Political Language and Myth in the War on Terrorism

Introduction: The Post-9/11 Rhetoric Landscape

In the initial years of the 21st century, the United States entered a new era of manipulative language use, especially by high-level post-9/11 politicians and political operatives. Increasingly, metaphor, myth, cultural narrative, and storytelling — deployed for distracting, obfuscating, or even nefarious purposes — were used by high-level politicians and their associates to construct politically advantageous "truths," often out of thin air. In post-9/11 America, these sometimes humorously hyperbolic, supposedly patriotically inspired phrases and slogans proved remarkably successful in convincing many Americans to think, act, and believe in particular "appropriate" or "patriotic" ways.

It increasingly seemed that manipulative metaphorical and hyperbolic language was employed with frequent effectiveness to draw verbal distinctions between supposedly "patriotic" Americans — those who favored the war with Iraq — and "unpatriotic" ones who did not. This uniquely hyperbolic, divisive, and often misleading metaphorical "pro-war" language was closely identified with the George W. Bush administration and with this particular moment in American life. This essay analyzes several such uses of "patriotically inspired" language used most often by George W. Bush and his various spokespeople to rally public support for the continuing "War on Terrorism" and, as one misguided manifestation of it, the continuing war in Iraq.

According to President George W. Bush and various members of his cabinet — including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld — the prevailing cultural narrative held that "freedom-loving people everywhere" should continue to support American war efforts in Iraq. This framing ignored the fact that there was no real connection between being "freedom-loving" and supporting the war, particularly against a government and insurgency that had never threatened anyone's freedom outside its own borders.

Freedom, Bravery, and the Patriotism Narrative

Further, because America is, according to the well-known song America the Beautiful, "the land of the free, and the home of the brave," the implicit message was that failing to support the war meant one was not sufficiently "freedom-loving" — and therefore not "brave." The terrorists themselves were frequently described by leading American politicians as "weak" and "cowards." By implication, to oppose the Iraq War — which had been rhetorically melded to the "War on Terrorism" — was to be other than a "freedom-loving person," and by inference "weak" and a "coward," just like a terrorist.

Strategically repetitive use of the word "freedom," or some derivative of it, was at the root of the administration's war rhetoric. Bush and others insisted, for example, that "Freedom will prevail." After all, "America is a democracy," and therefore — as if these two ideas were somehow related — "we who love freedom must not give in to those who would threaten our way of life." Those threatening "our way of life" were, of course, framed as terrorists like those led by Osama bin Laden, not the Iraqis. In that same vein, the stubbornly pseudo-patriotic cultural narrative delivered by war supporters was that America must "stay the course."

Sometimes, within this frothy and often deceptive pro-war rhetoric, even unusual capitalizations of words and phrases — never capitalized before the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon — implicitly insisted on their own embedded truthfulness. Phrases such as "War on Terrorism," "Axis of Evil," "America's City" (post-9/11 New York), and "America's Mayor" (then-New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani) carried the visual weight of banner newspaper headlines. Many Americans came to regard such phrases as important truths about whom to admire, whom to distrust, and what to believe in.

Conflating Iraq with September 11

A central pillar of the Bush administration's war rhetoric was the strategic conflation of the Iraq War with the September 11 attacks. As Keefer observed (June 12, 2003), Bush was "strategically connecting Iraq to the September 11 attacks with his rhetoric, claiming that the attack on Iraq is part of a campaign against 'international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.'" Keefer concluded that "Bush's statements are at least partially responsible for the persistent public misperception that Iraq and Saddam were involved in the September 11th attacks."

As Hoffman observed, a frequent Bush post-9/11 tactic was to "resort to Orwellian rhetoric." The President told Americans that the war was not a policy chosen among available alternatives, but a necessity imposed by Saddam Hussein. Nations that resisted the administration's rush to war were presented as hostile due to greed or incurable anti-Americanism. Hoffman noted that Colin Powell stated Jacques Chirac had said France would not go to war against Iraq "under any circumstances" — when in fact, as Powell must have known, the French President had committed French forces to war if UN inspectors concluded Iraq possessed forbidden weapons it could not peacefully relinquish (Hoffman, June 12, 2003).

Even as the Iraq War went badly — with American troops being killed and wounded daily — President Bush and his closest representatives continued to insist, with increasing implausibility, that "Freedom is on the March." The hoped-for outcome of the war was discussed by the President and his closest advisors only in metaphorical terms, carefully detached from the realities on the ground.