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Writing the war on terrorism: Language, politics and counter-terrorism
'Writing the war on terrorism' examines the public language of the war on terrorism, and the way that rhetoric has been used to justify the global counter-terrorism offensive as a response to 9/11. It discusses how language has been used to deliberately manipulate public anxiety about terrorist threats to gain support for military action, and how the abuse of Iraqi prisoners has been normalised through rhetoric and practice. .
It explains how the war on terrorism has been reproduced and amplified by key social actors and how it has become the dominant political narrative in America today, enjoying widespread bipartisan and popular support. The author argues that the normalisation and institutionalisation of the administration's current counter-terrorism approach is damaging to society's ethical values and to democratic political participation.
Lying at the intersection of International Relations, American politics, terrorism studies, discourse analysis, communication studies and cultural studies, this book will have genuine interdisciplinary appeal.
It explains how the war on terrorism has been reproduced and amplified by key social actors and how it has become the dominant political narrative in America today, enjoying widespread bipartisan and popular support. The author argues that the normalisation and institutionalisation of the administration's current counter-terrorism approach is damaging to society's ethical values and to democratic political participation.
Lying at the intersection of International Relations, American politics, terrorism studies, discourse analysis, communication studies and cultural studies, this book will have genuine interdisciplinary appeal.
- GenresNonfictionPolitics
240 pages, Paperback
First published July 22, 2005
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February 17, 2024
The recent events in Gaza, and the accompanying belligerent Israeli-US rhetoric (with the vapid repetition of the word "terrorists" ad nauseum and utter inability to distinguish between civilians and combatants), remind us that the language of the War on Terror remains a very potent force in the making and unmaking of global politics.
In Writing the war on terrorism, Jackson offers a comprehensive study in political communication, utilising critical discourse analysis to unpack, decode, and synthesise the rhetorical construction of the post-9/11 War on Terror and its consequences. He very comprehensively demonstrates how the Bush administration and its allies weaved together a duplicit narrative of threat and danger to produce (and reproduce) support for its extensive military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as curtailment of domestic civil rights, with significant authoritarian and violent effects. At the same time, this narrative grossly misinterpreted the political violence of groups like al-Qa'idah in favour of simple and arrogant myths (eg. that "terrorists" are pathologically evil and that any attempt to root their ideology in political grievances is erroneous, or that they hate the US for its "freedom"), only - ironically - engendering further grievances for these groups to exploit (p.4).
At the time of writing (2004/5), Jackson notes, there were few studies on the role of language and discourse in the construction of the WoT. But such a study is warranted due to the central importance of language to government justification (and public support) for the endeavour. Indeed, Jackson argues that, in order for 'a government to commit enormous amounts of public resources and risk the lives of its citizens in a military conflict, it has to persuade society that such an undertaking is necessary, desirable and achievable' (p.1). Manufacturing consent for this requires, he argues, 'the construction of a whole new language, or a kind of public narrative, that manufactures approval while simultaneously suppressing individual doubts and wider political protest. It requires the remaking of the world and the creation of a new and unquestionable reality in which the application of state violence appears normal and reasonable' (p.1).
In depressingly prophetic tones, Jackson states early on: 'One of my key concerns in writing this book is that the language of the 'war on terrorism' actually prevents rather than facilitates the search for solutions to political violence; that it actually encourages terrorism and increases the risk of vulnerable populations; that it is entrenching cycles of global violence which will be extremely difficult to break (p.4). Indeed, the past 20 years since this book have only vindicated his prediction. Lest he be accused, however, of sympathising with al-Qa'idah, or in any way justifying the events of 9/11, he clarifies that his 'purpose is not to engage in a critique of American foreign policy or simply to blame America for its own problems', nor he is suggesting that 9/11 was not a real tragedy (p.36), but rather his aim is to search for a new language that combats this violence in a way that remakes the world for the better (p.4), rather than simply ignites further cycles of misery.
