A critical discourse analysis of George W. Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ speech

the rhetoric of (counter)terrorism and the logic of Islamophobia

Authors

  • Robert K. Beshara University of Western Georgia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jld.34307

Keywords:

critical discourse analuysis, George W. Bush, war on trror, Islamophobia, Lacanian psychoanalysis

Abstract

In this article, I dissect an excerpt from George W. Bush’s address to a joint session of Congress and the American people wherein the former President of the United States (POTUS) uttered the (catch)phrase the ‘war on terror’ (WOT). To accomplish this dissection, I apply Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) together with Lacanian psychoanalysis among other critical tools. My aim here is to deconstruct/recode the WOT discourse in the hope of opening up possibilities for alternative, and more constructive, counter-discourses on the social problem of ‘terrorism’ that afford multiple subject positions beyond the (counter)terrorism binary. As an Orientalist ideology, the WOT indexes the larger archive of American exceptionalism and can be traced back to the rise of the neo-conservative movement in the 1980s. This analysis is particularly relevant in the context of the current political climate in the United States, where the WOT rhetoric continues to normalise the logic of Islamophobia.

References

Aguilera-Carnerero, C. and Azeez, A. H. (2016) ‘Islamonausea, not Islamophobia’: the many faces of cyber hate speech. Journal of Arab and Muslim Media Research 9(1): 21–40. https://doi.org/10.1386/jammr.9.1.21_1

Al-Shaykh, H. (1990) Despair, resignation, masochism, and madness. In E. Accad (ed.) Sexuality and War: Literary Masks of the Middle East. New York: New York University Press.

Anderson, L. (2015) Countering Islamophobic media representations: the potential role of peace journalism. Global Media and Communication 11(3): 255–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/1742766515606293

Azpíroz, M. L. (2013) Framing as a tool for mediatic diplomacy analysis: study of George W. Bush’s political discourse in the ‘War on Terror’. Comunicación y Sociedad 26(2): 176.

Battle, J. (2010) THE IRAQ WAR – PART I: The U.S. Prepares for Conflict, 2001. The National Security Archive. http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB326/

index.htm

Belt, D. D. (2016) Anti-Islam discourse in the United States in the decade after 9/11: the role of social conservatives and cultural politics. Journal of Ecumenical Studies 51(2): 210–23. https://doi.org/10.1353/ecu.2016.0016

Bergen, P. and Cruickshank, P. (2007) The Iraq effect: war has increased terrorism worldwide sevenfold. Mother Jones, 1 March. http://www.motherjones.com/

politics/2007/03/iraq-101-iraq-effect-war-iraq-and-its-impact-war-terrorism-pg-1

Blackman, L. and Walkerdine, V. (2001) Mass Hysteria, Critical Psychology and Media Studies. London, UK: Palgrave Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-91159-2

Blumenthal, S. (2007) Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. Salon, 6 September. http://www.salon.com/2007/09/06/bush_wmd

Borradori, G. (2003) Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Boulton, J. (2013) Defining the enemy: myth and representation in the War on Terror. Explorations in Anthropology 12(1).

Burkholder, R. (2002) Jihad – ‘holy war’, or internal spiritual struggle? Gallup. http://www.gallup.com/poll/7333/jihad-holy-war-internal-spiritual-struggle.aspx

Bush, G. H. (1991) Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union, 29 January. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=19253

Bush, G. W. (2001a) Remarks by the President upon Arrival: The South Lawn, 16 September. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/11/

-11.html

Bush, G. W. (2001b) Text of George Bush’s Speech. The Guardian, 21 September, London. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/21/september11.usa13

Butler, J. (2004) Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso.

Cashin, S. (2010) To be Muslim or ‘Muslim-looking’ in America: a comparative exploration of racial and religious prejudice in the 21st century. Duke Florida and Social Change 2: 125.

Cheng, J. E. (2015) Islamophobia, Muslimophobia or racism? Parliamentary discourses on Islam and Muslims in debates on the minaret ban in Switzerland. Discourse and Society 26(5): 562–86. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926515581157

Chengu, G. (2014) How the US helped create Al Qaeda and ISIS. Counterpunch, 19 September. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/19/how-the-us-helped-create-

al-qaeda-and-isis

Chomsky, N. (1999) Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order. New York: Seven Stories Press.

Chomsky, N. (2002) Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda. New York: Seven Stories Press.

Chomsky, N. (2012) ‘Losing’ the world: American decline in perspective, part 1. The Guardian, 14 February, London. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb/14/losing-the-world-american-decline-noam-chomsky

Clarke, S. and Hoggett, P. (2004) The empire of fear: the American political psyche and the culture of paranoia. Psychodynamic Practice 10(1): 89–106. https://doi.org/10.1080/14753630310001656018

Collet, T. and Najem, T. (2005) Word Choices in Post-9/11 Speeches and the Identity Construction of the Other. Canadian Political Science Association.

Coulter, A. (2001). Future widows of America: write your congressman. Jewish World Review, 27 September. http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/coulter092801.asp

Cronick, K. (2002) The discourse of President George W. Bush and Osama Bin Laden: a rhetorical analysis and hermeneutic interpretation. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung (Forum: Qualitative Social Research) 3(3).

