Presidential Power, Rhetoric, and the Terror Wars

Presidential Power, Rhetoric, and the Terror Wars
Author: Alexander Hiland
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2019-10-21
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1498598269

Presidential Power, Rhetoric, and the Terror Wars: The Sovereign Presidency argues that the War on Terror provided an opportunity to fundamentally change the presidency. Alexander Hiland analyzes the documents used to exercise presidential powers, including executive orders, signing statements, and presidential policy directives. Treating these documents as genres of speech-act that are ideologically motivated, Hiland provides a rhetorical criticism that illuminates the values and political convictions at play in these documents. This book reveals how both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama wielded the personal power of the office to dramatically expand the power of the executive branch. During the War on Terror, the presidency shifted from an imperial form that avoided checks and balances, to a sovereign presidency where the executive branch had the ability to decide whether those checks and balances existed. As a result, Hiland argues that this shift to the sovereign presidency enabled the violation of human rights, myriad policy mistakes, and the degradation of democracy within the United States.

Writing the War on Terrorism

Writing the War on Terrorism
Author: Richard Jackson
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2005-07-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780719071218

This book examines the language of the war on terrorism and is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand how the Bush administration's approach to counter-terrorism became the dominant policy paradigm in American politics today.

War Powers

War Powers
Author: Peter Irons
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2006-05-02
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780805080179

This book examines a fundamental question in the development of the American empire: What constraints does the Constitution place on our territorial expansion, military intervention, occupation of foreign countries, and on the power the president may exercise over American foreign policy? Worried about the dangers of unchecked executive power, the Founding Fathers deliberately assigned Congress the sole authority to make war. But the last time Congress declared war was on December 8, 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Since then, every president from Harry Truman to George W. Bush has used military force in pursuit of imperial objectives, while Congress and the Supreme Court have virtually abdicated their responsibilities to check presidential power. Legal historian Irons recounts this story of subversion from above, tracing presidents' increasing willingness to ignore congressional authority and even suspend civil liberties.--From publisher description.

Power and Constraint: The Accountable Presidency After 9/11

Power and Constraint: The Accountable Presidency After 9/11
Author: Jack Goldsmith
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2012-03-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0393083519

The surprising truth behind Barack Obama's decision to continue many of his predecessor's counterterrorism policies. Conventional wisdom holds that 9/11 sounded the death knell for presidential accountability. In fact, the opposite is true. The novel powers that our post-9/11 commanders in chief assumed—endless detentions, military commissions, state secrets, broad surveillance, and more—are the culmination of a two-century expansion of presidential authority. But these new powers have been met with thousands of barely visible legal and political constraints—enforced by congressional committees, government lawyers, courts, and the media—that have transformed our unprecedentedly powerful presidency into one that is also unprecedentedly accountable. These constraints are the key to understanding why Obama continued the Bush counterterrorism program, and in this light, the events of the last decade should be seen as a victory, not a failure, of American constitutional government. We have actually preserved the framers’ original idea of a balanced constitution, despite the vast increase in presidential power made necessary by this age of permanent emergency.

Resowing the Seeds of War

Resowing the Seeds of War
Author: Stephen J. Heidt
Publisher:
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2021
Genre: Communication in politics
ISBN: 9781611863840

"The book explores how postwar US presidents used communication strategies to craft new roles or personas for presidential leadership that amplified the necessity of American power and inserted American leadership into precarious situations that ensured national engagement in the next conflict"--

Selling War, Selling Hope

Selling War, Selling Hope
Author: Anthony R. DiMaggio
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2015-09-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1438457952

Details how presidents utilize mass media to justify foreign policy objectives in the aftermath of 9/11. Modern presidents have considerable power in selling U.S. foreign policy objectives to the public. In Selling War, Selling Hope, Anthony R. DiMaggio documents how presidents often make use of the media to create a positive informational environment that, at least in the short term, successfully builds public support for policy proposals. Using timely case studies with a focus on the Arab Spring and the U.S. “War on Terror” in the Middle East and surrounding regions, DiMaggio explains how official spin is employed to construct narratives that are sympathetic to U.S. officialdom. The mass media, rather than exhibiting independence when it comes to reporting foreign policy issues, is regularly utilized as a political tool for selling official proposals. The marginalization of alternative, critical viewpoints poses a significant obstacle to informed public deliberations on foreign policy issues. In the long run, however, the packaging of official narrative and its delivery by the media begins to unravel as citizens are able to make use of alternative sources of information and assert their independence from official viewpoints. “Selling War, Selling Hope is an innovative project that pushes the fields of political science, political communication, public opinion, and presidential rhetoric into new and exciting directions. This book is essential reading.” — Mark Major, author of The Unilateral Presidency and the News Media: The Politics of Framing Executive Power “This eye-opening exposition offers a radical new conclusion to the debate over why Americans oppose wars: Americans oppose particular wars for moral reasons. By capturing the wide range of presidential rhetoric from fear to hope, DiMaggio documents the depths plumbed by political and other elites to manipulate the American public to support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In order to counteract American citizens’ moral opposition to war, political elites manipulate citizens’ fears into support for war by giving them hope, but the policies they choose, more often than not, lead to more war and reason for fear which creates a vicious cycle: fear—hope—war. The challenge we face is to break through the noise and the manipulation of political, economic, and military elites. DiMaggio offers us a way to see clearly.” — Amentahru Wahlrab, University of Texas at Tyler