The WoT rhetoric is a broad object of study - it is both a set of institutional practices and a set of 'assumptions, beliefs, forms of knowledge and political and cultural narratives' (p.16). At once, it consists of the 'corpus of official speeches, media interviews, press releases, radio and television addresses and articles written by leading figures in the administration', which set the parameters of the discussion and the core assumptions, all the way down to the symbolic manifestations of this discourse in the banal everyday: the waving of flags, logos, memorials, reproduction of images, colour-coded warning systems (p.17-8). To this, we should add (but Jackson strangely omits) the reproduction of this discourse and its assumptions amongst the wider population.
Key to the administration's framing of both 9/11 and the subsequent WoT campaign, is the boundary demarcation between "us" and "them", in which the latter are characterised by the language of evil. Jackson argues: ''evil' is its own motivation and its own self-contained explanation [...] Evil people do what they do simply because they are evil' (p.69). In turn, this language encourages quiescence, enabling us to avoid examining any potential political grievances or causes of their violence. Such a framing then encourages a broader set of dehumanising language ("barbarism", "aliens", "animals", "cancer") designed - again - to discourage any critical examination of "terrorist" motivations and to contrast with the "good" American.
As Jackson understands, the discursive move towards pre-emption carries with it the possibility of this language becoming a broader tool for governments to skirt international law in their own domestic military campaigns (p.11, 13). This has indeed come to pass everywhere from Russia, Syria, and Turkey, to China, Myanmar, and Israel-Palestine, where the constant refrains of "terrorists" dull any prospect of just settlements. Colombia and Northern Ireland are perhaps the exceptions to this.
The most interesting section was the final chapter (before the epilogue), in which Jackson analyses the ways in which this discourse is reproduced in the wider mass media, in music, news reporting, films, television, as well as public performances of remembrance. As he attests, the success of this discourse in entrenching itself in the American psyche can be seen in the 'extent to which alternative narratives and discourses have been marginalised and silenced in public debates. It is widely agreed by observers that alternative and critical voices are rarely heard in the political arena in America, and virtually all of the voices of the debate is confined to contestations over tactics and strategies, rather than over substantive or foundational issues' (p.161). This also has wider implications in the public sphere, demonstrated by public polling that showed consistent support for the US's military endeavours, propped up by a media willing to play its part (p.164-72). Indeed, I almost wish the weight of his book had been predominantly on *this* aspect of the WoT, the socio-political impact of the discourse, rather than spending 5 chapters forensically unpacking the content of it. Nevertheless, in this way, Jackson's book offers a jumping off point for further research.
A minor annoyance is the uncritical use of the word "terrorism", which peppers Jackson's own analysis as though he does believe in an objective phenomenon called "terrorism" distinct from other forms of political violence (p.4). A deeper analysis might have probed the ambiguity inherent (and connotations loaded) within the term, as it provided a lazy shorthand for war hawks to quieten dissent in the very same ways this book identifies, and continues to signal an ethical stance much more than it supposedly explains a programmatic tactic. Indeed, Jackson even recognises this when he approvingly quotes an earlier scholar's assertion that to 'call an act of political violence terrorist is not merely to describe it but to judge it' (p.23).
In Writing the war on terrorism, Jackson offers a comprehensive study in political communication, utilising critical discourse analysis to unpack, decode, and synthesise the rhetorical construction of the post-9/11 War on Terror and its consequences. He very comprehensively demonstrates how the Bush administration and its allies weaved together a duplicit narrative of threat and danger to produce (and reproduce) support for its extensive military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as curtailment of domestic civil rights, with significant authoritarian and violent effects. At the same time, this narrative grossly misinterpreted the political violence of groups like al-Qa'idah in favour of simple and arrogant myths (eg. that "terrorists" are pathologically evil and that any attempt to root their ideology in political grievances is erroneous, or that they hate the US for its "freedom"), only - ironically - engendering further grievances for these groups to exploit (p.4).
At the time of writing (2004/5), Jackson notes, there were few studies on the role of language and discourse in the construction of the WoT. But such a study is warranted due to the central importance of language to government justification (and public support) for the endeavour. Indeed, Jackson argues that, in order for 'a government to commit enormous amounts of public resources and risk the lives of its citizens in a military conflict, it has to persuade society that such an undertaking is necessary, desirable and achievable' (p.1). Manufacturing consent for this requires, he argues, 'the construction of a whole new language, or a kind of public narrative, that manufactures approval while simultaneously suppressing individual doubts and wider political protest. It requires the remaking of the world and the creation of a new and unquestionable reality in which the application of state violence appears normal and reasonable' (p.1).
