Political & Social Framing In Counterterrorism Initiatives

All right, Welcome guys. Hello!

So my capstone paper explores the usage of political framing

and inducing and stalemated policies at the expense of islam.

And the basis for my argument

is inspired by George Rakoff's work,

who has studied the usage of linguistic technique of framing

and how it's been introduced into the religion of Islam in the american lens.

So like to quickly touch on that,

give you the key premise so we can dive into some of the components of

the topic and some of the challenges and

anticipated counter arguments I'm aiming to dispute.

So,

to introduce you to George Lucas's work, he is a american cognitive linguist,

best known for his thesis that people's lives are significantly influenced

by the conceptual metaphors that they use to explain complex phenomenon

and in the context political discourse.

Lakoff argues that conservatives have spent

decades defining their ideas carefully,

choosing the language with which to present them

and building on infrastructure to communicate them.

And while I wholeheartedly agree with this,

I felt that it failed to observe how liberals do the same thing and how

the modern political system is entirely tied

to having an existential adversary of sorts,

and I want to observe how this tied into

the american muslim experience and look into why.

And uh if we expect

because if we experience two terms of a democratic administration since the war

on terror began and then we're in the process of the third one.

I I just wonder why the topic of islam

and islamophobia remained so sticky within political discourse.

So with this in mind,

I seek to explore um how the Bush administration's us

versus them approach is not much different from the american

progressive counterparts and how the american

public have successfully consumed and characterized

islamophobia and the religion of islam as part of the american condition.

And that's a liberal or a conservative thing.

And what I mean by characterization is um

you know, look, so to be honest, I'm look,

I'm a white man for Kansas city Missouri.

And before his class, when I thought of a muslim man, I immediately assumed

it was someone with the features to Osama bin laden

and that's exactly the power that framing has and

that that's why I want to explore it is,

you know, why didn't I think of Muhammad Ali,

you know what I think of these people that I look up to and truth is is that

political framing is just subtle and profound on and

it just affects how we observe the world.

And it compelled me to write on it.

So my research aims to provide a

holistic synthesis of each administration's approach to

the topic and give contextual examples of how phrasing such as radical extremists,

terrorism, arab immigrants and

even build the wall. It ties into this idea of this constant longing for some sort of

adversary within

political strategy

in America.

So

with air Muslims in particular,

I feel they're the current version of this scapegoat

and they're simply just the new class of adversary and for

lack of a better term kind of just been put into,

They're just kind of sheep put into Wolf's clothing

in post-9-11 and it's used to induce policy.

So

what we begin to understand about political discourse in the

United States is the assumptions that are set into place based

on our framing and categorization of roles within our society

with the strict father role as coined by Lake Off.

So he argues that society is built on his

family structure where naturally as humans of a society,

we categorize roles and identify dangerous to our system

and in this case, you know, the system would be democracy.

So strict father role in our political structure is

assumed by the leader of the free world,

the president who requires obedience from his family, which would be the citizens

and the assumptions are that the world is a dangerous place

and

always will be.

So there's absolutely right from wrong.

And a strong strict father is going to protect the family in this dangerous world

while teaching them right from wrong.

So I argue we have successfully consumed adopted and characterized islam to

fit this adversarial role similar to the likes of previous adversaries,

um which I classify as nazism, mccarthyism and the containment of communism,

Cold War and the threat of nuclear war.

And I think terrorism and Islam are just that new class of threat

and the critical support piece. Um I use comes from a

pre 9 11

Bush speech?

So remember George H W Bush's father was

the vice president while the USSR collapsed?

And he was

which was the prior adversary to radical Islam.

And George W Bush needed to fill that void

to support the strict father model that I argue.

So prior to the 9 11 attacks,

An interesting piece from my source,

Douglas little mentioned that Bush during his campaign insisted, quote,

I should say,

insisted that post Cold War America must remain what it

had been throughout its long confrontation with the Kremlin.

And that's the most dominant force

in world affairs

And the only nation capable of protecting us from them.

So I argue that Bush already had this blueprint to administration

and then it just fell into his lap on 9:11.

And his quote to justify the war on terror was,

America will never seek the permission slip

to defend the security of our country. And when you look at this, um,

and look at this usage of of linguistic framing

and uh,

along with his other famous quote of you're

either with us or you're with the terrorists.

I mean,

who's who's going to oppose that weeks following the worst attack on american soil.

So, also,

you know,

it creates this beast of an adversary this

time around where the country isn't fighting communism,

it's not fighting a political structure isn't fighting even a country.

So

yeah, it's finding an emotion

and that emotion of terror. So how do you fight that?

Um

So

I kind of see it like trying to shoot the boogeyman, right? So

What Karen Greenberg states about our administration since 9 11 or that um

policies such as the Usa patriot Act or you know, war on terror,

weapons of mass destruction

um

or to her subtle tools that are used to

dismantle american democracy through the use of imprecise language,

secrecy and the disruption of procedural norms.

Now with that said,

we finally reached the research question. So

how have administrations

since the war on terror constructed political framing to

influence discourse and induce policy at the expense of Muslims

and what has caused it to stick?

So that's when I began to look into the administration's 1x1. And what you

or what I find I should say are these illusions within campaigns

where they don't really

as contrarian as we would think.

So, you know,

Obama didn't really change many war on terror policies and

his countering violent extremism initiative which is known as C.

D. Um

That was put into place in 2011.

Wasn't wasn't really squashing much of the government overreach.

That was found within the patriot act which allowed for blank warrants.

