogers et al., "Saved from Danger," People 59, no. 15 (April 21, 2003yf 6 X V D Q 6 F K P L G W D Q G 9 H U Q R Q / R H E , "She Was Fighting to the Death," Washington Post, April 3, 2003: www. washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14879-2003Apr2?language= printe; Ward Sanderson, "BBC, DOD Differ on Lynch Rescue News," Stars and Stnpes, May 24, 2003: www.estripes. com/article. asp?section=&article= 15072&archive=true. 31. Van Creveld, note 18, and responses: Elshtain, note 28; and Christopher Coker, "Humanising Warfare; or, Why van Creveld May Be Missing the 'Big' Picture," Millennium 29, no. 2 (2000yf . 32. U.S. Army spokesmen neither confirmed nor denied the report written by a notorious right-wing military commentator that "more than half of the [U.S.] women deployed to Iraq are pregnant." See Les Kinsolv- ing, "An Army of 1 - and 1 in the Oven," WorldNetDaily.com, September 16, 2003: www. worldnetdaily.com/news/article. asp?Article_ID=34636. 33. Blair, note 28. 34. Indeed, this is a salient theme in relation to whether Lynch was raped when captured. For further discussion, see Nantais and Lee, note 28. 35. There is heated debate over the death of the U.S. Navy's Lieu- tenant Kara Hultgreen, who was one of the first women ever to be pro- moted to combat pilot on an aircraft carrier. In October 1999, Hultgreen This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 50 The Scripting of Private Jessica Lynch died after her F-14 fighter crashed trying to land on the carrier's deck. It seems she may have been promoted above her level of skill. 36. Coker, note 31, p. 450. 37. Interestingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, the same points regard- ing morale, cohesion, and concentration are made regarding homosexuals in the military. See Belkin and Bateman, eds., Don 't Ask Don't Tell: Debat- ing the Gay Ban in the Military (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2003yf . 38. These assumptions reappear often in feminist scholarship that addresses the interconnections of gender and war. See notes 17 and 20. 39. For further implications of Agamben's work for world politics, see Jenny Edkins, Véronique Pin-Fat, and Michael Shapiro, eds., Sovereign Lives (New York: Routledge, 2004yf D Q G - H Q Q \ ( G N L Q V D Q G 5 % - : D O N H U H G V , "Zones of Indistinction: Territories, Bodies, Politics," Alternatives 25, no. 1, special issue (2000yf . 40. See notes 17 and 20. 41. Van Creveld, note 18, p. 439. 42. See notes 17 and 20. 43. Cynthia Enloe, Does Khaki Become You? The Militanzation of Women's Lives (London: Harper Collins, 1988yf D Q G ( Q O R H % D Q D Q D V Q R W H . 44. See, for example, Hanson, note 26; and Chuck Raasch, "Lynch Wanted to Be a Kindergarten Teacher, Ended up POW," USA Today, May 8, 2003: www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/raasch/2003-05-08- 0410-raasch_x. 45. In a future society, it is important to note, whose safeguarding is cast as the impetus behind the U.S. "War on Terror"; see The National Secu- nty Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, D.C.: The White House, September 2002yf . 46. The Iraqi lawyer who "placed his family at risk" in order to help save "that poor girl" was "moved to action by the sight of a hulking black- clad captor slapping her across the face, with his palm and then with the back of his hand." Jerry Adler et al., "Jessica's Liberation," Newsweek 141, no. 15 (2000yf $ F F R U G L Q J W R W K H $ P H U L F D Q ) R U F H V S U H V V V H U Y L F H W K e lawyer, "Mohammad," is a new hero who has said, "I believe that Ameri- cans will bring peace and security to the people of Iraq." Sgt. Joseph R. Chenellly, USMC, "Iraqi Family Risks All to Save American POW," Ameri- can Forces Information Service, April 4, 2003: www.defenselink.mil/news/ APr2003/n04042003_200304046. 47. Numerous articles in the media focus on the details of her home- coming. See, for example, People magazine's story entitled "The Long Road Home," where display type reads: "Swiftly recovering - and in love - former POW Jessica Lynch makes as emotional return to Palestine, W. Va." Jerome Richard et al., People 60, no. 5 (2003yf . 48. Hanson, note 26. 49. Van Creveld, note 18, p. 436. 