ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the former head of the CIA's bin Laden Issue Station, Michael Scheuer's, argument that Osama bin Laden should be understood as an 'inciter-in-chief' of violence, rather than its actual perpetrator. The chapter demonstrates that sovereign strategy relies heavily on the political management of fear and knowledge. If terrorism is about the incitement of fear for political purposes, we need to replace essence with sense; in other words, we need to focus more closely on the manifest appearances of 'fear-ful' events, acts, and practices as they direct themselves towards sensual experiences of the targeted, terrorized, audience. The assumption that fear is the direct and unmediated outcome of terrorist actions, rather than the product of representational and mediating political practices by states militates against the critical phenomenological approach advocated.
