Peace is War and War is Peace

In the film Patlabor 2, police officials get caught up in a struggle of authority between civil and military levels of power, during a terrorist attack. The film’s director Mamoru Oshii takes us on a journey of theoretical mind games in which he uses the antagonist Tsuge, a former Japanese military hero turned rogue, to create chaos against his own country in order for political change to occur and a new form of peace to be established. Society often looks highly upon the idea that there is such a concept as global peace; however in “Patlabor 2” Oshii metaphorically counters this idea with a theory that war is peace and peace is war, that you must have one in order to have the other. This theory goes against traditional theory that peace is accomplished by the idea that war is non-existent; Oshii uses various situations and characters in Patlabor 2 to convince his audience that “war is so called peace, and so called peace is the dormant seed in every war.” We can see evidence in both the film and political theory that supports Oshii’s theory that war and peace coincide. In the film we see Oshii use characters as a main way to depict his theories through dialogue of Arakawa and Captain Gota, as well as the character development of Tsuge. We will also be comparing the theory of Immanuel Kant with the theories/ideas presented in Patlabor 2, in order to solidify Oshii’s theory. Throughout this paper we will discuss the issues of war and peace and how they coincide with each other, and whether or not there is such a thing as a just war and an unjust peace.

War and peace are two very different things when compared with each other, the idea of peace does not usually mesh well with the idea of war; however the idea that war and peace must occur and coincide together is not an idea/theory that is widely accepted by the norm of people, because peace is usually regarded as the result of the absence of war, and war is usually regarded as the action that prevents peace. Oshii portrays his theory that war and peace are very similar and in many ways coincide with each other. We see this many times throughout the film, however one scene specifically provides dialogue that provides the viewer with evidence that war and peace are results of each other; the scene is between Arakawa and Gota when they are on the boat dock discussing the actual thing they are trying to protect:

Arakawa: “We’re a rich country. And what is our wealth built on? The bloody corpses in all these wars. They’re the foundation of our peace. We now put the same effort into indifference that our parents put into war. Other countries comfortably far away pay the price for our prosperous peace. We’ve learned very well how to ignore their suffering.”

Arakawa’s dialogue with Gota portrays a very interesting idea that peace is built on the results of war, and that the reason they have peace within their country is because there are foreign nations fighting wars in order for them to maintain their peaceful way of living; this compliments Oshii’s theory very well in which he shows his audience through this dialogue that peace is not the absence of war, but in fact the result of war. I believe that Oshii uses this dialogue as a pivotal point to show the audience that peace is built because of war; Arakawa clearly states that peace is built on the bloody corpses of war; which gives the audience an insight on what Oshii really feels about the issue of peace. The dialogue is almost a metaphorical way of portraying Oshii’s belief that peace is not always a good thing, that there could be a peace that is unjust; and that unjust peace is the direct result of a war that occurred for the wrong reasons such as: for wealth, natural resources, land, etc. Another quote from the same dialogue specifically targets the idea of just wars versus an unjust peace:

Captain Gota: “And yet it seems to me that the line between a just war and a unjust peace is very faint indeed. If the just war is a lie, is the unjust peace less of a lie? We are told there is peace but we look around us and even if we cannot give it words our lives tell us we cannot believe what we are being told. In the end every war gives way to peace so-called, and every so-called peace is the dormant seed of war.”

Once again Arakawa’s dialogue with Gota shows Oshii’s theory that war and peace coincide with each other, that every form of peace is a result of war and every war is the result of some pursuit of peace. In this portion of the dialogue Oshii presents a new idea within his theory, the idea of whether or not a just peace is actually possible. I think that this part of his theory is very interesting because society views all forms of peace as a positive and just thing; however according to Oshii all peace is the result of every war, so does that imply that every war is just? This scene is also the first time the audience is introduced to the idea that although Japan is not in war its peace is almost fake and unjust as a result of the sovereign rule of the U.S. (result of WWII). I believe that Oshii uses Tsuge’s character to answer that question in which he uses his experiences in the peacekeeping of southeast Asia (beginning scene of the film) to show his viewers what a unjust war is. I believe the opening scene depicts an unjust war. In the opening scene of Patlabor 2 Tsuge leads a platoon of Japanese labors on patrol Southeast Asia; shortly into the scene they were attacked by enemies and could not defend themselves because of direct orders from the UN, which led to the massacre of Tsuge’s men. The reason why Tsuge’s platoon could not fire back and defend themselves against an attacking enemy was a direct result of Japan’s actions during World War II. After World War II the US rewrote Japan’s constitution in which it stated that the nation could not have an organized army and could not participate in combat against other nations. This change in their constitution led to the unjust slaughter of Tsuge’s platoon; Oshii uses this incident as a pivotal way to confirm his theory by showing that peace is always a good thing, but it is not always a result of a just war. (“Peace and War from Patlabor 2”, “Japan after World War II”).

