Operation Inherent Resolve and “Exposing the True Nature” of the Islamic State

Abstract

The aim here is to consider the implications of the counter-ideological struggle against the Islamic State. While most other studies have looked at the other elements of Operation Inherent Resolve – specifically its military, counter-recruitment, financial and humanitarian initiatives – here the focus is on its Line of Effort Five; the attempt to expose its “true nature” through a sustained program of “ideological de-legitimization.” It firstly sets out the institutional structures through which this took place before, secondly, going on to analyze the discursive content of the strategic messaging that was disseminated. The overall argument put forward is that, in continuing the tendency to define the ideational basis of al-Qaeda’s violence in terms of what it is not, Line of Effort Five largely maintained the War on Terror’s established tropes of evilness, wantonness and inhumanity, thereby reinforcing the idea that miliary force could be the only possible recourse.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Regan Arts, 2015), 28; Reidar Visser, “The Territorial Aspect of Sectarianism in Iraq,” International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies 4, no. 3 (2010): 295–304.

2 Reidar Visser, “The Western Imposition of Sectarianism on Iraqi Politics,” The Arab Studies Journal 15, no. 2 (2007–8): 93. See also Tim Jacoby and Nassima Neggaz, “Sectarianism in Iraq: The Role of the Coalition Provisional Authority,” Critical Studies on Terrorism 11, no. 3 (2018): 478–500.

3 Marine Corps Intelligence officer, Pete Devlin, cited in Thomas E. Ricks, “Situation Called Dire in West Iraq,” The Washington Post, 11 September 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/10/AR2006091001204.html. Some, such as the former intelligence analyst Mark Long, consider al-Baghdadi to be a “cyber fiction, created to give an Iraqi face to the ISI leadership” (“‘Ribat,’ al-Qa’ida, and the Challenge for US Foreign Policy,” Middle East Journal 63, no. 1 (2009): 44.

4 Austin Long, “The Anbar Awakening,” Survival 50, no. 2 (2008): 77.

5 Truls Hallberg Tønnessen, “Heirs of Zarqawi or Saddam? The Relationship between al-Qaida in Iraq and the Islamic State,” Perspectives on Terrorism 9, no. 4 (2015): 48.

6 Kirk Sowell, Iraq’s Second Insurgency (Washington, DC: Hudson Institute, 2014).

7 Seth G. Jones, James Dobbins, Daniel Byman, Christopher S. Chivvis, Ben Connable, Jeffrey Martini, Eric Robinson, and Nathan Chandler, Rolling Back the Islamic State (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2017), 84–100.

8 Jessica D. Lewis, Al-Qaeda in Iraq Resurgent: The Breaking the Walls Campaign (Washington, DC: Institute of War, 2013), 7.

9 Sinan Adnan and Adam Reese, Beyond the Islamic State: Iraq’s Sunni Insurgency (Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of War, 2014), 10.

10 Weiss and Hassan, ISIS, xi.

11 Defense Secretary Hagel quoted in Missy Ryan, “Islamic State Threat ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’: Pentagon,” Reuters, 22 August 2014, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-islamicstate-idUSKBN0GL24V20140822.

12 Erwin van Veen and Nick Grinstead, Iraqi Imbroglio: The Islamic State and Beyond (The Hague: Clingendael, 2014), 7; Secretaries Kerry and Hagel quoted in Denver Nicks, “U.S. Forms Anti-ISIS Coalition at NATO Summit,” Time, 5 September 2014, http://time.com/3273185/isis-us-nato/.

13 Kathleen J. McInnis, Coalition Contributions to Countering the Islamic State (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2015), 1.

14 USCENTCOM “Iraq and Syria Operations against ISIL Designated as Operation Inherent Resolve,” 15 October 2014, http://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/NEWS-ARTICLES/News-Article-View/Article/884877/iraq-and-syria-operations-against-isil-designated-as-operation-inherent-resolve/.

