Sovereign Authority
2003
Video
2 minutes

On March 19, 2003 at approximately 02:30 GMT U.S. led forces launched Operation Iraqi Freedom with military strikes on Iraq. Soon after that President Bush appeared on live TV to announce to the American people the beginning of the war in Iraq. I recorded the speech and manipulated the recorded voice to state some truths that were not addressed by the President. It is my contention that the altered transcript more accurately portrays the U.S. position than does any communiqué that might come from the Administration.

To add visual weight I edited images of bomb blasts and distorted views of the President's face with the faces of women taken from pornographic films. The juxtaposition of violence with sex is emblematic of the two main drivers in American culture.

Although this work was completed more than three years ago it remains relevant; the real reasons for the U.S.'s invasion and occupation of Iraq are still clouded by questions. Stan Woodard

Sovereign Authority (video still), 2003, 2 minutes

Click here to see the video
(thanks to gnosisarts.org, Quicktime required);
read the transcript below.

Shock and awe
On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of innocent civilians.
Our goal oil wells... oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the American people.
The United States of America has the sovereign authority to kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other.
We come to Iraq with an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.
America and her friends have trained and harbored terrorists including members of Al Qaida.
For more than a decade the United States and other nations have pursued weapons of mass destruction.
We will accept no outcome but the final atrocity.