In George Bush’s ‘war on terror’ speech, George Bush has strongly depicted Al Qaeda as iniquitous freedom haters. He starts by using emotional appeal in his first sentence stating Al Qaeda as “enemies of freedom” to create a sense of injustice towards the audience, which manipulates them to support Bush’s contention and also trigger an emotional response. In his third paragraph, he uses a metaphor to describe Al Qaeda: “Al Qaeda is to terror what the mafia is to crime”. This automatically creates a negative image in the audience’s mind and furthermore, highlights Bush’s main point. Throughout his whole speech, he uses an anger and disparaging tome to reflect Bush’s point of view.
Due to the semantic field of fear and terror running throughout the discourses of Bush and Blair their choice of lexis is crucial in conveying their political ideologies. The introduction of Bush’s speech was of dire importance. Antithesis is being used within the first sentence; Bush begins his discourse “… Our fellow citizens, our way of life…”, and then ends with “deadly terrorist acts”. Due to the contrasting image portrayed listeners feel their “way of life”, they, as individuals and citizens of America are at threat, of “deadly and deliberate terrorist attacks”. This further promotes the global normalisation of terrorism and the “War on terror”.
Radical Islam is an ideology derived from Islam and is centred around the clichéd concept of world domination. Radical Islamists believe that the whole world should believe in the religion of Islam, like most Islam followers do. The difference however, is that Radical Islamists are hell bent on making this happen and will attempt to achieve this control over the world by any means necessary and only believe they can achieve this through Jihad. Further fuelling the desire for a world under their control is their bitter distain toward the common ideologies of the western world as these ideologies directly oppose the core beliefs of Radical Islamists and thus pose a threat to them. It is also blatantly evident that in the past Radical Islamists have taken several major acts of terrorism and violence in an attempt to achieve these goals.
Due to the events of the 11th September 2001 the USA began its war on terror, and specifically targeted was George Bush’s ‘axis of evil’ which included; Iran, Iraq and North Korea. The USA used their war on terror so to legitimise their actions worldwide thus destroying any hopes for a post cold war collective international security, therefore basing their response to international aggression on protecting their own national interests. This is seen with the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. Together with Britain they acted unilaterally in order to remove the al-Qaeda and capture bin Laden, who was the prime suspect for the 9/11 attacks. The USA believed its actions were justified by labelling them as self defence under Article 51 of the UN charter.
When the Taliban didn't do this, the United States decided they would use their armed forces. In October 2001, the USA began bombing Afghanistan. They targeted bin Laden's al-Qaeda fighters and also the Taliban. Ideology is a systematic body of concepts regarding human life and culture; it can result in a set of integrated assertions, theories and aims that together constitute a socio-political programme. Some ideologies (like that of al-Qaeda) can be extreme and at odds with that
Governmental groups, that we were at war against, were considering the decision to use this type of weapon in order to defeat their enemies in larger numbers. With their belief that this was the right way to win the war against us is a case in point of relativism. Majority of Americans viewed this method of war as wrong. Goodman also states, “Wholesale murder is wrong, then, not just for its scale but also for willfully negating individuality, typing its victims, and stirring hatred against the putative failings of the
The overall threat both presidents insist exists is that “terrorists,” Osama bin Laden in particular (Bush, 2005), or “aggressors,” a faceless enemy simply referred to as “he” (Johnson, 1967), will “threaten the peace of the entire region and perhaps the world” (Johnson, 1967), “by toppling governments, by driving us out of the region, and by exporting terror” (Bush, 2005). The threat is real, as both speeches enumerate repeatedly: We must “defeat them abroad before they attack us at home” (Bush, 2005), because “if they are not checked now the world can expect to pay a greater price to check them later” (Johnson, 1967). Fear of the enemy is verified in describing him as “waging a campaign of murder and destruction. And there is no limit to the innocent lives they are willing to take” (Bush, 2005), because “we are dealing with a stubborn adversary who is committed to the use of force and terror to settle political questions” (Johnson, 1967). To
While the element of surprise is one of the key tactics employed in both guerilla warfare and terrorism, it is the latter’s employment of this tactic that Walzer takes issue with. As he states that terrorism’s purpose is to “destroy the morale of a nation or a class, to undercut its solidarity;
During that time, the view was that terrorist acts were a way to overthrow the government. The government saw them as activist soldiers but they saw themselves as nationalists. The influence on terrorism by the Irish Republican Army was for self-government in Ireland by nationalizing control. The Irish Republican Army was using terrorist tactics to accomplish this goal using
“Hit and run” tactics are used against enemy bases and communications to demoralize the enemy. A good example of the ideal conditions needed for guerilla warfare is shown in struggles which have involved ordinary people going against an imperial power, such as at the end of WW1. During times like these, the rebels were often very poorly equipped and were therefore, unable to defeat the conquering power by conventional means and rather, had to rely more on the support of the people. The areas of the world where guerilla war has been very successful and which have been suitable for the practice of guerilla warfare,