Providing an insightful Foucauldian analysis of public opinion in

the wake of 9/11 and leading into the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Galip
Isen cuts to the "essence" of terrorism and its power in everyday
life. Considering the rhetoric of fear that provided the needed
public support to wage a dubiously named "war on terror" in Iraq,
Isen calls to mind the "success" of September 11th in its ability
to radically reorganize American consciousness and freedom, and
suggests an alternative solution to the problem of terrorism.
Rather than rely on the outmoded and inefficient mechanisms of
brutality and repression, Isen points to the powerful techniques
used to win support for an unsupportable war, and suggests that
intelligent discourse itself (rather than violence) may be the only
viable strategy by which the violence of terrorism can be rendered
inert.

Discourse of Evil: Speaking Terrorism to Silence

Galip Isen

<1> That the impact of terrorism is equal to the reaction it

elicits may be a truism, but one that deserves further probing
as demonstrated by the way that reaction is put to use
politically. Whichever of 150-strong definitions [1] is
accepted, the consequential aspect of terrorism is
"ideational": the assault targets the concept and experience of
normal in the lives and minds of ordinary people. Several
writers argue that terrorism is generally inefficacious,
strategically counterproductive and mostly unsuccessful as a
method of attaining socio-political objectives [2]. However,
overall public response to 11 September 2001 has been so
profound that 9-11 probably can go down in history as the first
ever "success" of terrorism.

<2> A few weeks after the carnage of 9-11, The Village Voice
[3] commented "the whole thing was a prophetic fantasy come
true all as it had been on the screen." Indeed, there are
probably more passages presaging a terrorist attack of similar
mode and magnitude in a plethora of pulp fiction, from Mario
Puzo to William Safire or Tom Clancy than in texts on political
science, international relations, sociology, history or
psychology. Therefore, it can be argued that the American (and
world) public, the media, Hollywood producers, paperback
publishers etc. had reason to see such an eventuality as
sufficiently plausible to warrant attention and merit the
interest of culture consumers. So can it be safely assumed that
numerous government agencies tasked with technical and
psychological preparedness against such emergencies, must have
pored over a respectable array of intelligence reports, worst
case scenarios, contingency plans, preemptive measures and so
on, to anticipate and alleviate the effects of an imminent and
devastating attack [4] by terrorists.

<3> In that case, ignoring the sheer abominability of the act

for a moment, it is perplexing why the tragedy of September 11
caught America and the rest of the world by such surprise [5].
Opinion polls point to the sociological drift and spread of the
shock in the wake of 9-11 and the aura of mediated
communication surrounding it: Terrorism figures to have become
a "buzzword" [6] in the life course of the ordinary citizen,
too, a force that exerts itself into known conceptions and
practices of life. A conceptual presence exerts its influence
primarily on minds and therefore, the phenomenon of terrorism
needs to be probed deeper, if possible, in areas and aspects
reflecting its effect on collective mental frames of reference.
The quintessential question may be how aware an important
sector of humanity is as to what it is so frightened of. Then,
it might be more enlightening to begin reviewing the entire
problem in another fashion: When speaking of terrorism, are we
reitirating a tired jargon of matters of prophylactic
techniques and technology, intelligence, detection and
punishment, policies and reprisals etc.? Or are we facing a
weakness of modern society against a genre of violence that may
be caused by the very same reasoning applied to understanding
and formulating the evil of terrorism and the already exhausted
usual answers?

<4> Polls reveal that Americans who before September 11 tended

to assess their government in relation to issues of social
policy, are now more focused on national security [7].
Terrorism was seen as the most important problem facing the
country right after 9-11 and despite a drop in rating,
continued to vie with economic concerns for the top spot since
[8]. There were responses with a deeper reaching potential of
new socio-political demands: the public voiced support for
deterring terrorism at the expense of "limited" infringements
to individual and personal rights [9]. A majority of Americans
said they approved the reinstitution of the military draft if
more soldiers were needed in the war on terrorism [10]. Seventy
percent of the people interviewed six months later reported
that they had shed tears in the aftermath of the attacks and
about 20 percent still occasionally did [11].

<5> In the light of such indicators, it makes sense that the

official and public reaction to 9-11 has accorded terrorism,
which used to be but the "warfare of losers" the status of a
successful modus operandi. The eponymy of the military
intervention to Afghanistan as "War against Terror," too, has
elevated it to a par with "war" [12], to which aeons of
historical conditioning, myths of valor, heroism and victory
have accorded a measure of legitimacy. It can further be
commented that terrorism has almost come to be accepted as some
kind of inevitability. The mere utterance of terror now
constitutes a message, and worse, is perceived as a symbol,
another semiological instrument of power with the potency of a
totem [13], no less fear rousing than the evil it represents
[14].

<6> The flood of rhetoric encompassing the policy moves

pioneered by U.S. President George W. Bush and his complement
of "communication elites" had a considerable effect in the
management of the discourse spurred by 9-11 and progressed to
the belligerency in Afghanistan and Iraq. Discourse management
is a term fairly widely used in studies of human-computer
interaction and face-to-face communication situations. It
usually refers to the strategies and the control of the flow
and direction of messages, choice of topics, techniques of
guiding discussions for influencing outcomes. As such, in
general lexicons the concept has the attributes of a power-
play, oriented to the accomplishment of willed ends, albeit in
the limited bounds of conversational interaction and behavior
[15]. Here, rather in the Foucauldian manner, the usage is
relatively comprehensive, comprising more than the techniques,
mechanisms and strategies of controlling small group -- limited
issue communication frames. Discourse management in this
broader and rather sociological sense too, is again in part, a
process of setting public agendas, determining the limits and
flow of messages, monitoring their sources, impacts and
limiting or remedying their damage. Then, it also incorporates
the selection of particular arrays of means, modes and media of
debate conducive for creating favored mindsets, ways of seeing,
thinking, doing and being-in-the-world. "Discourse," by
definition, constrains communication processes and hence
thought and social praxis. It accomplishes this by delimiting
the choices and extent of intellectual foci, the parameters of
knowledge and its production. Thus, prevailing discourse is
elemental in construing whatever is adhered to in the community
as "truth." Even when arguments run counter to the tenets of a
favored content and use of language as "truth," they are still
largely determined by it and possibly contribute to the power
it commands, constituting more a complementary para-discourse
than anti-discourse [16].

