Discourses of war, geographies of abjection: reading contemporary American ideologies of terror

This article critically details the strategies and ideologies that inform three key post-9/11 volumes on the politics of terror, war making and national security in the USA. These texts, by renowned American 'masters of statecraft' Robert Kaplan, Victor Davis Hanson and Michael Ledeen, enc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Third world quarterly 2005-10, Vol.26 (7), p.1157-1172
Main Author: Debrix, François
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
21st century
Discourse
Fear
Foreign Policy
France
Geography
Geopolitics
Hanson, Victor Davis
Iraq
Kaplan, Robert
Ledeen, Michael A
Military policy
National Security
Political discourse
Political Ideologies
Political leadership
Politicians
Politics
Religious terrorism
Rhetoric
September 11
Terror
Terrorism
U.S.A
United States of America
US 'Empire'
Violence
War
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Summary:This article critically details the strategies and ideologies that inform three key post-9/11 volumes on the politics of terror, war making and national security in the USA. These texts, by renowned American 'masters of statecraft' Robert Kaplan, Victor Davis Hanson and Michael Ledeen, encourage the USA's political and military leadership to embrace terror and violence and to be continuously at war against alleged American enemies. The article argues that these writings are representative of what French post-structuralist and gender scholar Julia Kristeva has called abjection. Indeed, these literatures require their readers to be one with hatred and destruction, and to violently reject anything that appears to be un-American. Their ideologies-which have been immensely influential in post-9/11 American national security circles-aim to prepare and condition American citizens for years of ongoing violence, war and possibly terror. They encourage hatred towards enemies that may not even have been named yet. By openly propagating these kinds of discourse, these scholars' texts render the prospect for peace (in Iraq, the Middle-East and everywhere else) in the 21st century ever more difficult to achieve.
ISSN:0143-6597
1360-2241
DOI:10.1080/01436590500235769