Profiling detaining

and just own the name of protecting freedom

which again, you know freedom is

very vague and precise language.

So to support that I observe about trump

actually introduces Obama constructed Cbe programs and I think

it's pretty significant to the argument because when you

look at trump's whole character in his identity.

This big production that he puts on,

he's a staunch contrarian to everything Obama does or just is so to to

go from this publicly perceived left leaning president and Obama to this far right,

hard right, alt right donald trump

for him to support the cbe approach should really give us insight into how much of a um

wet noodle

it is in regards to being different from war

on terror policy and moving forward towards biden,

which could arguably see an entirely different adversary come

from this with the Ukrainian Russian war going on.

But

um it's important to note that hey, like this isn't this isn't just conservatives,

this is a foundational issue within our system and the left has failed

disenfranchised communities equally and for the sake of the point of this topic,

muslim americans,

they've effectively went all in on token izing Muslims for the sake

of popular vote and then we go right back to the status quo

and I do expect a couple of arguments,

counter arguments to these claims and the first being

um what about non era muslim discrimination?

So

this argument is guided

to explain that

non arab muslim discrimination is

exercise specifically from the characterization of

islam that is attributed to the war on terror rhetoric.

Um

and non arab Muslims,

I should say non arab american Muslims received discrimination that's

based on misinformation or just flat out ignorance about the Quran

That's been propagated from 9 11 attacks

um with, you know, the

the guys that Muslims are

inherently or just islam as a religion is inherently not american

and non christian.

And most importantly,

this does not aim to trivialize the non era muslim

experience and it aims to explain the challenges in such a

the modernization of ethnicity, religion and culture. So think of it when we,

you know, if we try to do this in the Christianity sense, you know,

let's take a 70 year old black christian man from Birmingham Alabama.

And and uh

Try finding how similar his American experiences to a

white 23 year old Christian in Seattle Washington,

and you just you can't

um and for the second argument,

I feel there will be pushback on the liberal versus conservative approach.

And I think it's important to keep in mind that it is um

it's not about right or wrong, It's simply the, you know, the who is of this thing,

right?

So

what what could this implicate about how we approach political discourse,

like who who truly stands to gain from

such discrimination and the polarity of our parties?

Or is that just like is that the goal here

of the political discourse is just to divide and conquer.

Like a lot of what we've seen in trump's campaign.

So it's all very circular these emotional arguments we get

ourselves into and and they fail to criticize the political

structure when we argue like this and uh it's more

focused on that american obsession we have with individuality uniqueness.

And uh we just

naturally try to point the finger towards an

individual towards the leader of a specific person.

But in reality maybe that's just the design of the thing. So

maybe

maybe it's a system. So lastly

and I'm still developing this idea, but my my Cbe Obama connection there,

it's gonna be argued

and

what I aim to do is just provide a comparative analysis on why Obama's C. D.

E approach differs from european CTE programs and how the Americanized

version is protective of this whole structure that I'm arguing exists

so quickly. I think I'm running out of time here.

We're gonna run through some of the challenges

And I'm gonna say one finding a central focus to

such a complex topic while meeting parameters of the rubric.

So 7000 words, 7500 words. Not that much when you're dealing with this.

So there's so much to unpack.

And I had to cut ties with some of the ambitions of

this paper because there's just way too much to tie together.

And as a result of that I struggle with the organization of the paper.

I had to just get pen to paper.

At first I didn't even have a thesis until page seven or eight.

And I think that's because there's just so many,

there's multiple disciplines required to make this argument,

you know? So I

how do you contend? How do you condense key components in the railway ones?

So you have research from fields of social psychology, law and policy, history,

religion, political science, linguistics and it's a fairly novel argument.

Um

so it just required

required more brain power than I typically imagined.

And a lot of uh you know, I had to come to my own original conclusions.

And honestly, you know, policy is not in my wheelhouse international relations,

not my wheelhouse social issues, not my wheelhouse.

And uh,

but it all ties together to this large picture. So

that leaves me with, you know, eliminating tangents that I've had.

Um I'm borderline manic in this stuff right now.

So I think our professor would probably agree that our our video meeting,

um it's it's hard to articulate into words what I feel about the

topic and how to how to put that into one central focus.

So uh

really focused on trying to get concise on it.

And then, you know, lastly objectivity and subjectivity.

I I wanted to keep my personal opinion away from the

topic and I felt it would be a little hypocritical of

me to argue how toxic the US versus them approaches while

digging my heels into a moral high ground of sorts.

So, you know,

I want to be mindful of that and because this isn't about what's right and wrong.

It's more about trying to identify what is

like what causes this mothering of individuals and adversaries within our within

our system and uh why is the reason it keeps going on?

Like what's the what's the deal here? So,

you know,

that's what solves these issues here and it's

important to convey this because I feel like,

you know, our generation really needs to be mindful of,

you know, when we discuss sensitive topics and I think the presentation

comes in a fairly emotional time during the, you know,

texas shootings and buffalo shootings and you know,

just bringing awareness to things is only a small piece of change.

So

we have to get better and improve that,

identifying the wise of these things and need to strive for more more than just

bringing awareness to it as if that's just the job well done tweet about it,

right?

So, you know, identifying the root of the cause a little more and

that's the power of policy policy is the end goal here,

the endgame to changing issues.

So, um yeah, I hope you found this compelling and thanks for listening,

please reach out to me.

I would love feedback on this. I'm still working on the papers, so

Political & Social Framing In Counterterrorism Initiatives

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