<7> Discourse is not a sum total of semantics or rhetoric. It

comprises above and beyond the use of language and symbols,
messages never uttered but still communicated implicitly,
concealed in utterances [17]. All propositions of discourse
need not be expressed in order to be "understood." This
hermeneutic process takes place by means of what Tuen van Dijk
calls "macro-structures." Macro-structures organize complex
semantic information enabling the interpretation of such latent
cognitive information, accord a cognitive ability to summarize
discourse and resort to it for comprehending and rendering
relevant other information. The constraints of discourse
operate globally on macro-structures and their quite specific
contents, providing a global meaning for discourse [18].

<8> Michel Foucault concentrated on the power-related aspects

of discourse. He noted that the "production of discourse is
controlled, selected, organized and redistributed to avert its
powers, avoid its dangers, to cope with hazard and to evade its
ponderous, awesome materiality" [19]. According to Foucault, it
is the type of discourse which constantly "is reiterated,
discussed, spoken and remains spoken indefinitely" that lends
itself to power [20]. Weltanschaaungen [21] are directly or
implicitly woven into "ouvres"; texts, statements or utterances
as discourse by way of what Foucault calls the "author
function" [22]. The genealogical aspect of discourse
constitutes a domain of objects in relation to which true or
false propositions can be denied or affirmed [23]. It is via
this process of controlling contents that engage the mind, and
hence, the mind that knowledge becomes objectified through
discourse into both power itself and an instrument of power
[24].

<9> This view takes into account a rather subtle dimension of

power that has rather been neglected by the concerns of
mainstream social science because it is not an empirical,
institutionalized and therefore, "safe" category. Power, with
reference to its psychologically effective vectors relates
directly to its communicative aspect. Similar to what Foucault
extrapolated [25] in the concept "will to truth" [26], power,
perhaps in its most influential and most ingenious form,
appears as a capability to determine, dictate or dominate the
predominant discourses or "narratives" of "truth" [27].
Narratives are the most significant form of discourse [28].
Foucault posits truth as "a system of ordered procedures for
the production, regulation, distribution, circulation and
operation of statements, linked to systems of power, which
produce and sustain it" [29]. Truth constitutes a system of
knowledge and knowing, consecutive to which, reality
arbitrated.

<10> Inverting Foucault's perspective, it might be more

suitable, however, to state "in potestas veritas": "power" as a
requisite if not prerequisite of truth, rather than vice versa.
The assertion of "truth as power" may allude to it an essence
or character that is independent from "experience" [30] out of
which both power and truth emerge. Thus, a "capacity of writing
truth" affords command of the most convincing narrative(s) and
through that, the capability to describe the content of socio-
political reality. Since narratives implicitly organize modes
of experience, knowing the world and constructing reality [31],
the capability of dominating discourse/narrative praxes is
accompanied with considerable influence in determining the
parameters of legitimacy adopted by and adhered to by the
entire society or its decisive majority. Communicative power
manifests itself in motives as well as actions -- not unlike
the Gramscian reference to ideas and consent as an important
component of establishing and maintaining hegemony [32].

<11> The foregoing also apply to all discourses and narratives

of terrorism, whose form and content are almost exclusively
determined by a polity quorum. Comparable to Charles Wright
Mill's "power elites" or James Der Derian's MIME-NET [33], this
quorum exercises its potency, among other matters, on the
structures and contents of communication and thus, even when
not directly involved in that particular industry, can function
as a body of "communication elites" by means of its global
social influence. It consists of the designers, deciders,
advocates, implementers, alternatives, critics and opponents of
policy, active in the fields of politics, academe, media-
communications industry and the clergy [34]. In the last few
decades, the mystique of terrorism has turned into a lucrative
trade, giving birth to a new "security sector," reminiscent of
the military-industrial complex. This paramilitary-industrial
complex converts the rhetoric and conceptualization of fear
into an economic reality. The "anti-terror sector" or the
"paramilitary industry" can also be counted upon to stand with
this polity quorum. With a multi billion dollar turnover
exceeding the combined national budgets of many so called
"rogue states," it certainly has a stake in designating the
narratives of terror.

<12> As any other social form, terror narratives, too,

"transform the conditions of their emergence by 'dehumanizing'
them into instruments of their own functioning" [35]. In this
discourse, terrorism as a tool of politics, metamorphoses into
Hydra [36]. Viewed from that perspective, it becomes less
perplexing why 9-11 was received with universal shock and
confusion, even though the public was almost worked up to
expecting it by statement, fiction and reportage. The discourse
management of the communication elite succeeded in withdrawing
the entire experiential range of terrorism into the realm of
politics. In its dehumanized form the probability of terror was
abstracted from the phenomenology of everyday life, wrapped in
a rhetoric of power and imbued with the larger-than-life
unreality of an apocalypse: a frightening contingency every
believer must accommodate and abide by, but one everyone knows
by virtue of hope, will not happen in this lifetime -- except
now that it is proved a real experience, is constantly
reiterated and through reiteration acquires further unreal,
nightmarish dimensions. The only chance terror has of success
is in upending and gradually vitiating the feeling of
legitimacy people invest in social existence; a process that
seems to be happening since 9-11. For the first time since the
assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in 1914, an act
of terror elicited military reaction on a major scale in
Afghanistan and then in Iraq. Furthermore, the possibility that
the belligerence might spread against "small clots of people in
60 countries" and "like the Drug War, simply might never end"
was not exhausted either [37].

