Australia's 'War on Terror' Discourse by Kathleen Gleeson

Australia's 'War on Terror' Discourse by Kathleen Gleeson

Author:Kathleen Gleeson [Gleeson, Kathleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Peace, Political Science, Terrorism
ISBN: 9781317177135
Google: xSTtCwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 29881200
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-01-01T00:00:00+00:00


26 Little data was taken on this issue during 2003. However, Goot’s (2007, 261) analysis of poll data over an extended period found that between December 2002 and October 2004, a clear majority of respondents were in favour of Australian military involvement in the War on Terrorism.

Chapter 5

Australia’s ‘war on terror’: Phase Two

The invasion of Iraq by the US-led ‘Coalition of the Willing’1 certainly marked a departure point for the war on terror. Whereas Operation Enduring Freedom was justified on the basis that Afghanistan offered safe haven to the perpetrators of 9/11, the case for war in Iraq was much less straightforward. In the United States, the Pentagon (under Donald Rumsfeld) and State Department (under Colin Powell) were at odds regarding this new course; the latter expressing a preference for seeing Afghanistan out and continuing the fight against terrorism through police and intelligence avenues (Garran, 2004, 119). Why Howard emphatically supported this neo-conservative turn is a question this Chapter will explore. The short answer is that Howard viewed Iraq as a test of the alliance that overrode his realist persuasions (Howard, 2010, 460; DeBats, McDonald and Williams, 2007, 240). What this Chapter is more concerned with is understanding how Howard and his Government maintained legitimacy during this second phase of the war on terror. The primary finding is that justificatory tactics for involvement in the war on terror (and for its associated policies) were entirely consistent with phase one of the discourse. That is to say that the key issues were predominantly constructed through representations of threat and identity.

This Chapter continues the genealogy of Australia’s war on terror discourse by looking at the period 2002/3 to 2007. This period can be characterised by greater discursive volatility than the previous phase. While there were times when Howard’s representations were successful and the discourse appeared stable, there were also several key stages where public support waned and cracks in the discourse appeared. To elucidate the nature of this ebb and flow the Chapter examines representational practices contained primarily in the speeches of then Prime Minister John Howard. The way in which he sought to justify continued Australian involvement in the War on Terrorism, and the political effects of these justifications are what this Chapter seeks to understand. In so doing, four sections will follow, each representing a key pillar in the latter phase of Australia’s war on terror discourse: Iraq, the Anti-Terrorism Bill Number 2 2005, the Cronulla Riots of 2005, and casualties of Australia’s war on terror – Habib, Hicks and Haneef.



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