15 Montgomery McFate, Military Anthropology: Soldiers, Scholars and Subjects at the Margins of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 382; Peter Cary, The Pentagon, Information Operations, and International Media Development (Washington, DC: Center for International Media Assistance, 2010), 5.

16 Major David Nevers quoted in Kelly McHugh, “Pentagon Digital Engagement Team,” in Encyclopedia of Social Media and Politics, ed. Kerric Harvey (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2014), 952; Tom Shanker and Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Military Goes Online to Rebut Extremists’ Messages,” The New York Times, 17 November 2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/world/us-military-goes-online-to-rebut-extremists.html.

17 Russ Read, “Meet The Elite Cyber Units Fighting the Propaganda War against ISIS,” The Daily Caller, 9 July 2016, http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/09/meet-the-elite-cyber-units-fighting-the-propaganda-war-against-isis/. See also Timothy J. O’Neill, “Military-Industrial Complex,” in Encyclopedia of Social Media and Politics, ed. Kerric Harvey (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2014), 830.

18 Andrew Mumford, The West’s War against Islamic State: Operation Inherent Resolve in Syria and Iraq (London: I. B. Tauris, 2021), 71. Here, it worked closely with the CIA’s Directorate of Digital Innovation. Founded in 2015, it was tasked with disrupting the Islamic State’s ability to “coordinate operations, attract new recruits, disseminate propaganda and inspire sympathizers” (John Brennan quoted in Council on Foreign Relations, “U.S. Intelligence in a Transforming World,” 13 March 2015, https://www.cfr.org/event/us-intelligence-transforming-world).

19 Martha Bayles, Through a Screen Darkly: Popular Culture, Public Diplomacy, and America’s Image Abroad (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 185.

20 The White House, “The Administration’s Strategy to Counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Updated FY 2015 Overseas Contingency Operations Request,” 7 November 2014, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/07/fact-sheet-administration-s-strategy-counter-islamic-state-iraq-and-leva.

21 United States Government Accountability Office, Combating Terrorism: State Should Evaluate its Countering Violent Extremism Program and Set Time Frames for Addressing Evaluation Recommendations (Washington, DC, 2015); Justin Siberell, “2016 in Review: Building Partner Counterterrorism Capacity and Countering Violent Extremism,” DipNote, 4 January 2017, http://2007-2017-blogs.state.gov/stories/2017/01/04/2016-review-building-partner-counterterrorism-capacity-and-countering-violent.html. Previous incumbents include the future Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, Paul Bremer (1986–1989), and the former Time journalist, Daniel Benjamin (2009–2012).

22 Christopher Paul, Strategic Communication: Origins, Concepts and Debates (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011), 211. At that time, the Board was made up of two former ambassadors, a public relations CEO, the Chairman of Universal Pictures and a director from the American Enterprise Institute. It was chaired by Kenneth Weinstein, the President of the Hudson Institute, with the Secretary of State acting ex officio (https://www.bbg.gov/who-we-are/our-leadership/board/).

23 Richard LeBaron, “Public Diplomacy as an Instrument of Counterterrorism: A Progress Report,” The President’s Round Table, 20 June 2012, https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/resources-type/speeches?page=2.

24 Alberto Fernandez, “‘Contesting the Space’: Adversarial Online Engagement as a Tool for Combating Violent Extremism,” Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal 98, no. 4 (2015): 489.

25 Lina Khatib, William Dutton, and Michael Thelwall, “Public Diplomacy 2.0: An Exploratory Case Study of the US Digital Outreach Team,” Middle East Journal 66, no. 3 (2012): 457.

26 Ahmed al-Rawi, Cyberwars in the Middle East (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2021), 38; State Department official quoted in Amitai Etzioni, “Talking to the Muslim world: How, and With Whom?,” International Affairs 92, no. 6 (2016): 1377.

27 Richard Stengel, Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation and What We Can Do About It (London: Grove Press, 2019), 121.

28 Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken quoted in Etzioni, “Talking,” 1377.