Oshii uses the main antagonist, Yukihito Tsuge, as one of his metaphorical portrayals of peace and war coinciding. The character of Yukihito Tsuge is a rogue ex-lieutenant colonel who went missing after his UN Labor platoon was attacked by armed guerrillas in the Southeast Asian forests (first scene of the film); he plotted the terrorist attacks that occurred during the film which caused the military chaos. Oshii uses Tsuge’s character as a vessel to portray this idea/theory that peace stems from war; Tsuge is the terrorist that wages internal war with his own country (Japan) in order to gain peace within him, and to create a political system that is beneficial to Japan.


(Figure 1)

Tsuge’s bitterness and desire for revenge drives him to create war; however when we analyze his character more we realize that Tsuge is not a villain in which he is naturally evil or that he hates Japan, but rather that he felt like he was done a disservice/he was betrayed by his own country, so in order to regain peace within himself for the death of his platoon he seeks revenge by attacking the soil of the authority that could have saved his men. The reason for Tsuge’s revenge can be explained in two parts; the first is the responsibility his character feels for the death of his platoon, Tsuge feels obligated to avenge the deaths of his platoon, because he felt that he should have given them the right to defend themselves against enemy attacks; the second is the unjust political rule that didn’t allow his men to protect themselves when they really needed to (result of the new constitution of Japan).

The experiences that Tsuge endured would confirm Oshii’s theory that any kind of peace just or unjust is a result of war, and that peace and war are the result of each other. Tsuge believes that the only way for Japan to understand that they need to change their constitution to better their nation is to experience the same thing he and his platoon experienced; this is the underlying reason why he wages war on his own country. Arakawa: “Tsuge's putting us in the same position he was in three years ago: no backup. No rules of engagement. That's how bitter he is.” Tsuge believed that in order for Japan to understand that it living in an unjust peace and a peace that could be threatened without defense, he literally showed them through terrorist attacks that they needed a way to defend themselves, they needed an organized army.


(Figure 2)

At this point in the movie Japan was defenseless, because they couldn’t engage in any form of war/combat with anyone outside of their own country; this is why Tsuge uses an American fighter plane to cause confusion and chaos amongst civil and military officials. Tsuge uses these terrorist attacks to show Japan that they are v[ul]nerable unless they install a form of defense; the reaction he gets is obviously portrayed in a negative way, because it is chaotic. However in the end the audience gets an idea of what Oshii uses Tsuge’s character for. Although Tsuge put Japan under high alert and chaos it was meant as more of a wake-up call to military and political officials; Tsuge uses an American fighter plane to show that Japans security is compromised by its alliance with the U.S. and is a direct result of Japan's security and safety being undermined by the U.S. Tsuge makes a point to civil and military officials that if they don’t want to see innocent lives lost then they need to change the no military engagement rule in the new form of rule. Tsuge uses this dramatic chaos to provide a political stance that would provide a better and safer Japan for the future. Oshii uses Tsuge as an antagonist, but he truly serves as an undercover protagonist, because the normal reaction of hatred towards a terrorist is not actively present, because he reveals Tsuge’s true desire. Tsuge: “Perhaps there is a part of me that wants to see a little more.” This was Tsuge’s answer to the pilot that asked him why he didn’t kill himself after all the chaos he caused. Oshii uses Tsuge’s answer to show the audience that Tsuge’s motives were to create a protected Japan, a Japan that lived off a just peace instead of an unjust war (Anderson 84).

Oshii uses Patlabor 2 into a debate amongst viewers through the topic of peace and war coinciding, and whether or not there is such a thing as a just peace. This topic can be turned into a debate, because viewers are shown both sides of the coin. On one hand it is hard not to be on the side of the UN, because there needs to be a form of global peacekeeping in order to prevent another world war from occurring; however you can’t help but sympathize with Tsuge and his goal to restore Japan to its former glory, because every country needs to have the right to defend itself, because without sovereignty over your own nation you depend on the judgment of other nations for the peace and lives of your people. The drama Oshii creates through this debate is clear in which the audience does not know exactly which side is right and which side is wrong, because although the initial response would be to side with the UN, however seeing Tsuge’s point of view makes you question whether or not the peacekeeping and restrictions the UN and US placed on Japan was legitimate or even in the benefit of the Japan as a nation.

