scholarly journals Captured by the camera's eye: Guantánamo and the shifting frame of the Global War on Terror

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 1721-1749 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELSPETH VAN VEEREN
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Global War On Terrorism ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Media ◽  
Donald Rumsfeld ◽  
Global War

AbstractIn January 2002, images of the detention of prisoners held at US Naval Station Guantanamo Bay as part of the Global War on Terrorism were released by the US Department of Defense, a public relations move that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld later referred to as ‘probably unfortunate’. These images, widely reproduced in the media, quickly came to symbolise the facility and the practices at work there. Nine years on, the images of orange-clad ‘detainees’ – the ‘orange series’ – remain a powerful symbol of US military practices and play a significant role in the resistance to the site. However, as the site has evolved, so too has its visual representation. Official images of these new facilities not only document this evolution but work to constitute, through a careful (re)framing (literal and figurative), a new (re)presentation of the site, and therefore the identities of those involved. The new series of images not only (re)inscribes the identities of detainees as dangerous but, more importantly, work to constitute the US State as humane and modern. These images are part of a broader effort by the US administration to resituate its image, and remind us, as IR scholars, to look at the diverse set of practices (beyond simply spoken language) to understand the complexity of international politics.

Pulmonary Pathology Diagnoses in the US Military During the Global War on Terrorism

Lung ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael R. Lewin-Smith ◽  
Adriana Martinez ◽  
Daniel I. Brooks ◽  
Teri J. Franks
Keyword(s):  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Global War On Terrorism ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Pulmonary Pathology ◽  
Global War

The barbarians of Fallujah

Race & Class ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-36
Author(s):  
Matt Carr
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Moral Legitimacy ◽  
Moral Imperative ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Global War ◽  
The City

The `global war on terror' is often represented as a struggle between incompatible opposites, of good versus evil, terror versus democracy and civilisation versus barbarism. The deployment of such dichotomies was part of the background to the onslaught on Fallujah in 2004, serving to provide the US military with the appearance of moral legitimacy, as it turned the city to rubble in order to `save' it. In the US media, the arrogant assumption that the US is civilisationally superior both to the `barbarians' its armies were fighting in the city and to the broader mass of the Iraqi population, was a recurring theme among neo-conservative and pro-war liberal ideologues. Yet, with the city's destruction presented as a moral imperative on behalf of civilised values, there has been scant examination of the allegations that US forces were guilty of war crimes. Moreover, the attack on Fallujah shows that civilisation and barbarism are not diametrically opposed concepts in a `global war on terror' which continues to cause more death and destruction than the violence it is supposedly intended to eliminate.

scholarly journals Blurred lines

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar Dewachi
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Moral Framework ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Polio Vaccination ◽  
The Us ◽  
Global War ◽  
Vaccination Campaigns

The neutrality of medicine and health care professionals in different conflict settings in the Middle East have come under scrutiny in recent human rights reports, and should be seen as part of the broader fallout of the US-led ‘global war on terror.’ The last two decades of US military attacks on health infrastructures in Iraq and the use of polio-vaccination campaigns to track down ‘terrorists’ are acts of war that have further blurred the lines between health care and warfare. The failure of international legal processes and institutions to prevent such assaults or to prosecute those responsible raises questions about the Eurocentric system of checks and balances that shape international humanitarian law and its invocation as a ‘legal’ and ‘moral’ framework.

9/11 and the Global War on Terrorism

2019 ◽  
pp. 127-150
Author(s):  
David P. Oakley
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Positive Direction ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Global War On Terrorism ◽  
Defense Intelligence ◽  
Global War ◽  
The Relationship

After 9/11, the DoD sought to sever its perceived reliance on national intelligence. These changes were in part motivated by previous reviews of intelligence and in part by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s desire to consolidate power and capability within the DoD. The enacted changes resulted in a significant transformation of defense intelligence and influenced how the DoD interacted with the CIA and the broader Intelligence Community. For better or worse, individual leaders shaped the DoD/CIA relationship immediately following 9/11. These leaders’ influence highlights how parochial and nonparochial personalities affected the DoD/CIA relationship during the global war on terror. Fortunately, the influence of nonparochial leaders shaped the relationship in a more positive direction.

The Afghanistan War, 2001–?