29 As Richard Stengel put it, ‘if we were not credible messengers, let’s partner with those who were’ (Information Wars, 221); Herbert Lin, “On the Organization of the U.S. Government for Responding to Adversarial Information Warfare and Influence Operations,” in Information Warfare in the Age of Cyber Conflict, ed. Christopher Whyte, A. Trevor Thrall, and Brian M. Mazanec (London: Routledge, 2021), 174.

30 US Embassy of the UAE quoted in Jeremy S. Mushtare, Necessary Influence: Military Messaging to Counter the Virtual Caliphate (Carlisle, PA: US Army War College, 2018), 30.

31 Quoted in Asim Qureshi and Ben Hayes, “Going Global: The UK Government’s ‘CVE’ Agenda, Counter-Radicalisation and Covert Propaganda,” Open Democracy, 4 May 2016, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/going-global-uk-government-s-propaganda-and-censorship-silicon-valley-and-cve/.

32 Please see his university webpage, https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/robert-mckenzie.

33 Lilah Elsayed, Talal Faris, and Sara Zeiger, Undermining Violent Extremist Narratives in the Middle East and North Africa: A How-To Guide (Abu Dhabi: Hedayah, 2017), 23; Jan-Jaap van Eerten and Bertjan Doosje, Challenging Extremist Views on Social Media: Developing a Counter-Messaging Response (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019), 121.

34 John Gearson and Hugo Rosemont, “CONTEST as Strategy: Reassessing Britain’s Counterterrorism Approach,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 38, no. 12 (2015): 1024.

35 Peter Kalulé, Of Haunted Speech: A Critical Examination of Incitement to Terrorism Laws and Speech Regulatory Practices in the Post-9/11-7/7 Continuum (Unpublished PhD Thesis, Queen Mary and Westfield College, 2019), 140.

36 Qureshi and Hayes, “Going Global”; see also parliamentary records https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2016-03-16/31298 and https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2019-06-26/269681.

37 HMG cited in Rizwaan Sabir, “Blurred Lines and False Dichotomies: Integrating Counterinsurgency into the UK’s Domestic ‘War on Terror’,” Critical Social Policy 37, no. 2 (2017): 203.

38 Cristina Archetti, “The Unbearable Thinness of Strategic Communication,” in Countering Online Propaganda and Extremism: The Dark Side of Digital Diplomacy, ed. Corneliu Bjola and James Pamment (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019), 84.

39 Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, Annual Report 2016-2017 (London, 2017), 107; Sarah Logan, “Grasping at Thin Air: Countering Terrorist Narratives Online,” in Violent Extremism Online: New Perspectives on Terrorism and the Internet, ed. Anne Aly, Stuart Macdonald, Lee Jarvis, and Thomas Chen (London: Routledge, 2016), 154.

40 Emma Briant, “Allies and Audiences: Evolving Strategies in Defense and Intelligence Propaganda,” The International Journal of Press/Politics 20, no. 2 (2015): 148. HMG Intelligence and Security Committee quoted in Helena Farrand Carrapico, Narzanin Massoumi, William McGowan and Gabe Mythen “Disputing Security and Risk: The Convoluted Politics of Uncertainty,” in The Politics of Uncertainty: Challenges of Transformation, ed. Ian Scoones and Andy Stirling (London: Routledge, 2020), 156.

41 Ian Cobain, Alice Ross, Rob Evans and Mona Mahmood, “Inside Ricu, The Shadowy Propaganda Unit Inspired By The Cold War,” The Guardian, 2 May 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/02/inside-ricu-the-shadowy-propaganda-unit-inspired-by-the-cold-war; Narzanin Massoumi, “The Role of Civil Society in Political Repression: The UK Prevent Counter-Terrorism Programme,” Sociology 55, no. 5 (2021): 968.