Curtis, A. (writer/director) (2004) The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear (Motion picture). UK: BBC.

DeFoster, R. (2015) Orientalism for a new millennium: cable news and the specter of the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’. Journal of Communication Inquiry 39(1): 63. https://doi.org/10.1177/0196859914536577

Derrida, J. (1968/1973) Difference. In Speech and phenomena, and other essays on Husserl’s theory of signs. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

Ekman, M. (2015) Online Islamophobia and the politics of fear: manufacturing the green scare. Ethnic and Racial Studies 38(11): 1986–2002. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.1021264

Engelhardt, T. (2011) Imperial decline: how does it feel to be inside a dying empire? Alternet, 19 April. http://www.alternet.org/story/150667/imperial_decline%3A

_how_does_it_feel_to_be_inside_a_dying_empire

Erjavec, K. and VolÄiÄ, Z. (2007) ‘War on terrorism’ as a discursive battleground: Serbian recontextualization of G. W. Bush’s discourse. Discourse and Society 18(2): 123–37. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926507073370

Evans, D. (1996) An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. London, UK: Routledge.

Fairclough, N. (2001) The discourse of new labour: critical discourse analysis. In M. Wetherell, S. Taylor and S. J. Yates (eds) Discourse as Data: A Guide for Analysis 229–66. London: SAGE.

Fairclough, N. (2009) Language and globalization. Semiotica 173: 317–42. https://doi.org/10.1515/SEMI.2009.014

Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (trans. A. Sheridan). New York: Vintage.

Foucault, M. (1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon.

Graham, P., Keenan, T. and Dowd, A. M. (2004) A call to arms at the end of history: a discourse–historical analysis of George W. Bush’s declaration of war on terror. Discourse and Society 15(2–3): 199–221. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926504041017

Harress, C. (2014) Obama says cyberterrorism is country’s biggest threat, U.S. government assembles ‘cyber warriors’. International Business Times, 18 February. http://www.ibtimes.com/obama-says-cyberterrorism-countrys-biggest-threat-us-

government-assembles-cyber-warriors-1556337

Harvey, D. (2003) The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Herman, E. S. and Chomsky, N. (1988) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.

Jackson, R. (2005a) Language, power and politics: critical discourse analysis and the War on Terrorism. 49th Parallel 1.

Jackson, R. (2005b) Security, democracy, and the rhetoric of counter-terrorism. Democracy and Security 1(2): 147–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/17419160500322517

Jackson, R. (2006) Genealogy, ideology, and counter-terrorism: writing wars on terrorism from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush Jr. Studies in Language and Capitalism 1(1): 163–93.

Jackson, R. (2007) The core commitments of critical terrorism studies. European Political Science 6(3): 244–51. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.eps.2210141

Jameson, F. (1981) The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Jones, L. (2016) ‘If a Muslim says “homoâ€, nothing gets done’: racist discourse and in-group identity construction in an LGBT youth group. Language in Society 45(1): 113–33. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404515000792

Jones, S. G. and Libicki, M. C. (2008) How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa’ida. RAND Corporation. https://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG741-1.html

Khan, A. and Gopal, A. (2017) The uncounted. New York Times Magazine. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/16/magazine/uncounted-civilian-casualties-iraq-airstrikes.html

Kruglanski, A. W., Crenshaw, M., Post, J. M. and Victoroff, J. (2008). What should this fight be called? Metaphors of counterterrorism and their implications. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 8(3): 97–133. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6053.

00035.x

Kumar, D. (2014) Mediating racism. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 7(1): 9–26. https://doi.org/10.1163/18739865-00701001

Lacan, J. (1999) The seminar of Jacques Lacan: encore 1972–1973. In J. Miller (ed.) On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and Knowledge (trans. B. Fink). New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

Lacan, J. (2004) Écrits: A Selection (trans. B. Fink). New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

Lacan, J. (2006) EÌcrits: The First Complete Edition in English (trans. B. Fink). New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

Lacan, J. (2007) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis (trans. R. Grigg). New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

Lacan, J. (2011) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: R.S.I. (trans. C. Gallagher). Unpublished manuscript. http://www.lacaninireland.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Book-22-RSI-updated-24-7-2011.pdf

Lakoff, G. (2005) War on terror, rest in peace. Alternet, 31 July. http://www.alternet.org/story/23810/war_on_terror,_rest_in_peace

Leech, G. (2016) Islamic extremism is a product of Western Imperialism. Counterpunch, 30 March. http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/30/islamic-extremism-is-

a-product-of-western-imperialism

Lipka, M. (2017) Muslims and Islam: Key Findings in the US and Around the World. Pew Research Center. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/09/muslims-

and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world

McCoy, A. W. (2010) The decline and fall of the American empire. Nation, 6 December. http://www.thenation.com/article/156851/decline-and-fall-american-empire

Merriam-Webster (n.d.) War. Merriam-Webster Online. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/war

Mertz, D. (1995) The racial other in Nationalist subjectivations: a Lacanian analysis. Rethinking Marxism 8(2): 77–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/08935699508685443

Mihas, E. (2005) Non-Literal Language in Political Discourse. http://vanhise.lss.wisc.edu/ling/files/ling_old_web/lso/wpl/5.1/LSOWP5.1-10-Mihas.pdf

Miller, J. A. (1997) The drive is speech. Umbr (a): A Journal of the Unconscious 1: 15–34.