Oshii uses a couple of scenes to reveal this debate, specifically the scene in the control room where the Japanese are confused on whether the not the American plane in pursuit is theirs or not. This scene shows that Japan was in a state of confusion, which resulted from the restrictions put on them by the U.S. They had no identity anymore and didn’t even know what planes belonged to them and what didn’t belonged to them; this shows the audience’s first hesitation on the legitimacy of Japanese defense (the exact thing Tsuge eventually tries to fix); this scene confirms the one side of the coin that supports Tsuge’s terrorist attacks in which Japan needs to break away from UN/US control in order to have a legitimate defense and maintain a just peace. A scene that Oshii uses to show the other side of the coin is the opening scene when Tsuge’s platoon comes under attack, this scene reveals the process in which the UN operates in which attacking back is the second option and waiting for reinforcements and confirmation that it is okay to attack should be the priority. The argument that Oshii provides with the drama of the two scenes is that, should global peace be considered just over an unjust war. The most pivotal scene that wraps the two together would have to be when Tsuge is arrested in the chopper and he reveals that he wants to see the changes Japan makes, because of all the chaos he caused, I believe Oshii solves this debate for us by showing his audience that peace is a result of war and not every peace is just and not every war is unjust. It can be argued over and over what Tsuge did was wrong, however if the end result turned out to help the nation of Japan, can anyone say that it was truly unjust?

Once Tsuge takes his actions against Japan, the nation as a whole is thrown into this political confusion between military and civil officials in which they have no idea whether or not the American aircraft was theirs or was this a terrorist attack from the U.S. Oshii shows chaos and panic in many ways, from the levels of civil power to the levels of military power; Oshii portrays Japan as a nation that was so consumed in their unjust peace that acknowledging an attack on their soil was unthinkable (think how the US felt after 9/11). The reactions from the characters of the film truly portray Tsuge’s actions as positive rather negative, but only after they understand Tsuge’s true motive for his terrorist attacks. Tsuge’s motives were to help Japan realize that they were living in an unjust peace and that in order for them to truly maintain a just peace they must come out of the shadow the U.S. and become a sovereign state again, with their own army and unique constitution. The audience can tell that Tsuge becomes an unordinary antagonist through Oshii’s artistic portrayal of certain scenes that Tsuge is a part of; one specific scene is when he is getting arrested and all the birds fly up in the air. This can be seen as a burden being lifted off of Tsuge in which the birds represent revenge and burden and when his task is finally done and the military and civil authority finally realize his motives the birds fly away as if his burden was gone and he is now at peace. Oshii uses this scene as a way to express his agreement Tsuge’s actions and that he acknowledges that his terrorist actions may have been wrong, but his ideology and belief that Japan needed to change the way they govern themselves is correct. Oshii uses the character of Shinobu Nagumo, a former colleague of Tsuge, to show that the characters in the film understand why he did it, but have to punish his actions because it was still wrong. The audience can see the sadness of Nagumo as she arrests Tsuge, because she knows he is right in the way he wants to better Japan, it was just the way he did it in gives her no choice as a police officer, but to put him under arrest.

The topic of an unjust peace and a just war is a topic brought up many times throughout this essay as well as seen many times throughout the film Patlabor 2; however what real evidence do we have to ensure us that Oshii’s theory is even a relevant theory? Philosopher Immanuel Kant believed in a similar theory to Oshii in which he believed that “a war is only won only by the side that is comprehensively stronger, and since victory and defeat depend solely on relative power, reason declares that war as a procedure for determining rights is absolutely condemned.” If the reason of war is already condemned before it has started then does it not make it right to wage war on a country you already know you can defeat? Kant questions the legitimacy of war and the reasoning behind it; Kant brings up a valid point throughout his writings in which he theorizes that if nations waged war against a nation they knew they could already defeat, then would it not be easier just to solve their disputes in a court of law, and was actual war really necessary? Kant and Oshii’s theory do not stray far from each other; in another part of Kant’s writing he answers his question on the legitimacy of waging war with the idea that war is necessary in order to maintain peace: “asserting that war, not only peace, is absolutely necessary, since war is linked with peace and the moral sanity of a people, he claims that perpetual peace would reduce all peoples perpetual silence”; this quote can confirm Oshii’s theory that they must exist together in order to exist at all. Kant believed that people naturally have different opinions and that war is used to express these opinions, and in order for just peace to truly occur we must go to war to make sure that the opinions of a people is heard and executed.

