(Re)Defining the Long War: Toward a New Vocabulary of International Terrorism (original) (raw)
Related papers
All Bark and no Bite? Rhetoric and Reality in the War on Terror
The Indonesian Journal of International and Comparative Law, 2014
This paper argues that not only has the "war on terror" failed to hinder terrorism, it has also unequivocally failed to have any appreciable impact on the content of international law. The doctrine of the "war on terror" initially mixed together aspects of human rights and humanitarian legal regimes, combining this conflation of systems with a much broadened definition of the term "conflict" and those who could be viewed as legitimate targets in a conflict. However, this new interpretive framework, put forward mainly by the United States, failed to gain traction among other States, and even among domestic U.S. government agencies. Thirteen years after the War on Terror commenced no cohesive changes in State practice or opinio juris have occurred which would lead to the conclusion that the traditional laws of peace and conflict have been significantly altered on these points. There was perhaps never, in any legal sense, a global "war on terror. "
War, terrorism and the ‘war on terror’
‘War on terror’, 2016
Most of us agree that terrorism is always, or almost always, wrong, which is hardly surprising, since the word is generally used to express disapproval. If an act of which we approve has features characteristic of terrorism, we will be careful to deny that it is in fact an act of terrorism. For example, those who believe that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were morally justified tend to deny that they were instances of terrorism. So
GWOT, The Global War on Terror – Gee, What's in a Name
This paper begins by examining the process by which the Global War on Terror, or GWOT, received its name. It then proceeds to look at the most famous document associated with this conflict – George W. Bush’s “Axis of evil” speech of January 2002. The two are obviously closely related for in this speech Bush linked Iraq to terrorism in order to turn what could have been a measured response to the 9/11 attacks into a “war” that could justify the invasion of Iraq – a country that had had no connection to those attacks. Bush and other members of his government used rhetoric, among other methods, to create this link. The response to a terrorist attack organized by a group based in Afghanistan became a Global War on Terror with a different country as its main target.
2020
, attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, the US along with its allies declared War on Terror, where the binary opposition of 'Us' vs 'Them' was firmly established and channelized via both electronic and print media. The media's discourse on the war against terrorism has been an intriguing research area for linguists as well as international relations experts. This paper highlights the problematization in defining a universally accepted definition of terrorism, the idiosyncratic nature of the War on Terror and how it differs from conventional wars, and, later how media, state and non-state actors (those labeled terrorists) use language to legitimize their views. International research journal of management, IT and social sciences © 2020. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Doubting the Global War on Terror
M/C Journal, 2011
Soon after Al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, the Bush Administration described its new grand strategy: the “Global War on Terror”. This underpinned the subsequent counter-insurgency in Afghanistan and the United States invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Media pundits quickly applied the Global War on Terror label to the Madrid, Bali and London bombings, to convey how Al Qaeda’s terrorism had gone transnational. Meanwhile, international relations scholars debated the extent to which September 11 had changed the international system (Brenner; Mann 303). American intellectuals adopted several variations of the Global War on Terror in what initially felt like a transitional period of US foreign policy (Burns). Walter Laqueur suggested Al Qaeda was engaged in a “cosmological” and perpetual war. Paul Berman likened Al Qaeda and militant Islam to the past ideological battles against communism and fascism (Heilbrunn 248). In a widely cited article, neoconservative thinker Norman Podhoretz suggested the United States faced “World War IV”, which had three interlocking drivers: Al Qaeda and trans-national terrorism; political Islam as the West’s existential enemy; and nuclear proliferation to ‘rogue’ countries and non-state actors (Friedman 3). Podhoretz’s tone reflected a revival of his earlier Cold War politics and critique of the New Left (Friedman 148-149; Halper and Clarke 56; Heilbrunn 210).
War on Terror or Terror Wars: The Problem in Defining Terrorism
The absence of an internationally accepted definition of terrorism has led to international lawlessness and unilateral vigilantism. The post 9/11 War on Terror resulted from the longstanding failure of the international community to agree on a definition of terrorism, which in turn has intensified the war of terrors between the two sides. From the viewpoint of one side, this is a justified (unilaterally, because this side has capability to move and manage military might and resources) War on Terror to protect human rights, freedoms, civilization and the (self-styled) global rule of law. This side has labeled its War on Terror a just war by definition, defocusing a possible response mechanism to address the very real problem of international terrorism. The method of this War on Terror by the coalition of willing nations against insurgents and failed states will lead to likely forfeiture of sovereign equality, hot pursuits of terrorists under the claim of international rule of law wit...
The Rhetoric of War: Words, Conflict and Categorization Post-9/11
Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, 2014
An atmosphere of crisis enhances the power, especially of the Executive Branch, to frame and shape the characterization, understanding, and reality of conflict. This Article addresses the language, rhetoric, status, and legality of "war" by examining the complexity of decision-making for policy-makers in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It does so by looking both inward, examining presidential war rhetoric in the United States, and outward, analyzing the experience of democratic states with the legal construct of "emergency" and "war" under the relevant international human rights treaties.