Framing the Threat

6 Bush’s Security Discourse and Policies

This part of the book sets out to investigate how the establishment of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and the application of torture became possible. To this end, the following provides an analysis of George W. Bush’s security narrative as put forth in his speeches and statements between September 11, 2001 and September 11, 2002. It focuses on how the president constructed the threat scenario faced by the United States in the aftermath of 9/11 under the heading of war. The ‘War on Terror’ started out with words, that is, by being labeled as such. Much of the stage that enabled subsequent actions to be taken was set by the definition of the 9/11 attacks as ‘acts of war’ – which was a deliberate ...