In depressingly prophetic tones, Jackson states early on: 'One of my key concerns in writing this book is that the language of the 'war on terrorism' actually prevents rather than facilitates the search for solutions to political violence; that it actually encourages terrorism and increases the risk of vulnerable populations; that it is entrenching cycles of global violence which will be extremely difficult to break (p.4). Indeed, the past 20 years since this book have only vindicated his prediction. Lest he be accused, however, of sympathising with al-Qa'idah, or in any way justifying the events of 9/11, he clarifies that his 'purpose is not to engage in a critique of American foreign policy or simply to blame America for its own problems', nor he is suggesting that 9/11 was not a real tragedy (p.36), but rather his aim is to search for a new language that combats this violence in a way that remakes the world for the better (p.4), rather than simply ignites further cycles of misery.
The WoT rhetoric is a broad object of study - it is both a set of institutional practices and a set of 'assumptions, beliefs, forms of knowledge and political and cultural narratives' (p.16). At once, it consists of the 'corpus of official speeches, media interviews, press releases, radio and television addresses and articles written by leading figures in the administration', which set the parameters of the discussion and the core assumptions, all the way down to the symbolic manifestations of this discourse in the banal everyday: the waving of flags, logos, memorials, reproduction of images, colour-coded warning systems (p.17-8). To this, we should add (but Jackson strangely omits) the reproduction of this discourse and its assumptions amongst the wider population.
Key to the administration's framing of both 9/11 and the subsequent WoT campaign, is the boundary demarcation between "us" and "them", in which the latter are characterised by the language of evil. Jackson argues: ''evil' is its own motivation and its own self-contained explanation [...] Evil people do what they do simply because they are evil' (p.69). In turn, this language encourages quiescence, enabling us to avoid examining any potential political grievances or causes of their violence. Such a framing then encourages a broader set of dehumanising language ("barbarism", "aliens", "animals", "cancer") designed - again - to discourage any critical examination of "terrorist" motivations and to contrast with the "good" American.
As Jackson understands, the discursive move towards pre-emption carries with it the possibility of this language becoming a broader tool for governments to skirt international law in their own domestic military campaigns (p.11, 13). This has indeed come to pass everywhere from Russia, Syria, and Turkey, to China, Myanmar, and Israel-Palestine, where the constant refrains of "terrorists" dull any prospect of just settlements. Colombia and Northern Ireland are perhaps the exceptions to this.
The most interesting section was the final chapter (before the epilogue), in which Jackson analyses the ways in which this discourse is reproduced in the wider mass media, in music, news reporting, films, television, as well as public performances of remembrance. As he attests, the success of this discourse in entrenching itself in the American psyche can be seen in the 'extent to which alternative narratives and discourses have been marginalised and silenced in public debates. It is widely agreed by observers that alternative and critical voices are rarely heard in the political arena in America, and virtually all of the voices of the debate is confined to contestations over tactics and strategies, rather than over substantive or foundational issues' (p.161). This also has wider implications in the public sphere, demonstrated by public polling that showed consistent support for the US's military endeavours, propped up by a media willing to play its part (p.164-72). Indeed, I almost wish the weight of his book had been predominantly on *this* aspect of the WoT, the socio-political impact of the discourse, rather than spending 5 chapters forensically unpacking the content of it. Nevertheless, in this way, Jackson's book offers a jumping off point for further research.
A minor annoyance is the uncritical use of the word "terrorism", which peppers Jackson's own analysis as though he does believe in an objective phenomenon called "terrorism" distinct from other forms of political violence (p.4). A deeper analysis might have probed the ambiguity inherent (and connotations loaded) within the term, as it provided a lazy shorthand for war hawks to quieten dissent in the very same ways this book identifies, and continues to signal an ethical stance much more than it supposedly explains a programmatic tactic. Indeed, Jackson even recognises this when he approvingly quotes an earlier scholar's assertion that to 'call an act of political violence terrorist is not merely to describe it but to judge it' (p.23).
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