In Patlabor 2, we can see Kant’s philosophy relevant through the actions of Tsuge in which he felt that war was necessary in order to achieve peace; creating chaos in Japan was the underlying purpose to show that the Nation was vulnerable and that they needed to become their own sovereign nation. During post-world war II Japan was taken over by the U.S. in more ways then one, the U.S. set up military posts on Japanese soil, assimilated them to the U.S. culture, created a new constitution for them, and rebuilt and ran their country as if it was the United States. Tsuge’s actions against Japan can be seen as a people’s voice being heard through war. It is no secret that even though the U.S. was part of the reason of the destruction and reconstruction of Japan, that the way they did it was not exactly to the Japanese liking. Patlabor 2, compliments Kant’s theory really well; however there are aspects of the film that do not necessarily agree completely with his theory; Kant believed that war was necessary to keep peace amongst a people, because war acts as the voice of opinion for a people, however in Patlabor 2, Oshii shows that peace is obtained by being a sovereign nation, it is once again showed through Tsuge’s ideology that if Japan were to maintain some form of peace and be in war they must be sovereign in order to carry out their own ambitions instead of another nations (Hoffe 156, 192).

In conclusion, Oshii metaphorically theorizes that peace and war whether just or unjust must exist with each other, that in order for one to occur the other must as well. We see this theory being portrayed through the dialogue of Arakawa and Captain Gota and the character development of Tsuge; we also can confirm that Oshii’s theory is relevant because it is similar to that of philosopher Immanuel Kant. After researching the topic of peace and war, I can confidently conclude that the idea of peace can only exist as a result of war; I conclude this because we see through many modern day events such as 9/11 that peace comes as a result of war; when a nation is put under chaos and answers back with a resolution it maintains its peace once again. I understand and agree with Kant’s philosophy that war serves as a reality check amongst a people, because sometimes it takes war to show what peace really is, and whether or not a nation has obtained it. Oshii uses Tsuge’s actions of terrorism to portray Japan in a light that many didn’t really see, in which they were at peace, because they were no longer in war, however they lived in an unjust peace, because they were being controlled by the U.S. Oshii showed that sovereignty is an important part of obtaining a just peace in which he uses Tsuge to show that being controlled by another nation can result in a form of peace, but when you have no control of your own state, then this peace is irrelevant because when you are attacked and when you need to defend yourself, you have no say in it. Patlabor 2 provides viewers with an intellectual challenge of norms and average societal thinking, in which it challenges its viewers to think outside of the box, and to focus on whether or not violence (war) is the result of peace, and peace is the underlying creation of war; regardless if it is the type of war that is seen on TV between militaries, or the war with self revenge, every type of war is in the pursuit of some sort of peace, and every type of peace exists because of some action of war.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, Mark. "Oshii Mamoru's Patlabor 2: Terror, Theatricality, and Exceptions That Prove the Rule." (2009): 75-109. Web. 2 June 2011.

Bolton, Christopher, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, and Takayuki Tatsumi. "Patlabor 2 and the Phenomenology of Anime." Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams: Japanese Science Fiction from Origins to Anime. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2007. Print.

Höffe, Otfried. Kant's Cosmopolitan Theory of Law and Peace. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. Print.

Market, Mark T. "Peace and War from Patlabor 2 « The Critical Thinker(tm)." Web. 1 May 2011. .

Patlabor 2. Dir. Mamoru Oshii. 1993. DVD.

