Mixed media on particleboard
134cm X 49.53cm (52.75” X 19.5”)

Civilized nations look with horror upon offers or rewards for the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism.

The United States Army Lieber Code of 1863

When Seal Team Six killed Osama Bin Laden in May of 2011 no one I talked to had one moment of pause that their tax dollars had funded a mafia hit.

The United States Army Lieber Code of 1863 states, Civilized nations look with horror upon offers or rewards for the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism.

After the death of Bin Laden I was skimming through Time Magazine’s 100 Greatest Images and came across the Eddie Adams’ Pulitzer Prize winning photo. But instead of the face of the grimacing soldier, the shooter General Loan and the victim, Nguyễn Văn Lém, I saw the faces of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden.

The title of the painting, “We know who you are, fucker”, was taken from graffiti seen by Eddie Adams scrawled on the bathroom wall of Les Trois Continents, a pizza parlor owned by Loan when he emigrated to the U.S. after the Vietnam War. His past discovered, Loan went into retirement.

The victim, Lém, had been guilty of war crimes yet the murder horrified people all over the world. Now no one blinks an eye.