ABSTRACT
On March 19, 2003, during the annual convention of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) in New York City, at the hands of President George W. Bush, the United States of America found itself at war with Iraq, a conflict that was positioned in public discourse by the White House as a “quick and just” war. As might be expected, since then, there has been much evidence to indicate that this discourse was propagandistic, deliberately designed to achieve political and economic goals, and perhaps even the personal goals of the Bush administration. An astute observer might easily make the case that this administration operated in selfish terms and with alarming disregard for both the citizens of the nation and the world. Whether one makes such an assertion or not, clearly, we now find that our nation has functioned as an invader of another nation, as the crafter-without invitation by the invaded nation-of a military occupation, and in the very difficult, if not impossible situation, of trying to figure out options for simultaneously extricating ourselves from the scene, needing to create a better image for ourselves on the world’s stage, and needing to expend considerable national resources on rebuilding the nation that we will be leaving in our wake.
