ABSTRACT
There is a sense that the terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001 provided a paradigm shift in the psyche of the nation, a feeling that nothing would be the same again. The horrifying events of that day and the subsequent responses of the Bush administration have provided some significant changes in the direction of foreign policy in the post-Cold War world. This must not disguise, however, the reality of great continuities with the past. Indeed the administration itself constructed the meaning of the ‘war on terror’ by referring to historical precedents and invoking the collective memory of previous conflicts.1
In a paradoxical discourse of selective remembrance, American policy was linked to memories of the past whilst simultaneously being justified as a response to an unprecedented and uniquely dangerous conflict. In the previous chapter we noted that the American foundation myth
and sense of mission were able to survive the national trauma of the Vietnam War. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 stimulated calls for America to play a directly interventionist role in world affairs in order to preserve and outwork that mission. President Bush embraced a vision of American exceptionalism which promised to use US power to rid the world of evil and tyranny. In his 2002 State of the Union Address he argued, ‘Americans are a free people who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.’2 In the rhetoric and policy of the administration there was a strong sense of idealism. As with previous responses to global conflicts, however, this has been accompanied by the competing and complementary concept of national interest. Neo-conservative policy makers seek to promote democracy and freedom but often as a secondary concern to the pragmatic primacy of national security. Attempts by the government to explain the war on terror relied on
straightforward conceptual frameworks and historical precedents which
in turn promoted a simplistic clash of civilisations interpretation.3 An uncritical and prescriptive patriotism was mobilised in support of the war on terror, a war which rapidly expanded in its geographical and strategic scope between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. As discussed previously, America’s sense of itself has long been connected to its relationship with the rest of the world. What makes the war on terror so important in this respect is the great paradox it presents. In seeking to promote democracy and freedom in the face of organised terror, the Bush administration compromised those very principles both at home and abroad. The restriction of civil liberties and the emergence of a prescriptive patriotic spirit appeared as consequences of the 9/11 attacks and presented questions which struck at the very heart of US national identity. This prescriptive patriotism was accompanied by pernicious racial assumptions which impacted on the construction of American citizenship. The nature of the attacks on the Twin Towers had a massive impact
on the minds of Americans. There was nothing new in the technology utilised by the attackers but they used aeroplanes as destructive weapons against civilian targets in an unprecedented way. Twenty-four-hour news channels brought the horrific scenes of the passenger jets smashing into the World Trade Center, and its collapse into apocalyptic clouds of dust, to homes across the world. There was a clear sense that this was something new and terrifying. The concept of an epoch-defining change as a result of September 11th was an irresistible narrative in popular culture in the period following the terrorist attacks. There was an all-embracing sense that the world had crossed a line into a new and dangerous age. Undoubtedly the events of 9/11 presented the US with significant foreign policy problems which asked new and difficult questions of the American polity. One historian explained that the attacks ‘forced a reconsideration, not only of where we are as a nation and where we may be going, but also of where we’ve been, even of who we are’.4 The concept of American power was dramatically challenged by the death and destruction that could be achieved by a new ‘amoeba-like foe’ which could not be tackled using conventional American military strength.5
