Dismembering the dead: Violence, vulnerability and the body in war

DOI10.1177/1354066115618244
Published date01 December 2016
Date01 December 2016
AuthorThomas Gregory
European Journal of
International Relations
2016, Vol. 22(4) 944 –965
© The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1354066115618244
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Dismembering the dead:
Violence, vulnerability and the
body in war
Thomas Gregory
University of Auckland, New Zealand
Abstract
On 15 January 2010, two soldiers killed an unarmed boy in the Afghan village of La
Mohammad Kalay before dismembering his body and posing for photographs with his
corpse. Although the soldiers were eventually sentenced to prison for their involvement
in this attack and two other incidents, very little has been said about the nature of the
violence they inflicted on the bodies of their victims. Drawing on the work of the Italian
feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero, this article will explore the violence inflicted by
the so-called Afghan Kill Team, focusing particular attention on the ethical questions
posed by a violence that ‘overshoots the elementary goal of taking a life and dedicates
itself to destroying the living being as a singular body’ (Cavarero, 2011: 12). I will argue
that this level of violence is no longer concerned with questions of life and death, but
seeks to destroy the body as body, challenging the ways in which we have traditionally
conceptualised the pain and suffering caused by war. This argument will refocus our
attention on the constitutive vulnerability of the body, as well as the processes of
dehumanisation that leave certain bodies more vulnerable than others.
Keywords
Adriana Cavarero, civilian casualties, horrorism, the body, violence, war
Introduction
The reality of war is not just politics by any other means but politics incarnate, politics written on
and experienced through the thinking, feeling bodies of men and women. (McSorley, 2012: 1)
Corresponding author:
Thomas Gregory, Politics and International Relations, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Victoria
Street West, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand.
Email: t.gregory@auckland.ac.nz
618244EJT0010.1177/1354066115618244European Journal of International RelationsGregory
research-article2015
Article
Gregory 945
On 15 January 2010, a convoy of armoured troop carriers left Forward Operating Base
Ramrod in the Afghan province of Kandahar and headed for the isolated farming vil-
lage of La Mohammad Kalay. Reports indicated that locals were providing shelter to
Taliban insurgents in a maze of secret tunnels around the village, and a group of sol-
diers from 5th Stryker Brigade were sent to investigate. What they discovered upon
their arrival was not the network of enemy hideouts they were expecting, but the ‘frus-
tratingly familiar sight [of] destitute Afghan farmers living without electricity or run-
ning water; bearded men with poor teeth in tattered traditional clothes; young kids
eager for candy and money’ (Boal, 2011). The absence of enemy activity did not,
however, stop two soldiers from executing a plan they had hatched back on base. As
senior officers spoke with village elders, Spc. Jeremy Morlock and Pfc. Andrew
Holmes peeled off from the rest of their unit and went in search of ‘someone to kill’
(Morlock, quoted in Ashton, 2010).
They eventually came across a 15-year-old boy named Gul Mudin working alone in
his father’s poppy field on the outskirts of the village. As the soldiers approached Mudin,
they shouted at him in broken Pashto, demanding that he lift his shirt to show that he was
unarmed (Boone, 2011). Although it was clear that he posed no threat to their safety, the
soldiers detonated a grenade to create the impression that they had been attacked. As
soon as it exploded they opened fire, shooting at Mudin until his body buckled and col-
lapsed into a pool of his own blood (Boal, 2011; Der Spiegel, 2011; Goetz and Hujer,
2011). However, the violence did not stop there. After stripping the boy naked and check-
ing his details on a biometric scanner, they took it in turns to pose for photographs with
his corpse. In one picture, Morlock can be seen crouching alongside the dead body with
a smile across his face, holding his thumbs up for the camera (Boone, 2011). In another
image, Holmes is pictured holding the boy’s body aloft by a scruff of his hair as if he
were a prize stag killed on a weekend hunt (Hersh, 2011). After they had finished taking
photographs, Staff Sergeant Gibbs took a pair of medical shears from his pack and
removed the little finger from Mudin’s hand, presenting it to Holmes and Morlock in a
small ziplock bag as a souvenir of their first ‘combat kill’ (Whitlock, 2010).
This was the first in a series of incidents involving members of the so-called Afghan
Kill Team, which resulted in the deaths of at least three civilians and the removal of vari-
ous body parts. Collectively, these attacks are now known as the Maywand District
Murders. The excessive level of violence and the brutal nature of the attacks raise impor-
tant questions about the political significance of crimes that are no longer primarily con-
cerned with matters of life and death. How are we to make sense of a violent act that
exceeds what is necessary to kill? What do these attacks reveal about the normative
violence that renders certain populations so disposable and their bodies so profoundly
woundable? How does the dismemberment of the body as a physical entity feed back
into these processes of dehumanisation? The aim of this article, therefore, is to explore
the political significance of a violent act that exceeds what is necessary to kill the victim
and focuses instead on the destruction of their body. Drawing on the work of the Italian
feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero, this article will re-examine the violence enacted
by members of the Afghan Kill Team by foregrounding the dismembered bodies of the
victims rather than the perspective of the individual perpetrators or the legal regimes that
have been invoked to prosecute them.

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