Power Without Constraint

Power Without Constraint
Author: Chris Edelson
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2016-05-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0299307409

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama criticized the George W. Bush administration for its unrestrained actions in matters of national security. In secret Justice Department memos, President Bush’s officials had claimed for the executive branch total authority to use military force in response to threats of terrorism. They set aside laws made by Congress, even criminal laws prohibiting torture and warrantless surveillance. Candidate Obama promised to restore the rule of law and make a clean break with the Bush approach. President Obama has not done so. Why? In a thorough comparison of the Bush and Obama administrations’ national security policies, Chris Edelson demonstrates that President Obama and his officials have used softer rhetoric and toned-down legal arguments, but in key areas—military action, surveillance, and state secrets—they have simply found new ways to assert power without meaningful constitutional or statutory constraints. Edelson contends that this legacy of the two immediately post-9/11 presidencies raises crucial questions for future presidents, Congress, the courts, and American citizens. Where is the political will to restore a balance of powers among branches of government and adherence to the rule of law? What are the limits of authority regarding presidential national security power? Have national security concerns created a permanent shift to unconstrained presidential power?

Bluster

Bluster
Author: Peter R. Neumann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2020-01-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0197513824

Defeating terrorism was one of Donald Trump's key campaign promises. But there is no easy way to make sense of Donald Trump's war on terror. Is it all bluster, aimed at mobilising his base, or does it represent a genuine shift from previous administrations? Since Trump took office, American counterterrorism has become more militaristic and less interested in causes and consequences. Relationships with foreign partners have deteriorated and right-wing extremists feel powerful and emboldened. The most significant change of paradigm-the conflation of terrorism, immigration, and Islam-has not just resulted in costly failures, such as the "Muslim ban," but also undermined the trust of immigrant communities and multiculturalism in the US. In Bluster, Peter Neumann assesses Trump's approach to countering terrorism, and argues that his war on terror looks strong and powerful in the short term, but will cause damage over time. The president has not just failed to provide a strategic framework for defeating terrorism; his entire approach has made the world less safe and undermined America's greatest 'soft power' asset-the very idea of America.

Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power

Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power
Author: Joseph Margulies
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2006-07-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0743293568

In his address to the nation on September 20, 2001, President Bush declared war on terrorism and set in motion a detention policy unlike any we have ever seen. Since then, the United States has seized thousands of people from around the globe, setting off a firestorm of controversy. Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power explores that policy and the intense debates that have followed. Written by an expert on the subject, one of the lawyers who fought -- and won -- the right for prisoners to have judicial review, this important book will be of immense interest to liberals and conservatives alike. With shocking facts and firsthand accounts, Margulies takes readers deep into the Guantánamo Bay prison, into the interrogation rooms and secret cells where hundreds of men and boys have been designated "enemy combatants." Held without legal process, they have been consigned to live out their days in isolation until the Bush administration sees fit to release them -- if itever does. Margulies warns Americans to be especially concerned by the administration's assertion that the Presidentcan have unlimited and unchecked legal authority. Tracing the arguments on both sides of the debate, this vitally important book paints a portrait of a country divided, on the brink of ethical collapse, where the loss of personal freedoms is under greater threat than ever before.

Presidential Rhetoric on Terrorism under Bush, Obama and Trump

Presidential Rhetoric on Terrorism under Bush, Obama and Trump
Author: Gabriel Rubin
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2020-03-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3030301672

Through the analysis of eighteen years of presidential data, this book shows how Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump have conducted and framed the war on terror since its inception in 2001. Examining all presidential speeches about terrorism from George W. Bush’s two terms as President, Barack Obama’s two terms as President, and Donald Trump’s first year as President, this book is the first to compare the three post-9/11 presidents in how they have dealt with the terror threat. Presidential Rhetoric on Terrorism under Bush, Obama, and Trump argues that when policies need to be “sold” to the public and Congress, presidents make their pertinent issues seem urgent through frequent speech-making and threat inflation. It further illustrates how after policies are sold, a new President’s reticence may signify quiet acceptance of the old regime’s approach. After examining the conduct of the war on terror to date, it concludes by posing policy suggestions for the future.