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The mythic authority of the warrior, ancient and contemporary, is examined as a rhetorical formation of US war culture subject to transformation in the discourse of military veterans advocating for peace. The incongruity of veteran soldiers opposed to militarism is a point of cultural tension that reveals a resource for altering the language of war from within. The dissenting voices of Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War articulate a composite theme further developed by veteran Paul Chappell into a guiding image of waging peace. Located in its larger mythic context, the prophetic voice of the dissenting veteran redirects attention to the evil of war (its essence of destruction and death), distorted images of so-called enemies (recognizing innocent victims of warfare), a history of militarism, racism, and structural injustice (looking inward instead of projecting outward), and nonviolent advocacy, democratic decision-making, and diplomacy (reconciling rather than suppressing differences). The transformative trope of ‘waging peace’ prompts a paradigm shift that converts the military idiom and channels the warrior ethos into a vehicle of positive peacemaking. It serves as a cultural innovation that prefigures the possibility of change, a partial transcendence (in Kenneth Burke’s formulation) with a contemplative effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Th e progressive form and corresponding theme of transition in Barack Obama's West Point address-especially in the context of his speeches in Cairo, at the United Nations, and in Oslo-insinuated an attitude of peace, which conflicted with his announcement of a new war-fighting strategy in Afghanistan. Th e resulting ambiguity of purpose about a way forward in and out of Afghanistan tilted the president's rhetoric toward the mindset of war but left open and unresolved the embedded question of peace building. Th is rhetorical exercise in strategic ambiguity, understood as an episode of symbolic action, managed immediate political tensions while keeping open presidential options for adapting to changing circumstances in a dynamic situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rhetoric of national security in both the Democratic Party and Republican Party presidential primaries functioned very much as an archetypically dark ritual of insecurity. The principal exception was the discourse of candidate Barack Obama, who spoke in a prophetic voice to invoke the myth of American exceptionalism as a foundation of hope and change and to express national mission in more democratic and practical terms. Speaking in a democratic idiom, he turned the mythos of mission from a story of moral conquest into a practical vision of working collaboratively on the global scene to promote peace by augmenting social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rhetoric of evil, so prominently evident in contemporary presidential public address, articulates a primal motive for the war on terrorism by projecting democracy's shadow onto the external enemy. In this regard, the president's discourse is a manifestation rather than aberration of U.S. political culture, a reflection of the nation's troubled democratic identity. Upon close inspection, it reveals the presence of the mythos of a democratic demon contained within the republic, various ways in which the unconscious projection of this devil figure is rhetorically triggered, and the cultural significance of its lethal entailments. The diabolism of presidential war rhetoric, we suggest, functions as an inducement to evacuate the political content of democracy, leaving a largely empty but virulent signifier in its place, which weakens the nation by reproducing a culture of war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The language of savagery is indigenous to US political culture as the trope that legitimises war and empire. This article traces its recurrence and development throughout US history, from America's 18th century revolution to the post-World War II American century and from Cold War to the present open-ended war on terror--a continuing quest for empire under the sign of civilisation and democracy. The three main dimensions of the image of savagery and multiple sets of decivilising vehicles are identified as an initial step towards language critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay considers the problematic of dissent being rendered oxymoronic with democracy in the United States under conditions of a weak democratic culture and an aggressive prosecution of the war on terror. It examines obstacles to democratic dissent in the U.S. and potential resources for rehabilitating it, sketching a preliminary map of the theoretical and cultural ground to be covered in a resistance to the further militarization of global politics. Suggesting that democracy is dissent, and democratic dissent is rhetorical critique, the essay argues that extant political culture might be rearticulated to dissent by language critiques that produce persuasive re-descriptions and symbolic merging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been difficult since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 to advance a constructive critique of the U.S. government's hyperbolic rhetoric of war against the evil enemies of freedom and civilization. Even as the perceived exigency of terrorism emboldened proponents of pre-emptive war to push the envelop of righteous coercion, the ensuing controversy over invading Iraq worked the ironic side effect of further reifying a deeply problematic representation of terrorism itself. To vow triumph over evil is to fall prey to what Jeffrey Simon labels "the terrorist trap" and thus to become hopelessly entangled in self-perpetuating and escalating "dramas of international violence" which, in turn, "erode our basic democratic values" and doom the people to death and destruction. By masking the politics of terror, the rhetoric of evil perpetuates the performance of violence. To speak of evil, then, or of vanquishing evil enemies, is to step into a circle of reciprocal violence which supplants diplomacy and democracy with the method of terror. Indeed, the ensuing debate over invading Iraq illustrates how the rhetoric of evil closes the circle of deliberation tightly around a presumption of war and leaves opponents little room to maneuver. A disarticulation of opposing arguments, when they are construed within the prevailing framework of vanquishing evil, was evident in the fettered debate over pre-empting Saddam Hussein. These were not unsubstantial or inconsequential arguments. They were too easily answered or dismissed, however, from the administration's perspective of eradicating evil. The audacity of such power to coerce and distract in the name of eradicating evil is such that it brands anybody that might demur as an irrelevant debating society in the case of the United Nations.

Presents information on a study that examined the Truman doctrine speech, as a rhetorical configuration of cold war motives. Origins of the disease metaphor used in Truman's speech; Information on the drafting process of Truman's speech; Reactions to the speech; Rhetorical legacy of vulnerability.

Examines both the major addresses and speeches of U.S. presidential candidates George Bush and Michael Dukakis in an attempt to obtain a representative sample of the discourse of the 1988 campaign. Overview of U.S. President Ronald Reagan's foreign policy rhetoric in the campaign; Bush's version of Reagan's foreign policy rhetoric; Excerpt of a campaign speech of Dukakis on June 14, 1988.

The ideograph "freedom" and its metaphorical construction as "fragile" serves as the middle term in arguments supporting an uncompromising American foreign policy. The nation's perception of peril in the nuclear age is rooted in a rhetorical history of drawing upon five metaphorical constructions that converge on a conception of freedom's vulnerability: freedom as (1) an act of procreation, (2) an experiment, (3) a flickering flame, (4) the hunter's prey, and (5) a heroic struggle. The pattern of inter-referentiality formed by the convergence of these tropes operationalizes the ideological core of foreign policy argumentation. Modifying the prevailing conventions of inter-referentiality may be a critical first step toward constructing convincing arguments on behalf of a more balanced definition of national security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses James K. Polk's use of rhetoric in his war message which transferred the official burden of responsibility for war to his Mexican counterparts. It cites his manipulation of rhetorical form to dramatize the good American persona as rational and the evil Mexican persona as irrational. It notes similarities to his technique with other American presidents including Harry Truman's commitment to the doctrine of just wars and Lyndon B. Johnson's justification for the Vietnam War.

Presents a study that identified the essential characteristics of victimage rhetoric in justifications for war in the U.S. Discussion on savagery as a generative image in victimage rhetoric; Involvement of the U.S. in the war in South Vietnam.

Examines the metaphor of force in context of the War of 1812 by U.S. against Great Britain. Exploitation of decivilizing vehicles of violence by U.S. Republicans; Hostility of the British Government towards the U.S.; Definition of force in terms of enemy's conduct.

Analyzes the vocabulary of selected U.S. presidents to locate the images they project in justification of war. Images and vocabularies used to justify motive of war; Investigation of war images; Presidential ideas to access the causes of war crisis.