<13> The narratives favored by the polity quorum helped nourish

the post 9-11 aura of ubiquitous terror the epidemic of
"anthrax" letters, "mailbox bombs," FBI's warnings of explosive
laden trucks in urban areas and then the inevitable threat of
nuclear terrorism created [38]. Significant ratios of Americans
still viewed terrorism as the country's most important problem
one year after [39]. Indeed it is quite possible to speculate
that America could have been paralyzed by an all pervasive,
debilitating fear if Osama Bin Ladin or others of his ilk had
continued the secret war, fanning out violence to the foci of
ordinary peoples' lives via widespread campaigns of terror, for
instance in the manner of the live bombs which crippled life in
Israel. Instead, the polity quorum ushered an invincible Hydra
out of its established terrorism discourse [40], having found
the most fertile social ground to sow credulity in the sheer
spectacle of the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon,
which offered an immense opportunity to cast awe on any
political "management" of truth by feeding the myths, legends,
rhetoric and the potential of the terrorist threat" [41]. In
turn, the Monster seems to have furnished its creators with the
power of polity they crave [42].

<14> It has to be kept in scope that this "reign of fear" in

America [43] occurred to greater extent within the temporal
brackets of a major terrorist attack and wars purportedly
against terrorism. Therefore, a look into any probable
parallels between polity and intellectual convictions may help
illuminate the sway of the polity discourse. Just in order to
put the sentiments of the public in perspective, a previous
context should be noted: one year after the bombing of the
federal building in Oklahoma City, in April 1996, 72 percent of
Americans believed a terrorists hit on a U.S. city with some
weapon of mass destruction was possible. However, only 13
percent said this worried them a great deal, while 27 were
"somewhat" worried. Two out of three said they were "not at
all" or "not much" worried about terrorism in public places.
Immediately after the Oklahoma City bombing a plurality of 49
percent against 43 had said they thought some sacrifice of
civil liberties would be required. A year later, by a two-to-
one margin, Americans maintained it would not be necessary to
curb civil liberties in the fight against terrorism [44].

<15> Plotting the fluctuations of the public opinion between 11

September 2001 and the end of the battle in Iraq can chart the
bearing of discourse management on the way the people, as
consumers of history [45], catenulated their conception of the
events to the chain of reasoning evocated by the government.
Reminiscent of George Gerbner's [46] prognostics that vicarious
exposition to violence may intellectually pave a road leading
to a repressive society, in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, a
majority of Americans expressed willingness to at least
partially sacrifice civil rights in the hope of defeating
terrorism. Nearly eight-in-ten favored military retaliation for
defensive and revenge purposes, even if thousands of U.S.
troops were meant to die [47]. A follow up two weeks later
showed a still disturbed public as 73 percent worried about
another terrorist attack [48] involving biological or chemical
weapons. A potential 19 million airline passengers said they
already had or would cancel flights [49]. Although a CBS News
Poll concluded Americans were ready to return to normal in
early December [50], in mid-December the "worried" still rated
52 percent. On the other hand, only 11 percent were very
interested in reports on the Enron Corporation scandal [51]. A
Gallup survey gave other indications of how the American public
had identified with the government's rhetorical interpretation
of the 9-11 etiology, attributing it exclusively to Al Qaeda
and the Taliban, the twin evils in Afghanistan: they
overwhelmingly supported the intervention, but also, while the
Taliban were being beaten, two-thirds of Americans reported
that the U.S. was "winning the war on terrorism", too [52].

<16> Pres. Bush's January 30, 2002 State of the Union address
consolidated the support for the war against terrorism which,
after Afghanistan, now openly targeted Iraq [53]. "Defense" was
established as the highest budget priority [54]. Gradually,
toppling Saddam appeared as an urgent necessity in the
Americans' political agenda, though sending troops to the
Middle East or going to war with or without the backing of
allies [55] were, for a time, a matter of dissension [56].

<17> At the time Pres. Bush launched his peremptory campaign

against Saddam Hussein, claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of
mass destruction -- in an address to the UN on September 12,
2002 -- Americans believed Bush should obtain not only
Congressional approval but also the backing of the U.N., the
Western allies [57] and friendly Arab countries [58], before
sending in the troops. Three-quarters of Americans already
believed a war with Iraq was inevitable [59] in January 2003.
Curiously, the public opinion effectively reflected the
government's diplomatic position of the moment: The responders
preferred military action in dealing with Saddam and a
diplomatic settlement with North Korea, whose "axial" role in
the Bush administration's view of worldwide threats was
rehashed personally by the President at that time [60]. Yet,
the trend still favored [61] that U.N. weapons inspectors be
given as much time as necessary [62].

