Between Two Deaths 
Slavoj Žižek
Does anyone still remember ‘Comical Ali’, Saddam’s information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who, in his daily press conferences, heroically stuck to the Iraqi line in the face of the most glaring evidence? (He was still claiming that TV footage of US tanks on the streets of Baghdad were just Hollywood special effects when the tanks were only a few hundred yards from his office.) He didn’t always fail to make sense, however. Confronted with claims that the US army was already in control of parts of Baghdad, he snapped back: ‘They are not in control of anything – they don’t even control themselves!’ I was reminded of that when news of the weird goings-on in the Abu Ghraib prison broke a few weeks ago.
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Slavoj Žižek is a dialectical-materialist philosopher and psychoanalyst. He also co-directs the International Centre for Humanities at Birkbeck College. His most recent book is In Defence of Lost Causes (Verso).
Other articles by this contributor:
Freud Lives! · dreaming
Resistance Is Surrender · What to Do about Capitalism
Are we in a war? Do we have an enemy? · Love Thy Neighbour
Use Your Illusions · Obama’s Victory and the Financial Meltdown
Knee-Deep · Leftist Platitudes
The Two Totalitarianisms · Stalin applauded too
Attempts to Escape the Logic of Capitalism · Václav Havel
‘You May!’ · the post-modern superego
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