50. Jessica Lynch was given several awards: Bronze Star; Purple Heart; Prisoner of War Medal. Negative responses to her status as war hero(ineyf argue that her inclusion in the exclusive category of medal winners dimin- ishes and insults all "real" heroes. Her presence - indeed, the presence of women generally - in the "vitally masculine" space of the military threaten its effectiveness. Although Lynch did not require the caretaking facilities of a young mother, her status as "that poor girl" (future motheryf G L G L Q G H H d This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Véronique Pin-Fat and Maria Stem 51 demand caretaking and protection by the Special Ops. forces, thus under- scoring the feminine as in need of protection (as private, reproductive, etc.yf ) X U W K H U P R U H K H U X V H D V D V \ P E R O R I Z R P H Q V I L W Q H V V I R U W K H E D W W O H - field" offered entry into a critique of the feminization of the military on the whole. O'beirne, note 29, pp. 40-43. 51. As Enloe points out, "for the British, Canadian and American armed forces, which today have to recruit - and keep - large numbers of expensively trained male soldiers without the aid of compulsory male con- scription, wives' dissatisfaction with military life can produce worrisome manpower shortages." Enloe, Bananas, note 17, p. 72. 52. Nantais and Lee, note 28, p. 182. 53. Van Creveld, note 18, p. 441. 54. U.S. official cited in Nantais and Lee, note 28, p. 183. 55. This is precisely the scripting of Jessica Lynch that we have emphasized. 56. Nantais and Lee, note 28, p. 186. The story of Lynch's captivity gained dramatic effect in part because of the possibility of sexual abuse (and because of relief that it did not take place, underscoring deliverance from that probable threatyf Z K L F K O R R P H G O D U J H L Q P D Q \ R I W K H D F F R X Q W V R f the "animal "-like and "brutal" treatment to which she was subjected at the hands of Iraqi soldiers. Sgt. Joseph R. Chenelly, USMC, "Iraqi Family Risks All to Save American POW," American Forces Information Service (April 4yf Z Z Z G H I H Q V H O L Q N P L O Q H Z V $ S U Q B . 57. Lynch and the Iraqi doctor who cared for her say that she was not raped. In his biography of Lynch, Rick Bragg says she was raped, attributing this information to her family. See Gary Younge, "Private Lynch's Media War Continues as Iraqi Doctors Deny Rape Claim," Guardian, November 12, 2003. 58. Agamben, note 6, p. 9. 59. Ibid., p. 1. 60. Ibid., p. 2. 61. Ibid., p. 6 (italics in originalyf . 62. For example, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Public Man/Private Woman: Women in Social and Political Thought, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981; and Peterson, note 20. 63. Elshtain, note 62. 64. Ibid. See also Jenny Edkins and Véronique Pin-Fat, "Jean Bethke Elshtain: Traversing the Terrain Between," in The Future of International Relations: Masters in the Making, eds. Iver B. Neumann and Ole Waever (London: Routledge, 1997yf . 65. Elshtain, note 62, p. 127. 66. The phrase "The personal is political" became a well-used slogan of the feminist movement in the late 1960s and the 1970s. It has been argued that it was coined by Carol Hanisch in a brief essay, "The Personal Is the Political," March 1969, available at www.redstockings.org. 67. Elshtain, note 62, p. 104. 68. Jenny Edkins, "Sovereign Power, Zones of Indistinction, and the Camp," Alternatives 25, no. 1 (2000yf D W . 69. Agamben, note 6, pp. 173-174. 70. This is not to say that there are no such things as war crimes. The laws of war clearly exist, but Agamben 's point is that these count as a codification This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 52 The Scripting of Private Jessica Lynch of the sovereign exception, or ban. The adherence to and enforcement of the laws of war significantly rely upon the "civility" of those who "tem- porarily act as sovereign." The prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay by the United States show just how violent and unjust this can be. 71. As Edkins points out, following Agamben and Carl Schmitt, "What defines the rule of law is the state of exception when law is suspended." Edkins, note 68, p. 6. 72. See, for example, the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice. 73. This can be deeply problematic in particular for women in the military. The perpetrators of sexual harassment and assault in the military are the "police" themselves. There is a high incidence of such harassment, and according to the 1995 U.S. Department of Defense Sexual Harassment Study, the "civility" of the military cannot be guaranteed for the 60 percent of women who experience an incidence of sexual harassment but do not complain for fear that discrimination within the military will either fail to address their concerns or will lead to the end of their military careers. Fifty-five percent of women in the military reported incidences (one or moreyf R I V H [ X D O K D U D V V P H Q W W R W K H V W X G \ 2 I W K H S H U F H Q W R I Z R P H Q Z K o did complain officially, 15 percent reported that no action was taken, 23 percent said their complaint was not taken seriously, and 10 percent were encouraged to drop the complaint. 