<17> The ultimate shift came when Bush's managed to convince

the public about his war-on-Iraq policy in his "State of the
Union" address in late January 2003 [63]. By February 10, he
had begun to rally support for combating Iraq without U.N.
approval, provided Great Britain and other major allies
supported the U.S. [64]. More than half (52 percent) of
Americans were convinced in early March, getting rid of Saddam
Hussein was worth the loss of American troops and other costs
[65]. By the time Bush gave the final ultimatum to Iraq,
despite serious opposition from most of the world including
closest allies, three quarters of Americans believed their
government had done everything to solve the crisis
diplomatically [66]. After Iraq was invaded, Saddam was toppled
and no weapons of mass destruction were eventually found,
Americans still said they believed their country was
nevertheless more secure now [67]. Support for the war effort
never wavered. After victory, Bush's approval ratings rose too,
albeit slightly.

<18> During the entire process, the drift of intellectual

concentration and political discussion [68] visibly turned from
acts of terror to open and out warfare against Afghanistan and
Iraq as sponsor states of terrorism while shifts of public
opinion manifested an impressive parallel with government
rhetoric and policy. Public support coincided with calls to
arms against terrorism, instant and peremptory retaliation and
stark measures in post 9-11 social and political literature
endorsing Bush's "War Against Terror." However, little new --
except the names of a few lead actors and places -- in this
rhetoric did not repeat the sentiments and ideas frequently
aired in the last decade(s), complaining that the U.S.
political apparatus was insufficiently geared to react swiftly
against terrorism [69] -- Another factor that can be
interpreted as indicative of the composite nature of the polity
quorum and its narratives.

<19> Though the trends outlined above certainly do not prove

beyond doubt, they seriously signal that the polity quorum can
somehow sway the representations of truth to its will with
recourse to that subtle power of discourse. However, despite
the coalescence at home, America's long enjoyed preponderance
as the chief author of "truth" globally, suffered a significant
blow as a consequence of its terror rhetoric and policy. Not
only the U.S. but almost the entire world was flabbergasted by
the 9-11 nightmare. However, long time allies of Washington put
a cognitive wedge between combating terrorism and invading
Iraq. The PEW Research Center Global Attitudes Project released
in June 2003 [70] concluded the venture in Iraq widened the
rift between Americans and the people of Western Europe,
further inflamed the Muslim world, softened support for the war
on terrorism and weakened global public support for the U.N.
and the North Atlantic alliance [71]. The point is less how
America, whose emerging image looks rather negative [72], is
valued worldwide than the difference of opinion and discourse
management between parties that profess fealty to the same
political culture of liberal democracy. Within the U.S. too,
dissident voices declared Bush's pro-war policy irrational.
They accused Washington of pursuing a hidden agenda to gain
control of oil resources and strategic regions. Since it would
be difficult to convince the American public to approve
shedding blood "for oil or empire," in narratives Saddam was
equated with Osama, and Iraq was treated as if it were al Qaeda
[73] itself. The point of view here underlines how effective
the discourse of the U.S. polity quorum is in tacitly providing
the people with templates of thought and supplementary
political action.

<20> To conclude, it sounds as plausible premise that the

polity quorum, capitalizing on a discourse of fear, has
succeeded in asserting itself as a composite Heracles who can
vanquish the Hydra, the fictional beast it endowed with the
power to terrorize. The cognizance of the evil and the threat
terror has shed on ordinary lives and lifestyle is thus
commanded and induced vicariously by pundits who, by virtue of
power, claim to experience and understand the horror "for us"
and who, in the same vein, believe they can prescribe remedies
although their "preemptive" or "restorative" measures have
proved to be of dubious yield by historical record. The
personification and reification of evil in the vile is the
universal hermeneutic style of the polity quorum. Persistent
narratives lead the student of terrorism into omitting probably
the most significant aspect, the human essence of violence.
Indeed, this may mirror the chief intellectual shortcoming in
grasping terrorism as an exclusively political problem [74],
whereas it should rather be explored as a holistic human issue.

<21> One key to understanding terrorism lies in the semiologic

repercussions of the term. Terror, although a one-time-event,
conveys a lingering message that is also the medium it travels
in. The act of terrorism per se, is an act of the individual:
Mohammad Atta, the alleged author of the 9-11 assault on major
symbols of American might, is no longer anywhere he can be
apprehended, tried and punished. Similarly it is Timothy
McVeigh that has been put to death, not the memory of the
horror he created. For the terrorist, the magnetism of
terrorism [75] generates from the exhilaration of possessing a
might to rule over life and death, the power to create fear and
mystery, feeling alive with the knife's edge psychological
acrobatics of gambling with fate, including one's own, all the
while, believing to be special and important for being in the
service of a sublimated ideal. The deed itself is not so much
"rational" as "rationalized" [76]. The political, ideological,
religious etc. "causes" serve as socio-cultural props for
idealizing the attraction to the power of commanding and
dealing death. Therefore, it appears extremely difficult if not
impossible to "preempt" the violent manifestations of such
irrationality using the dominant paradigms, implements and
methods of conventional symmetrical rationality.

<22> Conversely, from the viewpoint of terror's actual or

potential victims, the repetition of its discourse of evil over
and over, levies terror a message of potency and significance
that articulates into a single psychological expression: fear
from an imminent, unpredictable, unexpected experience of
violence beyond the boundaries of "normal," because its origin,
reason, target, timing and effects are unknown to those who
(may) suffer its effects. Heuristically, normal can be given a
lasting name only in an existence where social cohesion is
based on legitimacy [77]. A state of terror obscures the
recognition and knowledge of what is safe for physical and
psychological survival, hence, of what is normal and
legitimate. In any case, such terror does not have to be of
political nature to precipitate similar reverberations. Waves
of psychopathic murders as committed by such killers as John
Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer or snipers who shoot
unexpected passersby may create the kind of horror that can
sway traditional parameters of normalcy as effectively as the
acts of the Red Army Faction or the Hamas.