Moosavi, L. (2013) Islamophobia in the representations of Islam and Muslims by the British government between 2001 and 2007. Turkish Journal of Sociology 2(3/27): 334.

Mylonas, Y. (2012) Reinventing political subjectivities: studying critical documentaries on the war on terror. Social Semiotics 22(4): 353–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2012.665263

Nabers, D. (2009) Filling the void of meaning: identity construction in US foreign policy after September 11, 2001. Foreign Policy Analysis 5(2): 191–214. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-8594.2009.00089.x

New York Magazine (n.d.) 9/11 by the Numbers. New York. http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/sept11/features/n_7692

Nimmer, L. (2007) De-contextualization in the terrorism discourse: a social constructionist view. Discourse 42(3): 394.

Perezalonso, A. (2009) Truth Matters: An Assessment of Foucauldian Discourse Analysis Through the Case Study of the George W. Bush’s Administration’s War on Terrorism (Doctoral dissertation). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database.

Pew Research Center (2008) Statistics on Religion in America Report. http://religions.pewforum.org/reports

Phillips, R. (2011) Remembering Islamic empires: speaking of imperialism and Islamophobia. New Formations 70(1): 94–112. https://doi.org/10.3898/NEWF.70.06.2010

Raicu, I. (2009) Political discourse and the ‘war on terror’ within the framework of CDA. Diversité et identité culturelle en Europe 6: 34–45.

Rapoport, D. C. (2002) The four waves of rebel terror and September 11. Anthropoetics 8(1): 1–17.

Reifer, T. E. (2006) Militarization, globalization, and Islamist social movements: how today’s ideology of Islamophobia fuels militant Islam. Human Architecture 5(1): 51–72.

Reyes, A. (2011) Strategies of legitimization in political discourse: from words to actions. Discourse and Society 22(6): 781–807. https://doi.org/10.1177/

Reyes-Rodríguez, A. (2006) Speeches and declarations: a war of words. Revista alicantina de estudios ingleses 19: 365–86. https://doi.org/10.14198/raei.2006.19.20

Saghaye-Biria, H. (2012) American Muslims as radicals? A critical discourse analysis of the US congressional hearing on ‘The extent of radicalization in the American Muslim community and that community’s response’. Discourse and Society 23(5): 508–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926512452972

Sahlane, A. (2012) Argumentation and fallacy in the justification of the 2003 war on Iraq. Argumentation 26(4): 459–88. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-012-9265-8

Said, E. W. (1979) Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.

Sarfo, E. and Krampa, E. A. (2013) Language at war: a critical discourse analysis of speeches of Bush and Obama on terrorism. International Journal of Social Sciences and Education 3(2): 378–90.

Schmid, A. P. (2012) The revised academic consensus definition of terrorism. Perspectives on Terrorism 6(2): 158–9.

Snow, N. and Taylor, P. M. (2006) The revival of the propaganda state – US propaganda at home and abroad since 9/11. International Communication Gazette 68(5–6): 389–407. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748048506068718

Solheim, S. (2006) Either You are With Us, or You are With the Terrorists: A Discourse Analysis of President George W. Bush’s Declared War on Terrorism (Master’s thesis). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database.

Stanford University (2012). Al Qaeda – Mapping Militant Organizations, 28 November. http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/21

Szpunar, P. M. (2013) The horror at Fort Hood: disseminating American exceptionalism. Media, Culture and Society 35(2): 182–98. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443712468607

Törnberg, A. and Törnberg, P. (2016) Combining CDA and topic modeling: analyzing discursive connections between Islamophobia and anti-feminism on an online forum. Discourse and Society 27(4): 401–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926516634546

Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs (2016) Costs of War: Human Costs. http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human

Weaver, S. (2013) A rhetorical discourse analysis of online anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic jokes. Ethnic and Racial Studies 36(3): 483–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2013.734386

Weintraub, M. (2007) The formative power of wartime rhetoric: a critical discourse analysis of presidential speeches. Gnovis: A Journal of Communication, Culture and Technology. http://www.gnovisjournal.org/files/Weintraub-Presidential-Speech.pdf

Žižek, S. (1997) The Plague of Fantasies. New York: Verso.

Žižek, S. (1998) The seven veils of fantasy. In D. Nobus (ed.) Key Concepts of Lacanian Psychoanalysis 190–218. New York: Other Press.

Žižek, S. (2011[2001]) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? Five Interventions in the (Mis)use of a Notion. New York: Verso.

Published

2018-05-25

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Beshara, R. K. (2018). A critical discourse analysis of George W. Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ speech: the rhetoric of (counter)terrorism and the logic of Islamophobia. Journal of Language and Discrimination, 2(1), 85-112. https://doi.org/10.1558/jld.34307

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > >>