Marketing and Commodification of Fear in Time of US War on Global Terror ()
1. Introduction
Prior to 9/11 events, the global diplomacy was the characteristics of a foreign policy akin to multilateralism, with state actors promoting a great consensus in international relations for peace and security in a multipolar era. The US was not sill safe from terrorism threats as the multipolar era witnessed the birth of new political actors who are out of states’ control and also the existence of new enemies who appeared very hostile to United States of America’s democratic values. New geopolitical actors were first experienced, in new world order game, during the first bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993 and later with the cataclysmic events of 9/11.
To cope with non-state actors in global diplomacy, US government had to invent a doctrine, the elaboration of which requested strategy akin to Unilateralism. The promotion of Unilateralism, in the US Foreign Policy, was not a brand new feature. As far as national security was concerned, Unilateralism was the code of conduct promoted by policymakers to give the US executive a pretty room of maneuver in order to move quickly and gain time to thwart the enemy. Unilateralism was experienced any time when the US faced challenges related to national security.
9/11 events were presumably a perfect excuse for the US government to cope with Islamist terrorism, during the first decade of the Twenty First century, and, in the move, to overthrow regimes which promoted it worldwide1 (Dabashi, 2009) . “The Bush administration has put ‘regime change’ in front and center in its Foreign Policy and has reached out with military force and deposed regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq”2 (Fukuyama, 2006) . President Bush and his neoconservative government viewed, within that sad event, a good geopolitical situation to cope with regimes which promoted a certain vision of the world that might be in sharp contrast with western world values. Thus, Republicans promised a blind and extensive support to military intervention in the Middle East adopting a particularly very hawkish-oriented foreign policy demeanor. In the aftermath of September 11th, President Bush made a speech before congressmen stressing the need to end up with such imminent threats. Undeniably, 9/11 events gave the President and members of his Administration the political opportunity to invade Iraq and to proceed to a regime change for the great stability of the Middle East, on the one, and the security of Israel, on the other.
It was a very bold agenda the elaboration of which requested, on the one hand, a sort of unilateralist foreign policy demeanor—one that overlooks the will of the concert of nations—and on the other hand, they needed the blind and unconditional supports of the American people through the awakening of patriotic fibers, then evoking the threatening of fundamental democratic principles the pillars on which United States of America was founded. Thus, to cope with that challenge, the Bush administration had to elaborate a strategy to get the public opinion rallying around the cause of Iraq and the war against the Mass Destruction Weapon. Such discourse was promoted as the Casus Belli (Clabrese, 2005) 3 to justify the use of semiotics of extermination of Islamism in the Middle East through the marketing and commodification of fear in time of terror.
In the United States of America, circumstances were very favorable to promoting such a foreign policy, despite the very controversial aspect of it. As they needed the blind and unconditional support of Americans in order to carry out such a unilateralist foreign policy demeanor despite the lack of support of the International Community and the lack of full adhesion of all NATO allies. They created the Mass Destruction Weapon issues to invent a Casus Belli to invade Iraq which was considered the cradle of Islamist Terrorism as an ideology. In fact, in the aftermath of 9/11 events, the psychosis was still imminent and fear was the most commonly shared sentiment in the United States of America.
Propaganda techniques and strategies used by US governments were conducted by neoconservatives who defended a hegemonic foreign policy of United States. There were Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, members of Bush 43rd Government, among petitioners of Project for New American Century on January 26th, 1998, who issued a issued a letter to President Bill Clinton explicitly calling for “the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power”4.
The agenda of the Bush administration to re-shape the liberal international order, through the preventive diplomacy war, was shouldered by the new revolution of the neoconservatives who centers on a galaxy of Think Tanks, among which the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century. There, we could find the elite of the business and of the intellectuals who are ultra-neoconservative. People like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld worked closely with Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, but also with Gary Bauer, the leader of the Christian coalition, and, Elliott Abrams, a member of the National Security Councilor, the scholars and editor of Weekly Standard William Kristol and Robert Kagan.
Thus, the prevailing discourse, at that time, was one that pictured out a situation near to national apocalypse, then chaos, if the US government does not vigorously cope with islamist terrorism, as a dangerous ideology for US democratic principles. Such kind of discourse has been prevailing within the communication of the Bush administration particularly within the Addresses to the Union from 2001 to 2003. The post-9/11 events days were a context when discourses of fear and hatred become marketable commodities for foreign policy agenda. The marketing and commodification fear reside in the fact that the discourse was aimed at stoking Americans’ fear and anger in a tried and tested populist vein while glorifying the US as the only authoritarian hegemon capable of restoring order and security to a world that would be undermined by a sense of insecurity linked to Islamist terrorism.
From a strictly poststructuralist angle, this paper aims at deciphering the modes discourse used by the Bush administration to selling a so controversial war to American citizens, Casus Belli, and the process of formulation of a foreign policy and manufacturing of consent in time of terror. In fact, what arguments has the U.S. government got to commoditized to the Americans in order to promote an eventual US military intervention in Middle-East? What were the different forms of language mode of production within the discourse of neoconservatives promoting intervention in Iraq? How was the process of othering (of otherness) and Semiotics of extermination within the execution of such foreign policy?
2. 9/11 and the Context of Foreign Policy Formulation
The US war on global terror was declared by the US 43rd President in order to thwart the Global terrorism threat that was still prevailing after the 9/11 events. On November 2001, few months after the greatest attacks ever perpetrated on the American soil, George W. Bush addressed to the nation before the Congress, issuing out what was going to be the most important US Foreign Policy agenda in the Twenty-first century: the US War against the global terrorism network. Bush 43rd’s administration was as unlucky as to declare it just one year after taking office then changing direction from the early path he cleared for the U.S.A. including reforms in many fields and the re-assertion of liberalism in post-Cold War era and in the beginning of the third millennium. That was the war on terror at the first wake, declared in reaction to the 9/11 attacks therefore it referred to, in this study, as the war on terror 1.0.
However, in a context of national mourning, recollection and above all union of prayers for the victims of 11 September 2001, President Bush made a speech in order to draw the support of American people, which was so important in a situation that was near to national chaos. He then invoked rhetorics dear to any President of the US so in view to awake their ultimate patriotic fibers, their loyalty to the nation that gave them birth and home and then their sentiments of moral exceptionality5 (Tocqueville, 1835/1840) . That situation enabled to issue out a new trend in the US diplomatic history one that mixes up with Wilsonianism and unilateralism. The United States of America will have taken on their responsibility, as superpower, to define a policy for the whole world. The US war on global terrorism is a policy that enhances the feeling that moral truism and absolutism were sine qua non conditions for such a policy to triumph.
Yet, George W. Bush 43rd would even say in his 2000 presidential campaigns that United States of America should follow a humble Foreign Policy. In fact, for the presidential candidate, a humble Foreign Policy would be one that has to focus on domestic issues and pay little concern to what prevails at the international level unless the security of nation is engaged. However, had he received a prophecy about the events of September 11th, he would have never said so, probably. President Bush’s Foreign Policy orientation shifted because mainly of 9/11 events and took another turn up to putting at stakes the alliances with NATO by adopting such a posture as regards the issue on terrorism, especially the intervention in Afghanistan and the War of Iraq. Introduced after 9/11 events, the US war on global terror at the first wake could be considered as the original version branded as a reaction to the attacks on the American Soil. The military campaign in Afghanistan which was assigned the mission to dismiss the Taliban government is to be registered in the same field.
However, the second wave of the war on global terror might be the fight in order to make the world safe from terror and mass destruction weapon hence the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (Remarks by the President At the 2002 Graduation Excercise of the United States Military Academy, Bush, 2002a )6. In fact, President Bush gave another orientation to his global war on terror. His neoconservative administration led a propaganda campaign in order to legitimize the sending of troops to Iraq under the pretext to make the world safe from Saddam Hussein’s mass destruction weapon programme. Very similarly, that agenda echoes the Woodrow Wilson policy doctrine, which was expressed in his Fourteen Points Plan and which advocated certain number of points among which the idea—to make the world safe for democracy (Wilson, 1918) 7. Idealism in International Relations is very probably the inputs of Woodrow Wilson, during World War I, who entered the global geopolitics with a certain excess of presumptions.
The commodification and marketing of fear is the characteristics of type knowledge production that could be viewed as a type of discourse produced by charlatan thinkers in the image of fast food packed inside “plastic” literature ready to be consumed in view to satisfy an immediate imperialist lust. Therefore, such type of knowledge productions is doomed to die out in a very fast way since it would be produced just for a specific, measurable, achievable, realizable and time-bounded imperialist objective. In fact, the twentieth century war machine is to put up with new battle fields (cyber and moral), which are different from the classical one (the seas, airs, etc.). War machines are to go hand in hand with “fast-food” knowledge production from one imperialistic agenda to another.
A potential War in Iran will respond to the same criteria. The mode of operations will alter, at times, from hard, soft to smart depending on the target. If the potential war with Iran starts with the combination of hard and smart powers, notably the use of drones to kill General Suleiman, it might end up more subtle and softer, as they would need to produce charlatan literature in favor of the war in Iran: the battle over minds. For instance, in World War I, it would target the Kaiser’s regime and would support the US intervention in that war through the excuse to defend individual liberty oversees and to “make the world safe for democracy” (Wilson, 1918) 8. Later on, they would face communism, which they depicted as the absolute evil namely with the administration of Ronald Reagan. From 1979, with the Iran Revolution, up to 2001, such a “fast-food” knowledge production would promote a one-way stream terrorism that was profiling over the horizon and which could harm America’s democratic principles and interests all around the world.
The neoconservative intellectuals within the administration of George W. Bush 43rd felt the necessity to create “necessary illusions” in order to keep the people within their hands all the along the campaign leading to the Operation Freedom for Iraq. In fact, the concept of “necessary illusions” has been theorized by many scholars; yet, Noam Chomsky has succeeded in getting it fit the context of terrorism and the presumed US War on it (Chomsky, 1999) 9. Chomsky himself borrowed it from neo-liberalist and Foreign Policy analyst during the Kennedy administration that was famous for been the theologian of the Great Establishment. He expressed the view that it is the task of the intellectuals, whom he referred to as “cruel observers”, to create “necessary illusions” and “emotionally oversimplifications” for the general public.
As the mass is naturally naïve in order to read and understand, both reasonably and realistically foreign affairs, it is the responsibility of the intellectuals to make sure that the general public does not get involved in to the management of foreign affairs. Thus, by creating “necessary illusions”, intellectuals, so charlatan thinkers, take care of the people by taking them away from the management of serious Foreign Policy issues such as the invasion of Iraq under the agenda to make the world safe from terror and mass destruction weapon. It is a leading idea of the liberal democratic theory mainly in the managing of the Twenty-first century’s challenges.
More to the point was the theory of Mass Destruction Weapons that sustained the invasion of Iraq in 2002-2003. If the greatest military power with latest technology could be reached at the bosom of its country through the means flying commercial planes, a theory of Mass Destruction Weapons would be certainly and easily absorbed by people. However, if they said to their people that they would be waging a war of conquest to redefine a political equilibrium in the Middle East, they would never adhere into such a project. But the President Bush would let his people to believe that Iraq of Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11 attacks and, the worst thing is that, he would be trying to get nuclear and Mass Destruction Weapons.
George W. Bush whom, most of his opponents, namely within the Republican Party itself, presumed weak, showed, after September 11th, a strong nature of a Commando in Chief, which the Congress approved and validated. Also important to know is that the resolution, which the Congress adopted thereof, in October 2002, in order to authorize the use of military force against Iraq conform exactly to the Law of the war powers of 197310.
Earlier in the administration of Richard Nixon, a group of conservatives who were known to be fiercely anti-communist but who were willing to preserve a would-be military equilibrium, which, according to them, was seriously threatened by the policy of détente of Presidents Nixon and Ford. Besides, the conservatives clearly asserted their position by implementing the Committee on the Present Danger in the 1990s. In fact, they did some recommendations as to what the US should increase its military expenses facing the Soviet Union, which, they reckoned, were more and more gaining grown in developing countries.
Violence for spectacular purpose was what determined, partly, the 9/11 attacks. In fact, notwithstanding the expression of their hatred to American democratic values and principles, which, in themselves, symbolize the success of capitalism in post-Cold War era, the 9/11 terrorists also carried a semiotics of the most “fantasmogromic”11 (Dabashi, 2009) , iconoclastic, and spectacular violence of Twenty-first century. Besides, the noise and the awakening of consciousness consisted to justify the multiplication of other online terrorist posts, mostly audio records and videos. Therefore, Islamist online activism doubled up in the post-9/11 era so much so that terrorists’ videos and online post were seriously taken into account by the anti-terrorist machine.
Fear and anger have been commoditized since 9/11 events not just for terrorist purpose only but also for economic and political and geostrategic ones both by the terrorist and counter-terrorist fronts. If the former did use violence to achieve goals that are political (mostly linked to citizenship and more social demands), economic (mostly linked to social claiming and social frustrations of minority groups) or religious; the latter, did use violence (legal and/or official violence) in order to counter the private terrorism. Thus, state terrorism, in comparison with the private terrorism, constitutes both realistic and symbolic violence for people who may put up with it. In fact, through the institutionalization of policies and doctrines reflecting the domination of the ideologies of one social group over the others’, state terrorism carries symbolic violence even though it is hidden under the veils of well-crafted doctrines.
Alike discourses, doctrines also follow a marketing process in order to be reflecting the needs and realities of people whom the imperialistic machine wants to occupy. Doctrines are sold to people thanks to a branding at the image of a product. In fact, the US doctrine in the war on terrorism was the characteristics of branding in order to sustain the life cycle of counter-terrorist policies. Thus, it follows a sort of product life cycle. Viewed from the standpoint of a marketing analyst, the promotion of a discourse, thus a doctrine, follows five phases within the in the US government: Introduction, Promotion, Growth, Maturity and Decline. For instance, Iraqi Freedom Operation was one of such policies.
During the propaganda campaign leading to Iraqi Freedom Operation, the commodification of fear was first what animated the US war on terror’s marketing process. In fact, fear was used as a tool to bring the US people adheres to an imperialist project. The “apocalypse” discourse was very well promoted by propaganda machines, which were composed of well-read newspapers, think-tanks, and powerful media and so on and so forth. They had been hitting the same nails on the same heads from 2002 to 2003. However, it was not enough for the Congress to stamp on the project Iraq invasion. Therefore, lacking the evidence to prove that the Iraqi regime sought to acquire any Mass Destruction Weapon, a self-determinist ideal was promoted by the Bush administration, which depicted Saddam Hussein as the Big Brother of Iraq.
3. “Apocalyptic” Discourse to Provoke National Adhesion to a Controversial Conflict
The aftermath of 9/11 events was characterized by the promotion of apocalyptic discourse the objective of which was to prepare the public opinion to eventual military operation in Iraq would appear so controversial. Presumably, a traumatized people seem to be an easy prey for politicians hence their receptivity to any war-on-terror discourse which calls for leading a “crusade toward the axis of evil” (State of the Union Address, Bush, 2002b )12. President Bush resumed a very provocative concept, “empire of evil” (Reagan, 1983) 13 speech which was delivered by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to National Association of Evangelicals’ Annual Convention on March 8, 1983 during the Cold War. However, President Bush actualized such a concept in time of US war on global terror hinting at Iran, Iraq and North Korea accusing them of being the cradle of Islamist terrorism.
For the first in the history of mankind, planes had been used as war weapons to reach the United States in a very spectacularly violent manner. Therefore, 9/11 attacks were so a spectacular violence which might leave trauma among Americans that manipulating them became easier. The Neoconservatives’ discourse was so alarmist hinting that other more deadly attacks on the American soil than the 9/11’s. The context was very favorable for the promotion such apocalyptic discourse and for getting it marketable for any foreign policy agenda. Therefore, putting the whole mass in a situation of permanent fear is pretty much an excellent idea to get them receptive to any war-on-terror discourse in the Middle East the procedure of which appeared really imperialistic.
The war-on-terror discourse sounds revengeful and imperialistic as the promoters of such discourse were really favorable to a kind of hawkish foreign policy agenda in the Middle East. Therefore, early in the aftermath of 9/11 attacks, the neoconservatives’ strategy was to further fuel the psychosis that was very much felt at the national level. They would adopt an alarmist discourse comparable to apocalypse. Such discourse would hint that other attacks on the American soil would be prepared.
The “apocalypse soon discourse” promotion was the characteristics of a group of neoconservative intellectuals, editorialists, government officials who unleash an effective propaganda machine whose strategy was to keep on hammering the same nails on the same heads while shouting out that the apocalypse was knocking at the nation’s doors if ever they do not react. This justifies why preemptive military actions in the Mid-East were to be, so hastily, defended and approved before congressmen and American citizens. The promotion of “apocalyptic” discourse by the neoconservative congressmen, intellectuals and other charlatan thinkers was not virtually different from the process of inventing a casus belli, and shaping, for the America’s collective mind, an ultimate consciousness to defend it.
If that method appeared effective, it might be the cause of the nightmare of 9/11 events, which was still freshly lingering in the collective mind of American citizens. The psychic damages of those events got people vulnerable to any kind of war-on-terror discourse. People were still threatened, scared as wounds were still bleeding and the psychic damages left by 9/11 spectacular violent attacks. From a strictly psychoanalytic standpoint, the 9/11 events created so harmful psychic damages on American people’s collective mind that they were helpless before the great neoconservative propaganda means (Kristol & Kagan, 2000) 14. They would easily believe in whatever knowledge was produced by such a propaganda machinery.
Besides, the near-apocalypse discourse was still very present in neoconservative discourse since 1998. They would defend such narratives in their writings, books and journals at the same time. Years before the arrival of Republicans to power, they would defend a hegemonic foreign policy that clearly calls for regime change in the Middle East. For instance, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, both petitioners of the letter addressed openly to President Clinton, in which they expressed the necessity to carry out a military intervention in Iraq as to what the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein’s regime could help and assure a sustainable climate of security in the region. Working both for the Committee for Security and Peace in the Golf, the two neoconservative scholars have always been famous because of their clear position as far as the Middle East conflict is concerned. They would stress the need to lead a preemptive action in the Middle East, particularly Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, to thwart the security threat that was profiling over the horizon.
That fixation on war against Iraq would appear sufficient to explaining why, from the very beginning of the Bush administration, key officials were consulting with other outsider thinkers on possible regime change in Iraq, hence the replacement of Saddam Hussein and nourishing the idea of removing the only serious obstacle of full access and exploitation of Iraqi oil fields. Thus, in February 2001, White House officials discussed a memo entitled “Plan for post-Saddam Iraq” which already mentioned troop requirements, establishing war crimes tribunals, and apportioning Iraq’s oil wealth. They were discussing a post-Iraq plan while even the operation of de-installation of Saddam’s regime had not yet begun (Katzman, 2009) 15.
The sponsors of such apocalyptic discourse were none other than the barons of the oil industries who would be barred from Iraqi Oil since the coming to power of Saddam Hussein. That is the reason why it was rather very inflammatory discourse since the promoters had oil coming out of their mouths to further fuel the alarming situation. For instance, Iraqi-born oil industry consultant Falah Aljibury was asked to interview possible replacements of a new U.S-installed dictator. Mr. Aljibury said: “It is an invasion, but it will act like a coup. The original plan was to liberate Iraq from Saddamists and from the regime, to stabilize the country” (Palast, 2005) .
The Operation Iraqi Freedom was all about a matter of power; it is even reflecting the on the absolute character of their sovereignty and on the preservation of their security, which the United States based their arguments to intervene. The US willing to intervene is also engraved on the providential mission, which they assign to themselves even before the 9/11 events. Thus, the interest of the superpower has always been obvious as far as the foreign affairs were concerned: the economic interest was also underlying, either with the issue of petroleum—even though it was intentionally and abusively overlooked—or with the reconstruction and the remapping contracts of the Middle East, which the US government undertook by proxy for the security of its great ally in the region: Israel.