<23> Only the resultant force of two social and psychological

processes operating collaterally may be expected to curb the
appeal of terrorism: On one hand, the structures of social
experience must continue to provide the adaptational values
which prevent the fabric of social interaction from
disintegrating [78] and avert the de-normalizing effects of
violence on individual consciousnesses. On the psychological
dimension, this corresponds to a paradigm shift that in
practice, will strip the "ism" from terror, reducing it to no
more than the status of a common crime. In this way the
"message" can be vitiated, so that the medium will also become
void [79].

<24> To silence the gun, it seems, not more and more powerful
guns are needed as much as inspired voices that when speak
their minds, drown the rumble of explosions [80].

Notes

[1] Terrorism is among the worst defined concepts in social

sciences. Yet, this "word with no meaning and definition" has
become a political and media buzzword (Joseba Zulaika and
William A. Douglas, Terror and taboo, the follies, fables and
faces of terrorism, Routledge, New York and London, 1996, p.
97). Indeed, the only consensus over the meanings of terror and
terrorism seems to be that there is no consensus. Alex P.
Schmid and Albert J. Jongman list 22 different elements (4)
which figure in over a hundred definitions (Political Terrorism
: A new guide to actors, authors, concepts, data bases,
theories and literature, North Holland Publishing Co.,
Amsterdam 1988, p.5). The situation calls to mind Supreme Court
Judge Potter Stewart' s comment "I can' t define obscenity but
I know it when I see it," Cf. Ted G. Carpenter, Cato Handbook
for Congress: Reducing the Risk of Terrorism Cato Institute
Policy Analysis no. 265, December 12, 1996. [^]

[2] In all cases cited in defense of terrorism as a successful

strategy (see: Bruce Hoffman, "Terrorism : Who is Fighting Whom
?" 'Counterpoint : Comment on Carr, 1997' in : World Policy
Journal, V. XIV, No.1, Spring 1997, p.: 98 and for a reply,
"Caleb Carr, Responds to Hoffman", in: World Policy Journal, V.
XIV, No.1, Spring 1997, p. 103 and Carr 2002), other factors
have played far more important roles in advancing the
dissidents' cause: Irgun is still a blemish for Israel; Britain
withdrew from Cyprus after the 1956 Suez crisis (see: Adrian
Guelke, The age of terrorism and the international political
system, I.B. Tauris Publishers, London, N.Y., 1995)
unglamorously marking the end of its once great hegemony rather
than having lost to the EOKA. The same is more or less true of
France leaving North Africa. IRA terrorism can be said to have
dragged the Irish problem by only provoking counter
intransigency. In short, it looks impossible to attribute any
success to terrorism at least, directly (see: Ignatieff, 2002).
It must also be kept in mind that armed struggle often creates
a divided public opinion within the population it alleges to
serve (see also : Martha Crenshaw, "The Effectiveness of
Terrorism in the Algerian War" in : Martha Crenshaw (Ed.),
Terrorism in context, The Pennsylvania State Univ. Press,
University Park, Pa., 1995, pp.473-513, p. 509). [^]

[3] J. Hoberman "All as It Had Been Hollywood Revises History,

Joins the Good Fight", Village Voice, December 5-11, 2001. [^]

[4] Ehud Sprinzak wrote how experts from more than a dozen
government agencies simulated a biological terrorism scare at
the white house and the game was scooped by the New York Times
in the late 90's. Ex- Defense Secretary William Cohen said a
mass destruction terror event is "not a question of if it will
happen but when it will happen". See: Ehud Sprinzak, "The Great
Superterrorism Scare," Foreign Policy (Fall 1998) 112: 110-124,
p. 110-111. After the explosion at the Olympic Park in 1996,
Lance Morrow (1996) wrote in Time that Americans were losing
their historical sense of immunity from terrorism, an evil
hitherto considered alien was beginning to assume shape like a
"Polaroid photograph." [^]

[5] Americans first recognized terror vicariously through media

reports of attacks and atrocities on diplomats, officials and
soldiers, the occasional espionage agent or the ordinary
citizen abroad. The historical illusion that terrorism belonged
to the nefarious Old World was already fractured when in 1993,
Sheikh Omar, the "Blind Imam" exploded his bombs in the first
assault against the Twin Towers. The 1996 Olympic Games in
Atlanta, symbolic institution of Modernity Georgia was marred
by a bomb placed probably by a white supremacist. Another white
supremacist terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, a Gulf War hero
fighting a self proclaimed battle against Federal America
killed more than 300 in the Oklahoma City Federal Building and
was executed for it. [^]

[6] Zulaika and Douglas, 1996, p. 97. [^]

[7] Gary Langer, "Water's edge - Greater trust in government

limited to national security," ABC News Analysis, 15 January
2002. [^]

[8] The Gallup Organization, March 20, 2002; June 10, 2002;
June 14, 2002. [^]

[9] ABCNEWS polling. [^]

[10] Fox News, Jan 16, 2003. [^]

[11] The Gallup Organization, released March 11, 2002. [^]

[12] Through aeons of historical conditioning, war has

ironically acquired a rhetorical genre of legitimacy that
expands to mitigate its atrocities. Therefore, so called
"terrorists" represent themselves as warriors, the defenders of
some sacred nationalistic cause or Jehad, etc., and terrorist
organizations frequently adopt the name "army" in the hope that
it will confer them some legitimacy (see Crenshaw, 1995: 11).
In Israel , where the conflict has been so crystalline in the
last half century, the lines have grown so clear-cut that,
reportedly, even being labeled "terrorist" conveys Arab
Palestinians a cachet of legitimacy and status, especially
after intifada (LeVine, 1995:49,50). Caleb Carr (1997, 2002)
asserts that unless legalistic, self-delusory niceties are
used, only the scale and scope of operations and the fact that
"terrorists" most often do not represent established national
governments separate "terrorism" from "war." If a conclusion is
to be drawn, war has come to be accepted as an ultimate excuse
for violence. [^]