Politicizing Art in the Age of Information and Communications Technologies

Patlabor 2 (1993, Kidô keisatsu Patoreibaa 2 the Movie) starts with a battle scene in which a platoon of hostile resistance fighters engages fire against UN mechas using RPG’s. The army fighters destroy the industrialized weapons leaving peacekeeper Kiichi Gotoh bare to witness the rain falling on the Angkor Wat in Cambodia. A crucial shot in the anime film is the close up of Gotoh as he gets out of the industrialized weapon to look at the natural jungles of Cambodia still littered with mines placed by the Khmer Rouge. In the background the jungle sits still while he takes off his helmet only to keep his eyes shut to take in what has happened. As he opens them the lector is able to see a swollen eye along with cuts and profuse bleeding revealing the state of shock that his body is in. The view of the camera then switches focus bringing to the foreground the vast jungle through the eyes of Gotoh as he scans the area during ceasefire. In this reversal between foreground and background the view of the camera takes on a free-floating consciousness embodied in the gaze of the Bayon statue that towers above him. Holding his wounded arm Gotoh looks over his shoulder and gets startled at discovering the immense temples of the Khmer empire. This state of shock that Gotoh is in together with the presence of sacred objects in their natural state produces an aesthetic experience in him that becomes hyper accelerated by its contrast to the overwhelming experience of war. It is in this moment that Gotoh is able to experience the Sublime in a war torn region, a peace outside the realm of war that is not defined by the absence of war but, rather, reveals the limits of war and peace as understood by the United Nations.

As a critique international human rights work carried out by international organizations such as the UN whose stated aims are to spread and gain support in international law, the anime film shows the ways in which the suffering of individuals and groups is intensified by the perpetual warfare required to implement and maintain a certain image of justice. He was one of the early directors that experimented with the upcoming technology of 3D computer graphics. Blending 2D cell-shaded animation and computer graphics his experimental use mixes cel film, a transparent sheet of celluloid or similar material that is drawn on and used in the production of anime films, and 3D computer graphics of his time to draw out the political implications in the technologies of reproducibility of the time. Using the existing technologies of reproducibility of the 90’s and submitting to the conventions of his time (the aesthetic dimension of the present: film animation as a medium, anime as a genre) the director Mamoru Oshii limns the overwhelming complications associated with forcing a particular idea of international human rights on other people. With the presence of the UN in countries such as Thailand and Cambodia, the attempt at establishing human rights becomes uncertain and confused as different groups and organizations pursue their own agenda that does not fit the political schema of the UN and its supporters. The task at hand then for human beings in the position to assist in “stanching the flow of human blood, diminishing cries of human pain, unbending the crouch of human fear…” as Wendy Brown puts it, is not as clear cut and simple as it may seem (Human Rights p. 452). Human rights are supposed to improve living conditions for human beings in extreme situations around the world. However, the crisis that stems from international human rights efforts is that it is not enough nor will it ever be. In supporting lives in underdeveloped countries what were really doing is letting them live longer to struggle; we keep the problem alive at the expense of human lives in order to keep our capitalist life style. Brown’s piece “‘The Most we can Hope for…’: Human Rights and the Politics of Fatalism deals with the some of the same issues present in Oshii’s anime film as well. She writes in regards to human rights,

“human rights are vague and unforeseeable; their content is infinitely malleable; they are more symbolic than substantive; they cannot be grounded in any ontological truth or philosophical principle; in their primordial individualism; they conflict with cultural integrity and are a form of liberal imperialism; they are a guise in which the globalization of capital drapes itself; they entail secular idolatry of the human and are thus as much a religious creed as any other” (p.451).

In other words, human rights cannot be reduced to one maxim, to a categorical imperative in which one would do one thing and one thing only in all circumstances: every situation has its own historical and ontological properties as opposed to Kant who argued that one should act according to the maxim that can be willed universal by everyone in a similar situation, which will always be in accordance to the State Law. Similarly, organizations that attempt to universalize a particular notion of human rights in other countries take for granted what it is that allows for the pursuit of such a goal. The pursuit of an ethical peace is not found in reducing human rights to an ultimate principle but, rather, by producing a breed of human rights activism that does not negate other possible ways of dealing with the crisis at hand.