Mostly, 9/11 attacks have been depicted by US Foreign Policy critics much as a perfect opportunity for the commodification of people’s fear for imperialistic agendas than a catastrophic and cataclysmic events that happened to American people. In fact, the nightmare of 9/11 attacks created another collective psychological damage, which were prevailing in the post-9/11 era. Post-9/11 era in America was a moment of great depression and moral apocalypse. Fear and sorrow animated people’s heart. Therefore, the long propaganda campaign leading to the invasion of Iraq used the mode of operation that looked much like a Hitlerism than just a military action against Mass Destruction Weapons. Thus, the Bush administrations succeeded in persuading the American people that other attacks similar to, or even harder than 9/11, were being plotted by Saddam and his regime. Such a propaganda efforts proved very effective as they got the Congress approving and voting the Operation Iraqi Freedom (Palka et al. 2019) 16.
Along with the propaganda machine leading to the Operation Iraqi Freedom, was prevailing a sort of charlatan literature, which was somehow promoted by a group of neoconservative intellectuals, editorialists, political theorists, long before the 9/11 attacks, according to which the nuclear weapons may sooner or later be within the hands of terrorists. The “near-apocalypse” discourse was promoted by two remarkable neoconservative intellectuals since 2000. Thus, one of the most outstanding productions in that type of literature is Present Danger in 2000 by the two young conservative intellectuals, Robert Kagan and William Kristol. That literary production among many others did participate in enhancing the probability of “apocalypse soon” promoted in the discourse of Bush administration planners among whom Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld.
The particularity of such discourse is the stressing on emergency of facts and the danger glooming near horizon and the necessity of the US government to make war on terror decisions on that behalf. Therefore, pressing 9/11 events’ wounds, both moral and psychological ones, were the strategy of Paul Wolfowitz. In fact, the Deputy Secretary of States, said, at George Mason University, that if nineteen people who used nothing more conventional airliners could kill three thousand people in one day they could also eventually kill “not three thousand one day, not thirty thousand but more than three hundred thousand and may be three million” (Wolfowitz, 2006) 17 because they would be exploring Weapons of Mass Destructions and could be potentially dangerous for the security of Americans. Thus, such a type of discourse participated into warning the people that they could live a second 9/11 nightmare or even harder if US policymakers did not make military decisions in order to stop “every terrorist group of global reach” (Whitehouse.archives.gov, Bush, 2002c )18.
Apocalyptic discourse, along with the marketing and commodification of fear, are very common policy strategy communication among Republican Presidents. From Ronald Reagan to George Walker Bush and very recently with Donald Trump, the mode of operation is pretty much the same: scaring people to provoke a rally around the flag for imperialistic lust, even if it must be recognized that Trump will have had the merit of not creating a war. In fact, the Republican Presidents are very similar in the way they view Foreign policy, which is particularly not far from flexing up muscles in the international arena. Fully imbibed of the republican philosophy, the republican Presidents have very hawkish Foreign policy demeanors. In Preparation of the invasion of Iraq, Saddam’s Mas Destructions Weapons Program was depicted as evil to be eradicated. And President Bush said, “it is not an evil we can continue to live with, it is an evil that has to be eradicated”19. This particular way of picturing out a threat as evil for the greatest understanding of an overwhelmingly Protestant American people would be the best way to commoditize a situation of fear.
From a strictly human-rightist point of view, freedom from fear is also crucially important within American democratic principles (Berlin, 1969) . Isaiah Berlin famously distinguished between two basic concepts of freedom namely freedom to, positive freedom, and freedom from, a negative freedom. Berlin identifies freedom from as the absence of obstacles or constraints to one’s own action. By contrast, “freedom to” consists of the possibility to autonomously determine and achieve individual or collective purposes.
In fact, there are two types of freedom, according to American democratic paradigms: freedom to and freedom from. The first could be viewed, for instance, as the liberty of every people to live and worship the religion of one’s choice without any constraint. Otherwise, it could be defined as the liberty to do, to be, to think and to express the way one desires. The second is the freedom from fear. It could be viewed as people’s liberty to live a peaceful and still life and to get the full liberty of choice as far as his/her religious or political orientation is concerned. Thus, compelling anybody to make a decision either religious or political could be viewed as terrorism. Therefore, terrorism is defined from a strictly Americanist standpoint as—“the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological and nurtured through intimidation, coercion or installing fear” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2017) 20. Such a definition echoes the freedom from fear as guaranteed by US democratic principles.
As for fear, it was used as commodity by the neoconservatives in order to achieve imperialist purposes. The commodification of fear justified the development by the Bush administration of such a repetitive and efficient but effective propaganda that led to the invasion of Iraq under the pretext to free the world first from fear and to save the world for Mass Destruction Weapon and, later on, from the chains of dictatorship with a Self-deterministic spirit21.
Alike fear, necessary illusion is also very a very effectively common political tricks to control people’s thoughts in democratic societies. In fact, through the marketing and commodification of fear, the governors exercise a sort of control over people’s thought by creating illusion. Then, people become objects and not subjects for realizing imperialist agendas of the un-righteous leaders. Thus, to provoke a rally around the flag and to get the moral support of American people on such an imperialistic agenda it was necessary to use such discourse in order to “necessary illusion”22 from Noam Chomsky’s standpoint. With the complicity of conservative media, newspapers, charlatan within well-funded think tanks, embedded neoconservative journals namely Foreign Affairs, National Interests, the commodification of fear by the neoconservative crew within the Bush administration was a characteristic of the validation of a project of preemptive action to the Middle East, the manufacturing of consent. The latter is a term he borrowed from the well-respected Journalism in America, Walter Lippmann. His conception was that the general population, in what he called the “bewildered hood” should be vailed from what’s really being prepared, and—we (smart guys) have to protect ourselves from the rage and trampling of the bewildered hood23”.
Besides, people like Richard Perl believed that if striking the first was the only one solution to eradicate such an eminent threat so they should let it be. He crafted out the preemptive war doctrine and got it accepted by the congress through US Presidents’ Address to the Union. If such a discourse was well accepted by the American people, it might be the effect of 9/11 nightmares still fresh in their collective minds. For Noam Chomsky, this is referred to as “necessary illusion”24. Chomsky reported their views according to which it is the role or the tasks of the intellectual people, whom he called the “cruel observers” to create “necessary illusion” and emotionally important over-simplifications for the general public. The latter should be protected by creating such necessary illusions as a way to keep them away from the decision making process.
Thus, selling the project of War in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq, was getting more and more a must for Neoconservatives who had been flirting with that idea decades before the 9/11 events. Pressing the trigger the first if the threats get imminent was the strategy. They would defend that if, in certain circumstances, they foresee a potential threat to the United States and their allies, striking the first in order to anticipate and dismiss the threat should be quite normal and legitimate. Therefore George W. Bush said: “The United States of America will not permit that the world most dangerous regime to threaten us with the world most destructive weapons”25. Thus, they launched a long and repetitive campaign of propaganda terrifying people by pressing the same nails on the same heads.
