A Protectionist Rhetoric Of Absolutes Essay

The Protectionist Rhetoric of Absolutes

9/11 is perhaps the most infamous succession of numerals in the global community’s recent history.   The hijacking, and subsequent use of four aircraft filled with innocent civilians as giant warhead-less missiles, has jump-started the world into a new epoch laden with fear and paranoia.   The sentiments that characterize the global community today are unmistakably linked by rhetoric employed by the world’s leading governments.   At the forefront is a United States government that encourages others to “rid the world of evil-doers” and eradicate the “evil scourge of terrorism” (http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=2063).   On September 20th, 2001, nine days after the tragedy of September 11th, George W. Bush addressed the world on the principal issues at hand.   In his speech, he referred to the “terrorist organization known as Al-Qaeda” as “murderers” who are “a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam.”   Bush further described Al-Qaeda’s motives and ideologies, stating that “their directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans and make no distinctions among military and civilians, including women and children” (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript/).   Bush’s effort to paint Al-Qaeda as a group beyond the limits of human decency and behavior, as a group that no civilized person could sympathize with, was met with open arms.   In turn, his rhetoric garnered the sympathy of the global community and encouraged them to aid the U.S. in its effort to find and destroy its attackers.   As black and white as Bush’s rhetoric may seem, it was integral in unifying a shocked nation and rallying unprecedented support from much of the rest of the world.   However, after a relatively quick and successful campaign in Afghanistan, Bush steered his coalition towards war with an Iraqi regime headed by Saddam Hussein, the same regime that his father went...