Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In order to justify losses that seem beyond reason or reality principle, you have to rationalize them in terms of sacrifice. That, at least, was President George W. Bush's tactic as soon as the “war on terror” started taking its toll in the Iraq conflict. In a speech he delivered in October for example, Bush related al-Qaeda's militancy to Islamic insurgency in Iraq and elsewhere in order to assert that “radical Islam” had spread into a consolidated “ideology” to rival that of communism in the Cold War: “our new enemy teaches that innocent individuals can be sacrificed to serve a political vision. And this explains their cold-blooded contempt for human life.” By the end of this speech, though, political sacrifice is precisely what Bush himself was calling for as a response: “We don't know … the sacrifices that might lie ahead. But we do know … that the defense of freedom is worth our sacrifice.” And by the time of his address to US troops in Iraq in June 2006, the President's opening gambit was to thank them for “making history” by making “sacrifice[s],” and to reassure them that “Your sacrifice is noble and important.” Such reassurance has increasingly become routine, as any trawl for references to “sacrifice” in Bush's speeches and statements readily shows.Since their inception, the current wars around terror have been nothing if not an escalation of sacrifice on all sides. Witnessing ... log in or subscribe to read full text