For instance, David Frum, a former President Bush’s Councilor and wrote his speech about Iraq known today as the Axis of Evil speech. In fact, notwithstanding the fact that he was writing for the President of the world first superpower at war, he would have decided to entitle his text The Axis of Hatred. However, the spirit which animated him when he was writing such a speech was that if George W. Bush decided to expand the US war on terrorism beyond Afghanistan, how it would be sold to the American people. Here is all the sense that should be given to the marketing and commodification of fear led by President Bush and his neoconservative administration through also the narratives of civilizations vs. barbarism.
This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world. States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an Axis of Evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic26.
It might not be wrong to call such a propaganda tool marketing and commodification of fear knowing that a scared people become easily receptive to the political discourse of the US war on terrorism. In fact, terror and fear, in more subtle ways, have been used by the Bush administration in order to fight fear and terror, which the others do to them (U.S.). Means that the US Government used to fight against the global terrorism network might be viewed as terrorism itself. In fact, as far as terrorism is concerned, it should be (re)defined not using the US paradigm but an iconoclastic one. Noam Chomsky, for instance, (re)defined terrorism as the “terrorism they carry out against us (and not) the one we carry out against them”27. Thus, the first paradigm is well promoted and spread and broadcasted through the official networks to the (dis)appreciation of the opinion. The second is wiped off the opinion’s vivid collective memory, which consumes news as fast as tags on Facebook pages.
4. The Process of Othering & Semiotics of Extermination
The concept of a so-called cultural otherness constitutes a strong discourse in the way the US foreign policy is elaborated and conducted, hence its unilateralist posture. In fact, the United States of America tends to fight all their wars beyond their borders: Vietnam, Nicaragua, Philippines, and Mexico, etc. Wars in which the United States have ever involved were was that were fought in foreign grounds. They have always succeeded in moving the threats out of the home lands at others’ ground where they feel more confident to unleashing new cutting-edge technologic weaponry on others. Foreign war fields have always been considered as the training war field to test State-of-the-art technologies.
Such foreign policy code of conduct forcibly implies, in some ways, a process of othering or otherness. It implies a sort of semiotics of orientalism which adopt of posture of promotion any kind discourse, literature, knowledge production that cast every bad thin g at the Orient’s backyard, thus, depicting them as an evil to eradicate. Hamid Dabashi, in Knowledge and Power in time of terror, referred to such type of literary actors as “charlatan thinkers” (Dabashi, 2009) . In fact, in his book “knowledge and Power in Time of Terror”, Hamid Dabashi critiques what he calls “charltan thinkers”, individuals who argues promote false or distorted ideas in the public sphere, often for personal gain or political motivation. He argues that these charlatans, who often, have a large public platform, spread misinformation and undermine the public’s access to accurate information and critical thinking. According to Dabashi, these individuals are particularly dangerous in times of political turmoil, as they can manipulate the public and undermine efforts towards social justice and democracy.
It is the characteristic of any knowledge production at the service of an empire. It could be viewed as a western material of civilization and culture to willingly and awkwardly represent others, particularly the Orient. Orientalism is, therefore, the fact of representing and crafting out a discourse that pictures out that part of the world culturally and ideologically with supporting institutions, vocabularies, scholarship, imagery, doctrines and even colonialist bureaucracies, in order to legitimize any US imperialist adventures in the Middle East.
When David Frum was writing the axis of evil discourse, he was less animated by a mere objective to elaborate a speech before congressmen and other officials than an embedded willing of a charlatan journalist whose objective was representation. Writing about the other mostly arouses questions of representation, and specially the risk of Othering, that is, the risk of portraying the other essentially different, and translating this difference to inferiority. Therefore, we could hear President Bush stressing on that difference during his State of the Union Address and the American People on September 20th, 2001:
Americans are asking why they hate us. They hate what we see right here in this chamber, a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms—our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other28.
President Bush Addresses to the Union from 2001 to 2003 might be viewed as discourse elaborated to accentuate the difference between the US and their enemies, on the one hand, and on the other hand, to institutionalize semiotics of extermination of evil force. The reasons why the United States of America would be attacked, according to George W. Bush, were to be found within the contrasting between the values US defend and the one counter values the others incarnate. The process of othering and the institutionalization of semiotics of extermination was the characteristic of a context of when people were asking themselves thousands of questions the answers of which would have helped to understand the 9/11 events. American people were upset and were seeking truth/knowledge from their government about what happened to their country. That need of sensible theory which holds water and which could explain the use of so elaborate deadly attack and spectacular violence against the US.
President Bush asked loudly American people’s rhetorical questions and gave himself the answer. For instance, he said aloud what American people might be asking to themselves as soliloquist questions: “why do they hate us”29. But, he went further by giving his own answer to a question that terrorists themselves would have given: “They hate what you see right here in this chamber; a democratically elected government” (Bush, 2001) . In fact, their people are used to being taken as hostages by dictatorial regimes because of the values they incarnate. That type of discourse was well diffused and, eventually, it was celled as knowledge at the counter-terrorist front.
This statement you mentioned is often attributed to President George W. Bush, and it reflects his understanding of why terrorists targeted the United States and other western countries. In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, President Bush sought to explain the motivations behind the attacks to the American people and to the world. The idea that terrorists hate democracy and freedom is a common narrative, but it is important to note that the motivations of terrorists can be much more complex and multifaceted. Some individuals and groups may be motivated by a desire to exact revenge for perceived injustices, while others may be driven by political or ideological grievances. In some cases, terrorists may simply be seeking to gain power or influence. It’s also important to note that terrorism often stems from larger systemic issues such as poverty, political instability, and lack of opportunities. Addressing these underlying issues can help to reduce the appeal of terrorism and reduce the likelihood of future attacks. Ultimately, the motivations behind terrorism are complex and difficult to understand, and addressing the problem requires a nuanced and comprehensive approach that takes into account the many factors that can contribute to it.
Thus, the US counter-terrorist mode of operation is somehow very similar to the terrorists’ though it appears more subtle and institutionalized at the same time. The United States of America, in their war on global terror, did recourse to, somehow, more violent mode of operations to fight back terrorism. As regards their unilateralist code of conduct, they acted as if they were given the right to exercise a legitimate violence on communities who dared to challenge their leadership and authority. The semiotics of extermination as institutionalized in the foreign policy discourse of President Bush and his neoconservative crew was part of a process of validating and legitimizing the recourse to extreme violence to “exterminate” “Rogue States”30. From a strictly Social Contract perspective, the United States of America, would enjoy its position the sole superpower after the fall of the Soviet Union, which got the legitimacy of official violence onto “Rogue States”31.
In fact, Noam Chomsky says: “the best way to fight terrorism is not to take part in it” (Chomsky, 2002) .