[13] Totem is used here in the sense Sigmund Freud writes of,
as a system of social organization reinforced with religiously
articulated taboos, which through its symbology maintains order
and continuity through super-ego functions. S. Freud, Totem and
Taboo, trans. N. Berkes, Remzi, Istanbul, 1971: 158-232. [^]

[14] Victor T. LeVine, "The Logomachy of Terrorism : On the

political uses and abuses of definitions", in : Terrorism and
Political Violence, Frank Cass, V. 7, No. 4, London, Winter
1995, p. 51; see also: Chomsky and Herman, cf. Schlesinger,
1994: 53, see also: Zuleika, Douglas, 1996. [^]

[15] For examples of such usage S. L. Condon, C.G. Cech,

"Discourse management strategies in face-to-face and computer-
mediated decision making interactions", Electronic Journal of
Communication /La Revue Electronique de Communication, v.6,
no.3 1996; and Yvonne Rydin, "Can We Talk Ourselves into
Sustainability? The Role of Discourse in the Environmental
Policy Process" Environmental Values Nov. 1999, V. 8, No.4 pp.
467-484. [^]

[16] The debates over war in Iraq are a strategic example of

discourse as comprehensive of opposing viewpoints -- regardless
of vectors, the starting point of all communication was war
(and by extension, terrorism) as a truth and a reality. In the
perspective that Foucault pointed out, anti-war and pro-war
discourse exerted equal "will to truth," establishing in the
end more the true-ness of war than their intentional drift. The
prominence of war as a topic of discussion help confer it
discursive legitimacy. [^]

[17] M. Foucault, "Truth and power", (interview with Alessandro

Fontana and Pasquale Pasquino) in: The Foucault reader -
introduction to Foucault's thought, Paul Rabinow (ed.),
Penguin, London, 1984, pp.57-58. [^]

[18] Tuen van Dijk "Semantic macro-structures and knowledge

frames in discourse comprehension" in: Cognitive Processes in
Comprehension, Just, Marcel Adam and Patricia A. Carpenter,
eds. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1977: 3-32, esp. 3, 4, 7, 18.
[^]

[19] Michel Foucault, [1970, 1971]. The discourse on language

in: Critical Theory Since 1965 Hazard Adams and Leroy Searle
(eds.), Florida State University Press, pp. 148-62, Tallahassee
1986, p. 149. [^]

[20] Foucault, The discourse on language, p. 152. [^]

[21] Sigmund Freud wrote: "By Weltanschauung,...I mean an
intellectual construction which gives a unified solution of all
the problems of our existence in virtue of a comprehensive
hypothesis, a construction, therefore, in which no question is
left open and in which everything in which we are interested
finds a place. It is easy to see that the possession of such a
Weltanschauung is one of the ideal wishes of mankind. When one
believes in such a thing, one feels secure in life, one knows
what one ought to strive after, and how one ought to organize
one's emotions and interests to the best purpose." S. Freud,
New introductory lectures to psychoanalysis, Penguin Books,
Middlesex, 1979, p. 193. [^]

[22] The "author" is not necessarily the person who does the
actual writing or speaking as much as the authority, or the
"unifying principle... lying at the origins of (their)
significance as the set of (their) coherence". The "author" is
thus the source that implants unities and coherence, its links
with reality into the text. See: Foucault, The discourse on
language, p.153. [^]

[23] This too, relates to discourse as a basis of truth;

Foucault, The discourse on language, p. 162. [^]

[24] Foucault noted that discourse is at the end, merely an

intellectual activity that never involves anything but signs.
Therefore, it nullifies itself by placing itself at the
disposal of the signifier, the author. Foucault, The discourse
on language, p. 158. [^]

[25] Cf. Friedrich Nietzche. [^]

[26] Thus, there exists no objective external reality, what is

agreed upon as reality is discursively determined. Foucault,
The discourse on language, pp. 148-151. [^]

[27] "Truth" is used here denoting an articulated system of

belief and verification that provides individuals with the
knowledge and criteria of a social reality to which they must
adapt. There may be at any moment, a number of discourses in
society whose interpretations about life vie to prevail as the
generally accepted paradigm. [^]

[28] Arran Gare, "Narratives and culture: The role of stories

in self creation", in Telos, Winter 2002, No. 122, pp. 80-101,
p. 93. [^]

[29] Foucault, "Truth and power", p. 74. Foucault adds that

truth is also linked with "effects of power which it induces
and which extends it." [^]

[30] In the Laingian sense, experience is the only evidence or

the only evident basis of knowing. It is the source of theory.
Experience is invisible and the science of experience, social
phenomenology is concerned with the relation between persons'
experiences of other persons that is, with inter-experience.
Inter-experience is the seeking to make evident to others,
through their experience of the person's behavior, what is
inferred of others' experiences, which is invisible, through
the individual's experience of others' behavior. Psyche is the
experience and experience is the psyche. Ronald D. Laing, The
Politics of Experience, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1967.
[^]

[31] Cf. Jerome Bruner, Gare, Narratives and culture, p. 81.