In the film, the process of restricting human suffering that the UN undertakes perpetuates the very thing it seeks to prohibit: the use of violence will secure the State a sovereign space within which the people who’s rights are protected are able to inhabit, but this space is always something that has to be policed at the expense of other humans whose rights cannot be recognized or grieved as lives. Rather than questioning the system and finding other ways of being politically involved, peacekeepers resort to war in order to keep peace, the terms of war having to strip the intelligibility of some bodies in order to justify the rights of some by necessarily excluding others: the war apparatus remains working within the same system of capital or symbolic surplus rather than trying other ways of handling the crisis, which may require the negotiation of the very terms of liberal rights discourse that is particular to the state. The presence of UN peacekeepers in a country that does not recognize international law only aggravates the situation in creating more human suffering that could have been avoided had they not been there. According to Brown, “…human rights activism is valuable not because it is founded on some transcendent truth, advances some ultimate principle… but rather simply because it is effective in limiting political violence and reducing misery” (452-453). For this reason, the Kantian categorical imperative cannot be used as a justification for the existence of rights discourse, but only the need of considering each crisis in its historical specificity, without generalizations or abstractions into universal laws that often impede the political will towards action. Oshii clearly depicts the exacerbation of the problem and the contradictions of keeping peace through war when we see the objects that symbolize peace being destroyed by the resistant military wing. The function of peacekeepers being sent to patrol foreign countries is to maintain stability and improve the lives of the people. However, the peacekeepers ignite and create more conflicts, more blood flow as in the case with Gotoh and more chaos as a result of conflicts between international law and the various organized militias groups in the area. Additionally, rather than approaching it other ways that can lessen and even end unnecessary human pain, the UN works within the closed system of perpetual violence and it is this working within the dichotomy of war and peace that the UN forces its discourse onto autonomous regions that creates more situations in which dangerous conflicts can break out. As a result, the effects intended by the various activist groups only reproduce the system that creates the conditions for war. Instead of questioning the root problem (liberal imperialism) political organizations keep the system alive in a perpetual state of peace through war.

The first scene that takes place in Cambodia abruptly cuts from a close up of the Bayon head to the 0.98 Labor Operating System training simulation set in Japan for the new Shinohara Heavy Industry Corporation Patrol Labor. Oshii takes us on an excursion from one extreme to the other; from the aesthetic experience that Gotoh has in the still shot of the Bayon face to the transition to Japan’s technologically driven society at the height of its urban sprawl. This juxtaposition of the organic sublime to the inauthenticity of the modern aestheticizes the surreal world of Japan’s futuristic society at the same time that it draws out the aesthetic impression of the Angkor Wat. It brings to the fore the differences between the natural and laborious production in Cambodia to the automated, impersonal and highly technologized world of Japan’s industrial society, creating an ethereal experience characteristic of the modern in this juxtaposition of the late-modern and post-industrial urban scape to its obscene and sustaining underside: the result is precisely the Sublime of the Real trauma as the experience of a primordial jouissance through this play of life and death, peace and war. Indeed, this juxtaposition is quite brilliantly illustrated in the “cyborg” like character of the mecha, a natural and organic character extended in space and time, made more efficient through its technological appendeges which become inextricable from the function of the human in late-modernity:



(Figure 1)[1]


Oshii raises the doubt that improving technology is a solution to the problems found in the first scene. He questions whether we need to improve our technology in order to be able to fight and end conflicts through war more efficiently, since for him they seem to merely extend conflict into previously unfathomable spaces that are the result of technological proliferation itself. In the movie, the technological innovations that take place after the battle between UN mechas and the militia group are supposed to be a solution to the problem, the idea being more powerful weapons will instantiate a universal peace. However, Oshii seems to be proposing the opposite in critiquing the strategies that are undertaken by industrialized nations such as the U.S. who attempt to implement an idea of what peace “is”. Their use of industrialized weaponry to reify the idea of international human rights in other countries fails altogether once the cure to the problem becomes the very disease. If the production and expansion of discourse produces and proliferates the very means of resistance to that discursive assemblage, then Oshii’s critique can be read in a Foucauldian light since the new technologies that are meant to suppress the insurgency simply create new spaces and, thus, new means of resistance that are enabled through technological expansion itself. In starting the film off in Cambodia Oshii questions the U.S. role as an international police unit. The recent violent history of Cambodia dates back to the Vietnam War when the war spread into Cambodia. During the Vietnam War the U.S. bombed the Vietcong along with the parts of Cambodia, their pretext being that Cambodia was a hiding place used by the Vietnam’s People’s Army. The U.S. government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam and, as a result, Cambodia got pulled into the war. The war to fight communism ended with heavy U.S. casualties along with heavy civilian casualties from the bombardment of the Vietcong. After the U.S. pulled out of the war civilian casualties in Cambodia rose to the millions. The Khmer Rouge’s leader Pol Pot took advantage of the countries vulnerability and of the scared citizens after the war as he promised protection and refused Western influence. However, the outcome turned out different. Pol Pot’s plan was to erase the history of Cambodia by killing all the intellectuals, brain washing the youth and starting genocide that led to a death of an estimated 1.5 to 1.7 million.

