ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book illustrates that legitimacy, power, and authority (to create knowledge, to identify and classify groups of people, to prescribe and undertake certain actions) in the 'War on Terror' are discursively constructed through 'official' discursive representations that are gendered and orientalist. It examines the ways in which representations of orientalised and gendered 'Others' have been constructed, manipulated, and deployed in the George W. Bush administration's 'War on Terror' discourse, specifically in terms of enabling military interventions into Afghanistan and Iraq. The book also shows how gendered and orientalist identity categories (such as women, men, masculinities, femininities, us, them, backward, civilised) are created and categorised (for example some 'types' of 'women' are in need of rescue, some categories of 'men' are a threat) and how these categories are deployed to make military interventions in the 'War on Terror' legitimate.