[^]

[32] Galip Isen, "Turkey' s women and their politics: Moving

without a movement? paper presented at the 23rd Political
Economy of the World System Conference, University of Maryland,
College Park, Md. USA. [^]

[33] Der Derian believes that 9-11 "christened a new Military-

Industrial- Media- Entertainment network (MIME-NET)" which has
coupled the "military-industrial complex" with the Silicon
Valley and Hollywood. In his 1961 farewell address President
Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the US that, the military-
industrial complex as a "scientific and technological elite
could capture public policy." Now, Der Derian contends, the
danger stands "morphed and multiplied" as the present case
represents C. Wright Mill's "power elite" with much better gear
to reproduce reality. James Der Derian, "9.11: Before, After,
and In Between,"
http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/der_derian.htm. [^]

[34] Islam has historically been a backstay of politics in

Moslem countries, quite o few of which are still run by
"fatwahs" (religious edicts) that must comply with the word and
the spirit of the holy Qur'an. In the West, too, there appear
religious figures who one way or other, influence political
processes through their statements, one extreme of which is the
Baptist Rev. Jerry Falwell of the U.S.A. who called Mohammad a
"terrorist" on a CBS TV program (see: Richard N. Ostling
"Falwell Calls Muhammad 'Terrorist" The Associated Press, Oct
3, 2002). The media can be said to function as the organic but
quasi-civil extension of the so-called political society. About
the role of academe and other intellectual sectors in polity,
see: D. Michael Shafer, Deadly paradigms: The failure of U.S.
Counterinsurgency policy, Princeton University Press, Princeton
N.J, 1988, pp. 9-11. [^]

[35] The National Homeland Security Plan of the Bush

administration foresaw expenditures of $100 billion per year by
federal, state and local governments and the private sector for
"better sensors and procedures" against terrorist employed
nuclear weapons, to develop "vaccines, antimicrobials and
antidotes" to protect against germ warfare, boosting the
"analytic capabilities" of intelligence agencies. "Unless we
act to prevent it, a new wave of terrorism, potentially
involving the world's most destructive weapons, looms in
America's future," the report, prepared by bureaucrats warned
(Adam Entous, "Bush boosts anti-terror plans", The Irish
Chronicle, Wednesday, July 17, 2002). Terrorism is a lucrative
mystique feeding upon itself and growing in proportion to the
extent of fear: The U.S. government employed nearly 20 thousand
and spent $ 2 billion in 1985 on counter terrorism. RAND
estimated that by the end of the 20th century, American
businesses would be spending $ 50 billion a year for anti-
terrorist security measures (Zulaika, Douglas, 1996: 9) The
figure skyrocketed since 9-11: Security equipment sales boomed;
Garrett Detectors, the world's largest maker of detection
devices doubled its production see: Tom Kenworthy, "As
investigation widens across USA, so does fear" USA Today,
October 15, 2001. [^]

[36] Gare, "Narratives and culture", p. 96. [^]

[37] The many headed serpentine monster of Mythology that was

slain by Heracles (Hercules) as one of his 10 deeds. [^]

[38] Bob Harris, "Ball of confusion - America's war on

terrorism: how we got in this mess, how we can get out" The
Village Voice Oct.21-2001. [^]

[39] Caroline Benner, "United Nations?" ABCnews.com, November

11, 2001. [^]

[40] The Gallup Organization June 14, 2002. The finding that
half of Americans saw in Osama and Al Qaeda a bigger threat
than Saddam Hussein can be attributed to the deeper and "real"
impact of 9-11.† [^]

[41] The polity mechanism always harped on the issue of large

scale terrorism even before 9-11. Among best examples can be
counted Ehud Sprinzak's ìThe great superterrorism scare" in
which nearly every aspect of mass destructive terrorism scare
is mentioned including Saddam's hidden arsenal. Sprinzak
concludes that the risk of a major catastrophe is minimal (p.
123-124). PEW and other poll institutions have also reported
similar results. [^]

[42] A PEW Research Center survey on 19 September 2001 found

that 49 percent of Americans had difficulty concentrating and
33 percent had trouble sleeping after the incident; 71 percent
said they were depressed and nearly seven-in-ten were praying
more often. PEW Research Center for the People and the Press,
"American psyche reeling from terror attacks", Released:
September 19, 2001. [^]

[43] For examples of narratives on terror and some of their

effects, see Chomsky and Herman, cf. Schlesinger, 1994: 53, see
also: Zuleika, Douglas, 1996. A Gallup poll conducted shortly
after the State of the Union speech in 2002 showed Americans
firmly behind President Bush in matters of international
security and war with terrorism, a position he constantly
enjoyed after 9-11. A majority found Bush's discussion of
terrorism more important than mentions of the economy. A
significantly increasing percentage named terrorism as the most
important problem facing America (The Gallup Organization, Jun
10, 2002), while another poll showed that few Americans thought
the Bush administration was overstating the terrorist threat
(ABC News Jun 18, 2002). However, as quoted from poll results,
Americans' newly found confidence in their President and
government is decidedly limited to matters of security, perhaps
denoting the "successful" management of terrorism narratives
and discourse. A significantly increasing percentage named
terrorism as the most important problem facing America ( The
Gallup Organization, Jun 10, 2002), while another poll showed
that few Americans thought the Bush administration was
overstating the terrorist threat (ABC News Jun 18, 2002). [^]

[44] The fear was certainly felt elsewhere too -- hence the
quotation marks alluding to the post-1789 "reign of terror" in
France. [^]

[45] PEW Research Center Survey, "Public apathetic about

nuclear terrorism" Released: April 11, 1996. [^]