Incorporating a country that has shown a history of violence and oppression is significant in contextualizing modern international efforts for human rights since the anime film was released in 1993 soon after the Gulf War, which has become characteristic of late-modern conflicts. The Iran-Iraq War began when Iraq launched an invasion of Iran on September 20 1980. Iraq’s air forces attacked Iranian airfields with the intent to destroy the Iranian Air Force base. Saddam Hussein’s reason for invading was a supposed assassination attempt to kill the Foreign Minister of Iraq, Tariq Aziz. The war ended once the UN negotiated ceasefire but this only lasted a few years until the Gulf War began as a result of border conflicts between Iran and Iraq. Both Cambodian history and Middle Eastern history have had border disputes. In the case of the Gulf War the U.S. led the war and called all other nations to join the front against Saddam Hussein and his regime. Cambodia’s history is full of border disputes that date back to the 1400-century. In incorporating Cambodia and its history, Oshii questions U.S. involvement in the Gulf War and their absence in not only Cambodia, but other countries where there is there genocide going on. He questions their role as global police and draws out the contradictions in their global agenda and its effectiveness. Places like Cambodia, Africa and other underdeveloped nations that have had it worse have yet to be aided by the U.S. How can some lives like the lives of Iraqi citizens be recognized as grievable[2] and how can others not be considered lives at all like the Khmer people that have been suffering for centuries as a result of the agenda of other countries. In Frames of War Judith Butler distinguishes between lives that are considered grievable and lives that are not recognized as lives. She writes, “Normative schemes are interrupted by one another, they emerge and fade depending on broader operations of power, and very often come up against spectral versions of what it is they claim to know: thus, there are subjects, and there are “lives” that are not quite recognizable as subjects, and there are “lives” that are not quit – or indeed, are never – recognized as lives (p. 7). In the anime film, the normative schemes set up by the U.S. global policy do not recognize certain lives as grievable as opposed to lives that are in our interest to save. A big question regarding U.S. involvement in the Gulf War and the more recent Iraq war focuses on and asks about the oil that the liberal imperialist society of the U.S. benefits from. Oshii engages in that widespread critique of U.S. intentions which asks whether or not the U.S. political agenda is based on its own self-interest. Given the history of underdeveloped countries such as Africa and other struggling nations like Cambodia, it seems as if the U.S. picks and chooses which lives are worth a life and uses it to normalize and justify human rights efforts.

By the end of the anime movie the technological innovations clearly function to complicate and blur the problems caused by technology and its limitations. As Captain Gotoh finds himself entangled in the political crisis as Yukihito Tsuge, an angry war veteran of the Japanese Self-Defense Force leads a military terrorist group into a violent assault against Tokyo and blows up the Yokohama Bay Bridge. Pat labor 2 draws police commanders Kiichi Gotoh into the chase after Tsuge. But the investigation into the crisis is protected by secrets both personal and political. Oshii uses the technologies of mechanical reproduction particular to his time to politicize art and creates new modes of political life in the age of information and electronic technologies. In the piece "The Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reproducibility" Walter Benjamin is writing at a time when film begins to emerge as a pervasive and accessible medium and technology particular to its time. He argues that man, while limited to the means of technological reproduction of a time, is also capable of rearticulating the uses of those technologies and finding a new means of previously unforeseen modes of political life. In doing so, Benjamin notes that while the aesthetic technologies of time are limiting, they also enable a timeless and constant revolutionizing that cannot be confined to those technologies, effectively equating art to politics. Oshii meets the revolutionary demands that Benjamin seems to be calling for in using computer graphics and cel film animation to depict through art and film the political implications of the world in which the film is imbedded. In this Oshii creates new modes of being involved with politics that were not possible before the invention of the technologies of reproducibility that he uses.


NOTES

1. The new Shinohara Industry Patrol Labor in the anime film is a result of an upgrade from the Hiishii Industries AL97B Hannibal, which is the mecha that Kiichi is in when he gets shot. It is supposed to improve the efficiency and efficacy of international human rights efforts.

2. Professor Judith Butler in Frames of War: The Politics of Ungrievable Life explores the way that recent US-led wars have enforced a distinction between those lives that are recognized as grievable, and those that are not.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media." Selected Writings. Vol. 4. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard UP, 2008. 250-83. Print. 1938-1940.

2. Butler, Judith. Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? London: verso, 2009. Print.

3. Brown, Wendy. "Human Rights and the Politics of Fatalism." The South Atlantic Quarterly 103 (2004): 251-63. Print.