The discourse of otherness explains such foreign policy demeanor which represents the world from a dualist view point: the West and the Rest. According to Melani, when someone is doing the othering they feel superior or dominant to the group they perceive as the others (Melani, 2010) . It can also be based on a number of different factors. A person or group of people may base their othering n things like race, religion, gender, or social class. Moreover, the person or group of people being othered does not necessarily have to be the minority. The US foreign policy makers, along with a long tradition of US exceptionalism, would look at the world from the above and would stand of an omnipotent and omniscient posture. Such exceptional posture would allow them to enjoy a comfortable fortress over the rest of the world. That exceptionality carried with a providentialist mission to guide the whole world toward democracy would have ideological effect on people who promote it.
In the process of othering and semiotics of extermination was bestowing the appearance of scientific aspect to the products of history. There would be a sort of Legitimation, which is defined “as the process by which the governers obtains the acceptance of the governed” (Hentzi, 1995) . The importance of Legitimation as a critical term in the process of elaboration of US foreign policy, and particularly within the US War on global terror, is that it points to the fundamental question: do the people freely consent to those who have power, or is their submission to power coerced (Hentzi, 1995) ? For that legitimation, President Bush did not leave an option to other nations to adopt a nutrality posture. President Bush stated: “All nations of the globe here is a choice to make; either you’re with us or with the terrorists” (Bush, 2001) 32.
Both George W. Bush, in 2001, and Ronald Reagan, in 1979, depicted the threat of islamist terrorism as a plague or an infectious cancer, which was malignantly growing at the bosom of America’s principles of liberty. The destructiveness of such a disease calls for a medical narrative in order to scourge terrorism all over the globe. In fact, terrorism as a plague/cancer narrative would help to nourishing and animating the pubic threat and fear but especially to shape the perception about the people who would promote it. The terrorism as a plague narrative proved very efficient to the activation of the US war on global terror machine and the training of eventual anti-terrorist warriors.
The bosom of anti-Americanism and cradle of islamist terrorism were to be located in 1979 when Iran, in the name of honor and justice, vows “harsh revenge” against Americans. This should be taken seriously, as 1979 proved enough about the anti-American sentiments of such people. The US claims their right to lead anticipatory actions against any potential threat to American interests all over the world. However, there is a lack of moral standard there within the nexus of Iran-US potential conflict: the just adbelum.
The might of such a discourse is utmost critical. In fact, the voice of people suffering from such one-way stream terrorism is squashed and silenced off. Their stories/histories are not written and will not be taught to future generations hence the revisionist aspect of the war on global terrorism. For instance, people tend to overlook the US terrorist attacks in Nicaragua in late 1980’s, which was almost missing in US serious historic document (Kipling, 1899) . It is rarely mentioned by US mainstream literature the charlatan thinkers of which have been doing their best to wipe it off people’s vivid memory and to, instead, promote a hegemonic discourse about terrorism and the presumed war on it. The hegemonic discourse is a characteristic of single standard terrorism, which imposes canons for the reading of the world’s phenomena. On single-standard aspect of hegemonic discourse, Noam Chomsky argued:
The single standard is deeply entrenched that it is beyond awareness. Take “terror” the leading topic of the day. There is a straightforward single standard: their terror against us and our clients is the ultimate evil, while our terror against them does not exist—or if it does, it is entirely appropriate33.
The new paradigm Noam Chomsky is proposing in the same book is to have the same moral standard when one is judging someone else. It goes in sharp contrast with the neoconservative imperialistic demeanor, which consists of putting the causes of America’s problem on the shoulders of communist or Islamist regime. In fact, the linguist and critical thinker of the American Foreign Policy referred to it as the history and hypocrisy of the US war on terrorism because of the multiple contradictions and paradoxes, which he noticed about the issue. Thus, Chomsky develops that:
“Among the hardest task that anyone can undertake, and one of the most important, is to look honestly in the mirror… And among the elementary of moral truisms is the principle of universality, we must apply to ourselves the same standards we apply to others if not more stringent ones”34.
Subjectivism might be viewed as a brand of the narratives of “civilization” leading a presumed crusade against enemies. For, the prevailing discourse about terrorism and the presumed Global War on it might be imbibed of a dose of subjectivity. This is as much challenging as the definition that people give to the phenomenon of terrorism is proposed by the western military and academic schools. Thus, a violent act is seen as terrorism if only it is directed against us. It is terrorism if only it is the terrorism THEY do against US; but the terrorism WE do against them does not exist: it is mostly pictured out as legitimate violence at the service of the “Civilization”. Therefore, if that violence causes millions of death in their side it will be seen as quite normal; however if WE lose one people OUR media alarm it out and call for revenge.
Moreover, the product, here the “apocalypse” discourse, is produced as a fast food ready to be consumed in order to satisfy a very specific imperialist lust. Thus, it knows normal a life cycle from the introduction, promotion, growth, maturity, to the decline. First, it knows a moment of great attention and advertising during which mainstream media, scholars are invited to talk about it and to educate people, then the mass, about the new phenomenon; second there is a period of less intense attention; third it knows a decline before the assessment.
The first decade of the Twenty-first century, meaning the post-9/11 era, was one of brand consummation as far as the war on terror discourse is concerned. In fact, it starts from hatred literature through an Orientalism of hatred and loathing, to Self-deterministic discourse in order to free a people from the chains of a dictator, up to anti Mass Destruction Weapon program. All such brands have been designed by the neoconservative and charlatan thinkers of George W. Bush Administration.
What the US administration succeeded in selling to the whole world was defused through efficient and effective propaganda strategies. In addition to the various propaganda techniques and strategies that were employed to project a friendly and supportive US attitude and hostility towards the Soviet Union and communism, the Bush administration’s marketing and commodification of fear proved effective. Formerly, they would use various propaganda strategies, which, themselves, are part of the great propaganda machine. Thus, through Foreign Aid, Posters and Brochures, Newspapers, Magazines, Newsreels, Cultural Influences, Exchange Programs and Associations of semiotics (using signs and symbols) Inter-government collaboration, the US administration sells the vision of the world to other nations. Other types of collaboration have the form of partnerships with US media, Academia, Private Associations and Publishing Industries.
Therefore, the thematic which such collaboration promotes include the description of the United States as the beacon of freedom for the whole world. Prowess, demonstrating the overwhelming and increasing industrial and military strength of the United States Peace-loving, by also being admired as a peace-loving nation, differentiating itself from a violent and disruptive Soviet Union Promoting nuclear and other scientific advances Religion as a propaganda asset, as for decades, religious tradition was viewed as a valuable asset that could be exploited to achieve American ends. This included Saudi Arabia’s conservative interpretation of Islam, as an important asset in promoting Western objectives, also including anticommunism, in the Middle East.
During the Cold War, American propaganda was a tool in an anticommunist crusade; today, it is a facet of the US “war on terrorism”. Now, as then, it is characterized as a remedy for anti-Americanism. Now as in the past, US policy toward Palestine is the primary source of Arab and Muslim dislike for the US, generated as well by apparent American indifference to the suffering of Iraqi civilians under sanctions and the pervasive presence of US military forces, viewed by many as proctors of autocratic and unpopular regimes rather than as defenders against external aggression (Battle, 2002) .