[46] History is not viewed as a consumer good. But apart from

the accomplishments or vanquishments of rulers and epic heroes,
it is a process in which the structures guiding and forming the
ordinary affairs of the ordinary man take shape and are
modified. In that way, the ordinary human being is the
substance of history, consuming the veiled and drab cross-
sections of the continuum of human interaction. Galip Isen
"Underlining the difference of similarities: Being, doing,
thinking and seeing Mediterranean," Presented to the conference
on "La PÈrception de la MÈditerranÈe par les Pays
MÈditÈrranean," Academia Mediterranea Halicarnassensis, Bodrum,
Turkey, May 1997. [^]

[47] It should be remembered that such was also the case after
the Oklahoma City bombing. Gerbner calculated that an American
views an average 38 thousand murders on TV shows by the age of
18. He postulated that the risk behind vicarious violence is an
acceptance of a police state that ensures security in exchange
of liberal freedoms. See: Vivian, The media of mass
communication, 2001. [^]

[48] The responders agreed to a curb of liberties only to the

extent personal privacy was not violated. They opted for
national ID cards (70 percent), repeal of legal obstacles
banning CIA assassinations and criminal contracts abroad (67
percent). See: PEW Research Center Survey, "American Psyche
Reeling From Terror Attacks", Released: September 19, 2001. [^]

[49] Half of that (28 percent) "very" worried. [^]

[50] PEW, "September 11 Shock Slow to Recede -- 42% Still

Depressed" released October 4, 2001. [^]

[51] CBS News, Jan 7, 2002. [^]

[52] PEW, "Worries Over New Attacks Decline," December 18,

2001. [^]

[53] The Gallup Organization, Dec 11, 2001. [^]

[54] The Gallup Organization, Jan 30, 2002. [^]

[55] The Gallup Organization, Feb 5, 2002. [^]

[56] Richard Benedetto, "Americans want Saddam out, but split

on how," USA TODAY-CNN-Gallup Poll in USA TODAY, 25 March 2002.
[^]
[57] However, Gallup Organization poll on September 24, 2002
found that Americans thought Bin Ladin and Al Qaeda posed a
graver threat than Iraq. [^]

[58] Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, German Marshall

Fund. September 4, 2002, The Gallup Organization September 18,
2002. [^]

[59] Newsweek, Sep 3, 2002. [^]

[60] ABC News, Jan 7, 2003. [^]

[61] CBS News, Jan 7, 2003. [^]

[62] Ca. 40 percent. [^]

[63] Newsweek, Jan 27, 2003. [^]

[64] The Gallup Organization, Jan 29, 2003. [^]

[65] Los Angeles Times, February 10, 2003, CBS-New York Times,
Feb 14, 2003, CNN-USA Today-Gallup February 28, 2003. [^]

[66] CBS News, Mar 7, 2003. [^]

[67] CNN-USA Today-Gallup, March 18, 2003 March 21, 2003. [^]

[68] NBC-Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2003. [^]

[69] As constituent elements of narratives and discourse. [^]

[70] Many right and left dissidents concur that America is a

target of terrorism because of its preponderance in world
politics. Many writers view terrorism as a form of covert
warfare and consider it a casus belli that justifies unilateral
reprisal with decisive military force. Pro-isolationists find
in terrorism a reason for pulling the global curtains on
America, urging Washington to avoid entanglements abroad, as in
Bosnia, Kosovo or Somalia see: Carpenter, 1996; Carr,
Cowan,1991: 2-5, 1997; Dermaut, 1997; Houghton, 1997; Phillips,
1994; see also Guelke, 1995: 160). [^]

[71] The survey interviewed 16,000 people in 20 countries and

the Palestinian Authority in May, 2003 and over 38,000 people
in 44 nations in 2002. [^]

[72] The survey reports wide support "in all corners of the
world" for the democratic ideals and free market economy as
well as globalization. Respect for fundamental values of the
modern culture that the U.S. too, has long promoted seems to be
on the rise rather than on the wane. [^]

[73] PEW Research Center, "Views of a changing world 2003 - War

with Iraq further divides global publics" Released: June 3,
2003, pp. 1-2. The PEW report (p. 2) rather implies that
democracy and liberal economics are basically American values,
however, the European Union is an avid stickler to promoter
them as well, perhaps more than Washington has been or is on a
global scale. See: Shafer,1988. [^]

[74] Richard Falk, David Krieger, "Iraq and the Failures of

Democracy",
http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/03.02/0219krieger_democracy
.htm, February 10, 2003. [^]

[75] The rhetoric of the quorum reflects its own schemes of

cognition on the problematique of terrorism it is defining. For
instance, the discourse, narratives and literature on the
subject overwhelmingly take the terrorist "organization" as the
paragon, because by definition, organization involves a
decipherable rationality that is understandable with the
traditional, standard paradigms and instruments of analysis.
[^]

[76] Isen, 1996. [^]

[77] Galip B. Isen, "Terˆrizm : Izm «ikarilinca Geriye Kalanlar

‹zerine",(Terrorism : On What Remains After Subtracting the
'ism') Avrasya Dosyasi, Summer 1996, V.3, No. 2: 104-107. [^]

[78] This is a legitimacy in the Weberian sense, marking a

collective cognition which accepts the right of the ruling
authority as genaelogically "normal"; not necessarily Western
democracy where such normalcy is bestowed with universal
consent. [^]

[79] In other words, preserving "normalcy" as an attribute of

society. [^]

[80] It can be speculated that the wave of "revolutionary"

terror† - especially of the Red Army Faction in West Germany
and the Red Brigades in Italy - which racked Europe in the 70's
ebbed away as society outgrew terrorism and the "revolutionary"
terrorists grew out of it. See: Guelke, 1995,pp. 62-63). [^]