74. For the problems with this, see note 73. 75. Geoff Metcalf, "Flirting with Disaster," WorldNetDaily.com, Sep- tember 13, 1999: www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID= 19560. 76. For a sustained argument regarding technologization, see Jenny Edkins, Poststructuralism and International Relations: Bunging the Political Back In (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1999yf 6 H H D O V R - H Q Q \ ( G N L Q V D Q d Véronique Pin-Fat, "Life, Power, Resistance," in Jenny Edkins, Véronique Pin- Fat, and Michael J. Shapiro, eds., Sovereign Lives (New York: Routledge, 2004yf . 77. Agamben does not specifically argue that the military is a zone of indistinction. However, the implication of his arguments is that the mili- tary would count as a specific example. 78. Agamben, note 6, p. 8. 79. Ibid. 80. For Agamben, the Nazi concentration camps and death camps are the paradigmatic form of sovereign power in the West. Such camps are produced as a result of the "transformation of politics into the realm of bare life (that is into a campyf D Q G L W L V W K L V W K D W O H J L W L P D W H G D Q G Q H F H V V L - tated total domination." In short, the camps and totalitarianism are pro- duced by and productive of sovereign power in its most aberrant manifes- tation. Agamben, note 6, p. 120. 81. Feminists have long argued that it is women who have traditionally been associated with and have occupied this realm outside politics. 82. Hence, this is one of the many reasons for the need to "rescue" her. 83. This is not to deny that great lengths are gone to to protect the lives of its fighters. The revolution in military affairs is significantly moti- vated by this. However, at the end of the day, fighters must be prepared to lay down their lives in the line of duty. 84. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Ongin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso Press, 1991yf S . This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Véronique Pin-Fat and Maria Stem 53 85. H. Lindholm, ed., Ethnicity and Nationalism: Formation of Identity and Dynamics of Conflict in the 1990s (Göteborg, Sweden: Nordnes c/o Padrigu, 1994yf S F I 1 L U D < X Y D O ' D Y L V * H Q G H U D Q G 1 D W L R Q / R Q G R Q : Sage, 1997yf . 86. C. McClintock, "Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism, and the Fam- ily," Feminist Review 45 (1993yf 7 K H X V D J H R I + R P H O D Q G 6 H F X U L W \ L n the "War on Terror" is also significant. 87. Anderson, note 84, p. 7. 88. Andrew Parker et al., eds., Nationalisms and Sexualities (New York: Routledge, 1992yf S . 89. Elshtain, note 20. 90. D. Kandiyoti, "Identity and Its Discontents: Women and the Nation," Millennium, 20, no. 3 (1991yf . 91. In many of the stories about Lynch, she is described by family members in terms of how she was as "daughter, sister, cousin," and so on. See, for example, Rogers et al., "Saved from Danger," note 30. 92. See Elshtain, note 20, part 2. 93. Agamben, note 6, p. 188. 94. Elshtain, note 28, p. 446. 95. Pfc. Lori Piestewa, the first U.S. female fatality of the war, died from wounds incurred in the same attack on the 507th Maintenance Com- pany as that in which Lynch was injured. However, Piestewa's death was obscured by the near death of Lynch. In much of the media coverage reviewed, the death of Piestewa is rarely mentioned; when it is, her death is often depicted as a source of sadness to Lynch (Piestewa was Jessica's "best friend"yf D Q G L V Q R W D G G U H V V H G V H S D U D W H O \ 7 K H Z H L J K W J L Y H Q W K H V X F - cess story of Lynch's rescue and return "home" juxtaposed with the media coverage of her colleague's death serves to support this point. See Barbara Starr, "Report: Fatigue, Errors Led to Fatal Convoy Ambush," CNN. com/world, July 10, 2003: us.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/07/09/sprj. irq. convoy, attack/. This content downloaded from 193.140.194.37 on Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:09:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms