Discourse since September 11, 2001 has constrained and shaped public discussion and debate surrounding terrorism worldwide. Social actors in the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere employ the language of the “war on terror” to explain, react to, justify and understand a broad range of political, economic and social phenomena. Discourse, War and Terrorism explores the discursive production of identities, the shaping of ideologies, and the formation of collective understandings in response to 9/11 in the United States and around the world. At issue are how enemies are defined and identified, how political leaders and citizens react, and how members of societies understand their position in the world in relation to terrorism. Contributors to this volume represent diverse sub-fields involved in the critical study of language, including perspectives from sociocultural linguistics, communication, media, cultural and political studies.

Considers the principal members of Coalition of the Willing in Afghanistan &Iraq: the United States, Britain & Australia. Despite significant cultural, historical and political overlap, the War on Terror was nevertheless rendered possible in these contexts in distinct ways, drawing on different discourses, narratives of foreign policy, identity.

Since 11 September 2001, the War on Terror has dominated global political life. The book takes a critical look at different ways in which the George W. Bush administration created and justified this far-reaching conflict through their use of language and other discursive practices.

This book examines the language of the war on terrorism and is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand how the Bush administration's approach to counter-terrorism became the dominant policy paradigm in American politics today.

Blending concepts from 'dramatism' such as 'victimage ritual' with Foucault's approach to modern power and knowledge regimes, this book presents a novel and illuminating perspective on political power and domination resulting from the global war on terrorism. With attention to media sources and political discourse within the context of the global war on terror, the author draws attention to the manner in which power elites construct scapegoats by way of a victimage ritual, thus providing themselves with a political pretext for extending their power and authority over new territories and populations, as well as legitimating an intensification of domestic surveillance and social control. A compelling analysis of ritual rhetoric and political violence, Power, Discourse and Victimage Ritual in the War on Terror will be of interest to sociologists, political theorists and scholars of media and communication concerned with questions of surveillance and social control, political communication, hegemony, foreign policy and the war on terror.

This book offers an accessible and timely analysis of the ‘War on Terror’, based on an innovative approach to a broad range of theoretical and empirical research. It uses ‘gendered orientalism’ as a lens through which to read the relationship between the George W. Bush administration, gendered and racialized military intervention, and global politics. Khalid argues that legitimacy, power, and authority in global politics, and the ‘War on Terror’ specifically, are discursively constructed through representations that are gendered and racialized, and often orientalist. Looking at the ways in which ‘official’ US ‘War on Terror’ discourse enabled military intervention into Afghanistan and Iraq, the book takes a postcolonial feminist approach to broaden the scope of critical analyses of the ‘War on Terror’ and reflect on the gendered and racial underpinnings of key relations of power within contemporary global politics. This book is a unique, innovative and significant analysis of the operation of race, orientalism, and gender in global politics, and the ‘War on Terror’ specifically. It will be of great interest to scholars and graduates interested in gender politics, development, humanitarian intervention, international (global) relations, Middle East politics, security, and US foreign policy.

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: A+, , course: Discourse and Society, language: English, abstract: On the basis of Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis this work will examine the discourse in two speeches by George W. Bush and Barack Obama to determine in what way they legitimize the War on Terror. Although speeches on terrorism have been part of American politics for a long time, since 2001 as a result of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, they seem to have become more important, both with ex-President Bush and the current President Obama. On the morning of September 11, 2001 the world changed with the terrorist attacks and then the political discourse surrounding the event changed our understanding of the event even further. The world witnessed a great act of terrorism. In the weeks, months, and years to come Bush gave a series of speeches in which he focused on terrorism, leading up to the coinage of the "Axis of evil". However, in his first post 9/11 speech, Bush's discourse categorized the terrorist as "evil", and in his first speech to Congress post 9/11 we hear for the first time the phrase "War on Terror". This phrase has come to define the presidency of George Bush. It was inherited and further refined by President Obama and has now also to a degree come to define his presidency. In September 2014 Obama held a speech on ISIL and declared them a terrorist organisation with barbaric values. Though 13 years had passed and a democratic President had replaced a Republican President, these words sounds very similar to some of the words which Bush used in his speech.