Abstract
Barack Obama attempted to recalibrate presidential rhetoric on the terror threat. He made far fewer speeches about terrorism than George W. Bush did. Yet, despite some efforts to the contrary, he continued many of Bush’s policies—and in the case of targeted assassinations using drones (unmanned aerial vehicles), went further than Bush. The analysis of Obama’s rhetoric on terrorism shows a president who both wants to distance himself from his predecessor and one who wants to be seen as tough on terrorism. In the final analysis, Obama’s rhetoric and policies hewed rather closely to George W. Bush’s. This chapter raises questions about how the terror threat can be recalibrated given Obama’s failure to properly evaluate the threat from ISIS. It also shows that presidents do not need to speak much about an issue when policies to deal with it have already been passed.
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Notes
- 1.
Klaidman, Daniel, Kill or Capture: The War on Terrorism and the Soul of the Obama Presidency (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 2012), pp. 48–49.
- 2.
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- 3.
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Saunders, Leaders at War, p. 216.
- 6.
Widmaier, Wesley W., Presidential Rhetoric from Wilson to Obama: Constructing Crises, Fast and Slow (New York, NY: Routledge, 2015), p. 104.
- 7.
Here the term “drone” will be used to refer to armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
- 8.
The terror group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham or just the Islamic State will be referred to heretofore as “ISIS.”
- 9.
Byman, Daniel, “What Trump Should Do About Terrorism (But Probably Won’t),” Brookings Institution, 16 February 2017, https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/what-trump-should-do-about-terrorism-but-probably-wont/.
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- 12.
DiMaggio, Selling War, Selling Hope, p. 33.
- 13.
DiMaggio, Selling War, Selling Hope, p. 27.
- 14.
See icasualties.org charts at icasualties.org/chart/Chart, retrieved 18 July 2019.
- 15.
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Hodges, The “War on Terror” Narrative, p. 157.
- 17.
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See Mueller, John, Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them (New York: Free Press, 2006), and Lustick, Ian S., Trapped in the War on Terror (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).
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- 22.
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DiMaggio, Selling War, Selling Hope, pp. 33–34.
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- 25.
See Obama’s December 29, 2009, speech at http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/obamaonterrorism1.html#2009, retrieved 16 July 2019.
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Klaidman, Kill or Capture, p. 179.
- 27.
See Mueller, Overblown; Lustick, Trapped in the War on Terror; Sunstein, Cass, Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Cole, David and James X. Dempsey, Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security (New York, NY: The New Press, 2006).
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Klaidman, Kill or Capture, pp. 29–30.
- 29.
Widmaier, Presidential Rhetoric from Wilson to Obama, p. ix.
- 30.
Klaidman, Kill or Capture, p. 2.
- 31.
Widmaier, Presidential Rhetoric from Wilson to Obama, pp. 114–115.
- 32.
Widmaier, Presidential Rhetoric from Wilson to Obama, p. 118.
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Klaidman, Kill or Capture, p. 19.
- 34.
Klaidman, Kill or Capture, p. 49.
- 35.
Klaidman, Kill or Capture, p. 51.
- 36.
Klaidman, Kill or Capture, p. 52.
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Klaidman, Kill or Capture, p. 62.
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Klaidman, Kill or Capture, p. 66.
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Klaidman, Kill or Capture, p. 67.
- 40.
Klaidman, Kill or Capture, pp. 74–75.
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Klaidman, Kill or Capture, p. 54.
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Klaidman, Kill or Capture, p. 132.
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Klaidman, Kill or Capture, p. 142.
- 44.
Of course, campaigns rarely concern themselves with the complications of reality, instead dealing in Utopian visions and unrealistic policy promises.
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Klaidman, Kill or Capture, p. 1.
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Hodges, The “War on Terror” Narrative, p. 158.
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DiMaggio, Selling War, Selling Hope, p. 35.
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DiMaggio, Selling War, Selling Hope, p. 36.
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DiMaggio, Selling War, Selling Hope, p. 37.
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DiMaggio, Selling War, Selling Hope, p. 55.
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DiMaggio, Selling War, Selling Hope, p. 51.
- 52.
DiMaggio, Selling War, Selling Hope, pp. 38–39.
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Klaidman, Kill or Capture, chapter 7 and pp. 204–205.
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Klaidman, Kill or Capture, p. 118.
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Klaidman, Kill or Capture, p. 41–42.
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Klaidman, Kill or Capture, p. 41.
- 66.
Signals intelligence is intelligence gleaned from intercepting communication signals such as cell phone conversations. One problem with this method is that it relies on tracking source devices rather than individuals so that strikes could be called on the locations of communication devices such as cell phones without knowledge of who is in possession of these devices at the time.
- 67.
Scahill, The Assassination Complex; Scahill, Dirty Wars.
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- 70.
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McCarthy, “‘Degrade and Destroy.’”
- 76.
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- 77.
Weiss and Hassan, ISIS, p. 96.
- 78.
McCarthy, “‘Degrade and Destroy.’”
- 79.
While ISIS was a repackaging of al Qaeda in Iraq, AQI had been largely dormant for years before the combined conditions of Maliki’s oppression of Sunnis, America’s withdrawal from Iraq, and the civil war in Syria set the stage for ISIS’ rise.
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DiMaggio, Selling War, Selling Hope, p. 293.
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Rubin, G. (2020). Barack Obama: From an End to Terror to Drone Wars and ISIS. In: Presidential Rhetoric on Terrorism under Bush, Obama and Trump. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30167-5_3
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