Declaration of War on Terror - Essay Example

Post 9/11 speech of President George Bush was a declaration of war on terror. The text is the historical analysis of Bush’s speech by Graham, Keenan and Dowd. In fact, the analysis of the speech has shown wider strategic implications and a more complex political agenda of the President than what is apparent. The rhetoric of the discourse was designed to inflame the feeling of patriotism of the Americans and exhort them towards ‘hortatory goals’ to achieve personal vested interests. The textual extract of the scholars would be further analysed for the power relations and the deconstructions of the strategic meanings of the references made in the analysis of the speech by the authors. The analysis would primarily be based on the modalities and attitudes displayed by the President as well as by the authors while analysing the President’s speech.
In emerging technologies, media is perhaps the most influential platform that has a wide-ranging impact on every sphere of public life. That is the reason, media has been used not only for generating revenue but it has been the greatest boon for our politicians to be used to garner public support for their political agendas and projecting and create an equitable image in order to remain in a position to bargain. The President’s speech is delivered at a time when his waning popularity really needed an urgent impetus to gain public support and somehow infuse fresh confidence amongst the public for his political agenda that might give him a fresh lease of life.
The authors have used strong and impeccable words to describe the background and the situations that may have lost relevance in contemporary times but nevertheless, had at some point in time in history carried extreme importance. The authors have emphasised the fact that history is witness to the fact that different issues; socio-economic, political, technical, or even organizational have hogged the limelight from time to time. Politicians and political agendas have a tendency to pick on issues that would best serve their own personal and political goals. Very often, those agendas are hidden behind the more vocal and sensitive issues that might have a significant impact on the psyche of the general public. The modalities are thus displayed in the guise of the public good. The same techniques are shown in Bush’s speech where he gives a call to arms in order to protect the world from the ‘evil designs of terror’.
The authors have stated that the 90s were dominated by the collapse of ‘Sovietism’ or the emergence of America as a single superpower. In 2000, it was bursting of the ‘dot-com’ bubble, followed by corporate scandals across the globe. The latest issue to hit the headline is the phenomenon of ‘globalization which has gone beyond the boundaries of national goals and promotes and embraces a universal value system with business interests that is spread across nations. According to the authors, all these issues have a limited shelf life and politicians need to take up new issues that would keep the people’s interest alive and at the same time give the politicians and political leadership more ammunition to remain a stakeholder in the power play of political arena.
The authors have affirmed repeatedly that Bush’s call for arms was a deliberate modality to divert the public’s attention from the deteriorating socio-economic conditions of the state and the waning power of the president to control the situation. The declaration of war on terror was the best opportunity for the president to grab the limelight and promote himself as the savour of the country and the people, not only of America but the whole world. History has shown that whenever the powers have called for ‘arms’, they have always done so to legitimise their vested interests and have used their military might to overcome the ‘evil forces’. The calls for arms were also important to unite the people towards a common goal that would both serve to please the public and at the same time, facilitate political leadership to take an upper hand and gain public support.
Bush’s declaration of war on terror was hugely successful as it brought him back to power! The authors’ use of words like hortatory goals, rapid speculation, Sovietism, fast fading shibboleth, etc. has deliberately been used to display the nefarious intentions of the political leadership. The strategic meanings of the words have direct linkages with the modalities of the President and help convey the wider implications of his political agenda. The authors have given a new construction to the President’s speech which conforms to the hidden agenda of Bush. His declaration of war was designed to win public approval for waging war against the nations that he thought might be fostering terrorism and terrorists.
The interpretations of the authors were stark in their disclosures and ambiguous in their rhetoric which is abrupt and does not give full insight into the meanings of the phrases used like ‘illegitimate president installed by a politicized, partisan judiciary’. One tends to put one’s interpretation into the analysis of the authors.  Read More