Browsing by Subject "September 11, 2001"

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    Competing Frames? The War on Terror in Campaign Rhetoric
    (2007-06) Kaufman, Heather L.; Seybold, Peter James, 1950-; Wittberg, Patricia; Foote, Carrie
    The Iraq War and the War on Terror were pivotal issues in the presidential race for the White House in 2004. Competing frames about the meaning of September 11, 2001, terrorism, and American power were constructed by the rival candidates and established a limited debate that marginalized alternative interpretations of war and peace. It is likely that the dilemma over U.S. forces in Iraq and the War on Terror will continue to be a major issue in the upcoming 2008 Presidential Election. Therefore, the campaign speeches of the presidential candidates, President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry, during the 2004 Election regarding terrorism were important to understanding the themes that initiated public debate in the U.S. about the conflict in Iraq and the War on Terror. In this document analysis, these candidates’ public addresses illustrated how the role of the U.S. power to combat terrorism shaped a particular perspective about the post-9/11 world. Ideas that challenged “official” debate about war and national security were excluded from mainstream media coverage of the campaign. In order to examine the narrow debate over terrorism and how alternative “ways of seeing” war have been and continue to be marginalized, this study compared how the candidates framed the war in contrast to anti-war voices. Cindy Sheehan, who is an emergent leader in the peace and social justice movement, and more “official” voices of dissent like Representative Dennis Kucinich, have criticized “official” framing of the war. Dissenting perspectives about the Iraq War and the War on Terror invite a different understanding about U.S. hegemony, terrorism, and the consequences of the War on Terror for foreign and domestic policies. The impact of the war upon domestic policy and national crises, such as the widely televised and heavily criticized federal response to Hurricane Katrina Summer 2005, were examined to explore how domestic crises undermine “official” framing of the Iraq War and the War on Terror and empower alternative understandings of war and peace.
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    United States, Muslim Politics in the
    (Oxford University Press, 2022-05-19) Curtis, Edward E., IV
    In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Muslim Americans became a more vulnerable and visible group. Representing only 1 to 2 percent of the total U.S. population, during the first decade of the twenty-first century they were swept into national debates about U.S. foreign policy, civil rights and religious liberties, racial and religious equality, and cultural assimilation and integration. Their symbolic value to such critical national discussions often trumped their role as political actors in their own right. The myopic lens of the twenty-first-century war on terrorism obscured their long-standing presence in and contributions to political life in the United States. Though Muslim Americans did not engage formally in electoral politics until the twentieth century, they have been participants in U.S. politics, broadly conceived, since the birth of the republic. This article recovers the lost political voices of Muslim Americans from 1776 to the present, focusing first on the era of slavery, and then exploring the roots and flowering of formal Muslim politics among American- and foreign-born Muslims in the twentieth century. It concludes with a discussion of Muslim politics in the United States after September 11, 2001.