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ABSTRACT
This discourse study analyzes the Bush Administration’s use of a religious mode
of representation to make sense of the 9/11 events and to legitimize military actions
against the Taliban, Afghanistan, and terrorism in general. The religious mode of
representation is enabled by the construction and application of what we call the “War on
Terrorism script,” which was used to imbue empirical events with particular symbolic
meanings associated with the American civil religion. Specifically, the script helped
created a coherent account for—in the terms of Kenneth Burke’s theory of dramatism—
the act (what was done), scene (when or where it was done), agent (who did it), agency
(how was it done), and the purpose (why was it done) of the 9/11 events. This paper
demonstrates the unique power of this mode of representation to create a coherent
account at a time of national crisis and to establish connections between the 9/11
perpetrators, the al Qaeda network, and the Afghanistan government. The grounding of
the War on Terrorism script in American civil religion also contributed to its power to
defeat competing modes of representing these events, notably intellectual, rational, and
legal challenges. Overall, the initially ambiguous situations of 9/11 were defined as a
war between the American civil religion and those who were against it; the War on
Terror symbolic world was created.
Key Words: political discourse, political symbol, political religion; War on Terrorism
Convention