Talking about Idealism in international relations theories, one refers simply to the tendency of looking things not as what they actually are, but as what they should be. This means, by extension, and talking about a nation, running a moral and moralistic Foreign Policy dominated by ideologies and principles. Roughly speaking, idealism means getting involved in world march, progressively, if not trying to lead it. Thus, the appeal for ideals also known as idealism is, in International Relations studies, diffused mostly through the Soft Power approach. In fact, Joseph Nye theorized a concept that helps reading the phenomena and the creation of what is known today as terrorism. Instead of using sticks or even explicit carrots, the Soft Power approach focuses on the appeal for ideals, values and culture, of the Western way of life and its political institutions. Through attraction and persuasion, the US war on global terror machine succeeded in winning the battle over meaning.
5. Conclusion
The US war on global terror machine requires also the shaping of a doctrine the necessity of which is to put together all the notions that are considered as undeniably true and by which the United States pretend to provide a genuine interpretation of facts, to orientate and direct man’s action in terms of Foreign Policy issues. Part of that process is the marketing and commodification of fear to participate in inventing a Casus Belli, which means literally a “case of war” which is an act of such a nature as to motivate, for the government of a nation, to go to war. The true reasons which Implying forcibly a real notion of Alterity, US Doctrines and ideologies determined who is the real friend or the real enemy of the US and set up a sharp line between the US and its political adversaries. In the US perception of international relations, the notion of otherness is fundamental. In fact, they refer to everything that is ideologically different from the US values and principles as others. Therefore, there is a binary relationship between— them and us. The US Presidents would draw a binary relationship in order to defer themselves from their enemy; it was the case of Ronald Reagan and his Star Wars when he drew up his Empire of Evil, the features of which could be seen in George W. Bush’s Axis of Evil. The paternalism of such rhetorical presidency is to be given to Ronald Reagan (Tulis, 1987) .
The anticipation of threat has always been the concern of foreign policy for domestic issues. It has been clearly admitted that the distant geographic position of the US tends to favor a sort of paranoia. This paranoid style in the American Politics is very visible in foreign policy discourse which consists of developing an exaggerated fear of a being attacked or plotted by the enemy (Hofstadter, 1964) . Exploiting a situation of psychosis, promoters of this political genre can base themselves on facts that are both real and/or unreal.
In the process of elaboration of such doctrine, a paramount role have been played by Academics and Journalists who sometimes belong to “think tanks” such as the American Enterprise Institute. Sometimes, they act as “charlatan thinkers” who produce knowledge for sake of agency, probably the empire. This particular type of commitment in conflict, by thinkers (both journalists and/or academics) who participate in the representation of the enemy and the legimatization of war through particular knowledge production such as semiotics of extermination. This discursive and particularly malicious of literature is referred to by Hamid Dabashi as “Endosmosis” (Dabashi, 2009) 35.
The success of such foreign policy strategy is thanks to marketing and commodification of fear conducted through propaganda agencies along with the very influential Neoconservative Newspapers and Journals. Marketing fear for imperialistic purposes would pass through effective propaganda strategies easily widespread thanks to a network of channels, journals, TV and internet sponsored by Pentagon.
Deciphering the brand and strategies of such a propaganda strategies requires wearing critical specs of BIJ. In fact, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the Pentagon would have expended more than half-a-billion in order to produce fake jihadist videos on behalf of the propaganda campaign leading to the controversial Iraq freedom Operation. It is the famous British firm of communication and public relations, Bell Pottinger, which were hired to achieve such a project. Thus, 120 millions of dollars would be paid, from 2006 to 2011, to the firm thereof in order to produce fake propaganda “top secret” videos. Lord Bell, a British public relations consultant, was associated with a $540 million Pentagon propaganda campaign in Iraq. According to reports, the campaign was aimed at manipulating public opinion in Iraq and the wider Middle East to support the US-led war effort. Lord Bell was reportedly involved in the campaign through his PR firm, Bell Pottinger, which was hired by the Pentagon to create fake news stories and propaganda videos to be used in the media. This was revealed in a 2016 article by Lara Rebello.
It’s important to note that such propaganda campaigns raise serious ethical and moral questions about the use of misinformation for political purposes. They can also have significant negative consequences for the credibility of journalism and the public’s trust in information.
Side effects of anti-terror war have been considerably negative for minority groups such as Muslim and Arabic people knowing the context of racial and ethnic profiling along with the process of othering conducted by neoconservatives’ discursive and propaganda machine. Life in the Post 9/11 America was a nightmare for Middle Eastern, Arabs and Muslims. They had been victim of any kind of violence in schools and transportations and in public places (Bayoumi, 2009) . Even if the racial profiling did help to undo other terrorist activities, it also participated into reinforcing the bigotry cleavage and the orientalism of hatred that have been prevailing between the West and the Arab world since 1970’s.
Orientalism of hatred and loathing is registered within the tradition of bigotry either based on national origin or racial and ethnic profiling. Therefore, war-on-terror terrorism has been used the weapon for weak minds to stigmatize minorities such as Muslim and Arab communities along with mainstream media promoting it.
The representation of a faceless enemy brings them to any kind of stereotypes and Clichés, imageries etc. Most of them were built around rumors but also from the thirst of meanings and sense as far as the nature of the assaulters of civilization are concerned. Thus, from the deciphering of racial and ethnic profiling, this study is aimed to unveil the reversed angle of the camera, which has been being shot at an entire community in order to depict them as terrorists and pagans in contrast with the values, which the Civilization is promoting. The handlebar of such a camera is the US anti-terrorist warriors. They depict a whole community from their own cultural interpretations. Therefore, the faith of billions of people around the world was attacked through the caprice of an idealism promoted by the US ideological machinery against one religion (Kaufman, 2001) .
From the post-9/11 perspectives, such modes of discourse with supporting institutions which remind Edward Said’s groundbreaking theory would go by the name Post-Orientalism thanks to the Iranian thinker Hamid Dabashi. The post-9/11 paradigm imposed the world new ways of reading the phenomenon of terrorism. Such a paradigm came up with conclusion which implied the racial and ethnic profiling, through the means of semiotics, about the ethnicity and national origin or the seeds of such violence. In fact, what happened in the post-9/11 events was the similar to the representation of a whole community in order to serve the caprice of the US war on global terror results into a racial and ethnic profiling. For instance, Mustafa Bayoumi had been victim of this racial profiling leading him to write and share how someone feels to constitute a problem in the country where s/he lives. In his book entitled Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis, Jimmy Carter, proposed to attack terrorism and not human rights (Carter, 2006) .