2019 ◽  
pp. 119-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
James H. Lebovic
Keyword(s):  
World Trade ◽  
World Trade Center ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Global War On Terrorism ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Trade Center ◽  
Global War ◽  
International Security Assistance Force

With the September 11, 2001 attack by al-Qaeda terrorists on the World Trade Center, the Bush administration conceded to decisional bias. It committed to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan without duly assessing the implications of a Taliban defeat or how it might serve the administration’s “global war on terrorism.” Once engaged, the administration defined the US mission in Afghanistan broadly yet remained detached from harsh realities—including Afghan government corruption and ineptitude, finite alliance resources (in the International Security Assistance Force), and a Taliban resurgence—that hampered the achievement of these goals. The Obama administration capped US involvement in pursuing the limited goal of “reversing” the Taliban’s momentum. Although the administration increased US force levels in Afghanistan, it did so modestly and temporarily and then pursued a troop exit despite the country’s ongoing violence and instability. The administration stuck to its plan, slowing, not reversing, the withdrawal as the country’s security conditions worsened.

scholarly journals Secrecy's subjects: Special operators in the US shadow war

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 386-414
Author(s):  
Elspeth Van Veeren
Keyword(s):  
Security Studies ◽  
Constitutive Relationship ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Global War On Terrorism ◽  
Political Work ◽  
Security Discourse ◽  
The Us ◽  
Special Operator ◽  
Global War

AbstractThis article sets out a framework for studying the power of secrecy in security discourses. To date, the interplay between secrecy and security has been explored within security studies most often through a framing of secrecy and security as a ‘balancing’ act, where secrecy and revelation are binary opposites, and excesses of either produce insecurity. Increasingly, however, the co-constitutive relationship between secrecy and security is the subject of scholarly explorations. Drawing on ‘secrecy studies’, using the US ‘shadow war’ as an empirical case study, and conducting a close reading of a set of key memoirs associated with the rising practice of ‘manhunting’ in the Global War on Terrorism (GWoT), this article makes the case that to understand the complex workings of power within a security discourse, the political work of secrecy as a multilayered composition of practices (geospatial, technical, cultural, and spectacular) needs to be analysed. In particular, these layers result in the production and centring of several secrecy subjects that help to reproduce the logic of the GWoT and the hierarchies of gender, race, and sex within and beyond special operator communities (‘insider’, ‘stealthy’, ‘quiet’, and ‘alluring’ subjects) as essential to the security discourse of the US ‘shadow war’.

The “Bosnian war on terrorism”

2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karmen Erjavec
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Daily Newspaper ◽  
Global War On Terrorism ◽  
Daily Newspapers ◽  
Bosnian War ◽  
The Media ◽  
Terrorism Discourse ◽  
Global War ◽  
War Discourse

This paper explores the changes in the media discourse on granting and revoking Bosnian citizenship of foreigners in the most read Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian quality daily newspapers from the end of the Bosnian war in 1995 until the Commission for the Revision of Decisions on Naturalization of Foreign Citizens finished its work in 2007. Critical discourse analysis of news articles shows that all newspapers recontextualised the discourse on granting and revoking citizenship from a nationalistic war discourse to a “war on terrorism” discourse, joining the anti-terrorism global discursive community. Serbian and Croatian newspapers have not only colonised the “war on terrorism” vocabulary and discourse of difference but they have also appropriated a specific local discourse to the more global “war on terrorism” discourse and have represented military actions against the Muslims in the Bosnian war “as our war on terrorism”. A Bosnian daily newspaper similarly represented the Commission’s activities as the “Bosnian war on terrorism”.

US military may dampen human rights focus in Africa

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Military Operations ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Drone Strikes ◽  
Security Assistance ◽  
Regional Engagement ◽  
Global War

Significance The attack comes amid fears over increasing securitisation of the US government's engagements and policy towards Africa, just as AFRICOM reaches the tenth anniversary of its establishment. Security assistance to African countries has increased dramatically as part of the global war on terror. Impacts The Trump administration's prioritisation of security assistance will increase African public scepticism of US regional engagement. Drone strikes and special operation forces will be AFRICOM’s preferred means of direct military operations. A new controversy akin to the 2012 coup in Mali which was led by a US-trained officer could undermine US military standing on the continent.

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