Yet, the young British Muslims did respond to terrorist propaganda by starting the “NotInMyName” campaign, declaring that—ISIS is hiding behind false Islam to lead a project that might be viewed as imperialism. The receptivity of the Muslim youth as far as the terrorist discourse is concerned strengthens the belief that the war on global terroism has to go hand in hand with the profiling of susceptible terrorist according to communities and their social, political and economic claiming. If George W. Bush 43rd preferred a unilateralist approach and a preemptive policy based on the intervention and repression of communities susceptible of radicalization or terrorism, his successor, Barack Obama, adopted an inclusive approach by going toward a communication policy in places like universities of communities thereof. In any case, they share the same unilateralist view, which would define terrorism as the—terrorism they do against us. By adopting to engage a discussion with the Muslim communities, President Obama’s approach could be viewed as a policy registered within Post-Orientalist discourse. Such a discourse implies that terrorism is weapon of the weak, then under-class communities at the image of Muslims, Arabs and Black people.
The Post-Orientalist discourse, in time of terror, is characterized by the description and representation of an entire community, mostly Muslims, Arabs and Black communities, as the terrorists. This type of discourse goes hand in hand with almost the same mode of operation as the orientalist discourse from Edward Said’s point of view. They use imageries, representations, agencies, then agents, and think tanks, then charlatan thinkers. The latter produce knowledge at the service of the empire. Therefore, their discourse has a specific target: the world’s under-class youth whose receptivity about the political violence is a reality.
NOTES
1Hamid Dabashi, Post-Orientalism: Knowledge and Power in Time of Terror, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 2009, Dabashi, for instance, used the term “ground zero” within a historical significance. According to Dabashi, 9/11 events might have enabled the US to gain excuse in order to restart the time-computer in terms of war crimes and official terrorism.
2Francis Fukuyama, Democracy at the Cross-Road—Democracy, Power and the Neoconservative Legacy, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2006 p. 150.
3Andrew Clabrese “Casus Belli: U.S. Media and the Justification of the Iraq War”, First published online August 16, 2016, Casus Belli: U.S. Media and the Justification of the Iraq War—Andrew Calabrese, 2005 (sagepub.com) consulted November 20, 2021.
4Letter from Elliott Abrams, Richard L. Armitage, William J. Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, John Bolton, Paula Dobriansky, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Peter W. Rodman, Donald Rumsfeld, William Schneider, Jr., Vin Weber, Paul Wolfowitz, R. James Woolsey & Robert B. Zoellick to President William J. Clinton (Jan. 26, 1998), available at https://www.e-ir.info/2020/02/01/new-american-century-1997-2006-and-the-post-cold-war-neoconservative-moment/ 28 the January, 2022.
5Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, chap. 1 How It Can Be Strictly Said That in the United States It Is the People Who Govern, 1840, p. 10.
6George Walker Bush, Remarks by the President at the 2002 Graduation Exercise of the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, June 1, 2002, accessed online at: http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/14/08/2014
7Woodrow Wilson: “Address to a Joint Session of Congress on the Conditions of Peace,” January 8, 1918. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=654053/2/2018—The Fourteen Points Plan is a speech made by Woodrow Wilson in 1918. It is in this speech he crafted out his doctrine which is known as Wilsonianism. It will have influenced the US Diplomatic History mainly the creation of the League of Nation. His speech is considered by the specialist as the source of the invention of modern organization which gathers almost the whole world for the welfare mankind.
8Woodrow Wilson, Op. Cit., available at: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=65405.
9Noam Chomsky, Necessary Illusions—Thought Control in Democratic Society, Pluto Press, London, 1999.
10The Law is explicitly mentioned in the libellee of the resolution and references are done to the obligation of the President to report within the forty eight hours of the military intervention and to respect the deadline of sixty days.
11Hamid Dabashi, Post-Orientalism: Knowledge and Power in Time of Terror, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 2009, p. 124. The term fantasmagromic has been used by Hamid Dabashi, notably to describe the violence of 9/11 attacks.
12George Walker Bush, “State of the Union Address of 29th January 2002”. President Bush coined the concept “the axis of evil” hinting at Iran, Iraq and North Korea.
13Ronald Reagan, “Speech at 41st National Association of Evangelicals’ Annual Convention”, on March 8 1983.
14William Kristol and Robert Kagan—Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in America’s Foreign and Defense Policy, NY, National Interest, 2000. Since 2000 Neoconservatives had been altering the American people about a would-be international conspiracy against the security of the United States; Robert Kagan and William Kristol co-wrote a book, The Present Dangers, in 2000 with the purpose to warn the US Government of such a threat.
15Kenneth Katzman, Iraq: Post-Saddam Governance and Security, Congressional Research Service, October 28, 2009, pp. 6-23.
16J. Dennis Hastert et al., “Operation Iraqi Freedom”, House—International Relations, the conjoint Resolution, Congress, 16th October 2002, authorizing the use of military force against Iraq was voted 77 voices against 23 at the Senate and 296 voices against 133 at the Congress. Signatories included Elliott Abrams, William Bennett, Francis Fukuyama, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and James Woolsey.
17Paul Wolfowitz, speech at George Manson University, 2006, p. 3.
18Whitehouse.archives.gov, (ed.), Op. Cit., p. 66.
19Paul Wolfowitz, Ibid., p. 2.
20The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, Fifth Edition, 2017.
21Self-determinism was well promoted in the political discourse of Woodrow Wilson namely with his intervention in World War I. Through his Fourteen Points Plan, he addressed the need for colonies which were freshly unchained from colonialism, mostly in the southern hemisphere of the American continent and in Asia, to govern for their own destiny, then to self-determine.
22Noam Chomsky, Op. Cit. p 25.
23Noam Chomsky, Ibid.
24Noam Chomsky, Op. Cit. p 76.
25Whitehouse.archives.gov, (ed.), Op. Cit., p. 108.
26Whitehouse.archives.gov, (ed.), Op. Cit., p. 149.
27Noam Chomsky, Op. Cit., p. 5.
28Whitehouse.archives.gov, (ed.), Selected Speeches of President George W. Bush 2001-2008, (author), Bush, George W.:—September 11 Attacks September 11, 2001, p. 57. available at https://georgewbushwhitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/bushrecord/documents/, consultated on May 22, 2021.
29Whitehouse.archives.gov, (ed.), Op. Cit., p. 66.
30George W. Bush called nations which were sponsoring the terrorism network rogue states; that term could refer also to the failed sates meaning any state which could not assure its own national integrity and security.
31George W. Bush called nations which were sponsoring the terrorism network rogue states; that term could refer also to the failed sates meaning any state which could not assure its own national integrity and security.
32Whitehouse.archives.gov, (ed.), Op. Cit., p. 57.
33Noam Chomsky, Op. Cit., p. 6.
34Ibid. pp. 2-3.
35Hamid Dabashi, Op. Cit., Chap. 6 Endosmosis: Knowledge without Agency, Empire without Hegemony, pp.209-228.