42 Simon Hooper, “Google-hosted Muslim Leaders Summit Linked To Home Office Prevent Unit,” Middle East Eye, 11 January 2017, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/google-hosted-muslim-leaders-summit-linked-home-office-prevent-unit; Ben Hayes and Asim Qureshi, “We Are Completely Independent”: The Home Office, Breakthrough Media and the Prevent Counter Narrative Industry (London: Cage Advocacy, 2016), 113; Sabir, “Blurred Lines,” 217.

43 Dan Chugg, “Winning the Strategic Communications War with Daesh,” Civil Service Quarterly, 20 December 2017, https://quarterly.blog.gov.uk/2017/12/20/winning-the-strategic-communications-war-with-daesh/; Louk Faesen, Tim Sweijs, Alexander Klimburg, Conor MacNamara and Michael Mazarr, From Blurred Lines to Red Lines: How Countermeasures and Norms Shape Hybrid Conflict (The Hague: HCSS, 2020), 22. See also, https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/daesh/about and https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-holds-meeting-of-representatives-from-the-global-coalition-against-isil.

44 Jill Lawrence, Space Oddity: Strategic Communications as a Space Operations Enabler (Toronto: Canadian Forces College, 2021), 45. See also https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-holds-meeting-of-representatives-from-the-global-coalition-against-isil).

45 Nasser al-Belooshi, “Speech to High-Level Conference of Heads of Counter-Terrorism Agencies and Member States,” United Nations, 28 June 2018, https://www.un.org/counterterrorism/ctitf/sites/www.un.org.counterterrorism.ctitf/files/S3-Bahrain.pdf.

46 Nan Tian and Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, “Reassessing SIPRI’s Military Expenditure Estimate for the United Kingdom,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 9 February 2021, https://www.sipri.org/commentary/topical-backgrounder/2021/reassessing-sipris-military-expenditure-estimate-united-kingdom.

47 Frank Gardner, “Budget 2015: What is the New Joint Security Fund?,” BBC News, 9 July 2015, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33469450; Home Affairs Committee, Radicalisation: The Counter-Narrative and Identifying the Tipping Point (London: House of Commons, 2016), 23.

48 Scott Hickie, Chris Abbott and Raphaël Zaffran, Trends in Remote-Control Warfare (London: Open Briefing, 2014), 17.

49 GCHQ contractor Mandeep Dhami quoted in Andrew Fishman, “Psychologist’s Work For GCHQ Deception Unit Inflames Debate Among Peers,” The Intercept, 7 August 2015, https://theintercept.com/2015/08/07/psychologists-work-gchq-deception-unit-inflames-debate-among-peers/; Ruth Blakeley, Ben Hayes, Nisha Kapoor, Arun Kundnani, Narzanin Massoumi, David Miller, Tom Mills, Rizwaan Sabir, Katy Sian and Waqas Tufail, Leaving the War on Terror: A Progressive Alternative to Counter-Terrorism Policy (Amsterdam: Transnational Institute, 2019), 46.

50 Quoted in Mitra Rastegar, Tolerance and Risk: How U.S. Liberalism Racializes Muslims (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2021), 31.

51 President Obama quoted in Hassan Ahmad Mian, “What Is Islam? A Conversation with the Magisterial Intellectuals of the Past,” Counterpoints 346 (2010): 72.

52 Joe Maggio, “The Presidential Rhetoric of Terror: The (Re)Creation of Reality Immediately after 9/11,” Politics and Policy 35, no. 4 (2007): 827.

53 DOT quoted in al-Rawi, Cyberwars, 47.

54 President Obama, “Statement by the President on ISIL,” The White House, 10 September 2014, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/10/statement-president-isil-1; Geoff Earle, “Obama Refuses to Acknowledge “Muslim Terrorists” at Summit,” New York Post, 18 February 2015, https://nypost.com/2015/02/18/obama-refuses-to-acknowledge-muslim-terrorists-at-summit/.

55 Prime Minister Cameron quoted in Melanie McDonagh, “Like it or not, Isis are Muslims. Calling them ‘Monsters’ Lets Us off the Hook,” The Spectator, 15 September 2014, https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/like-it-or-not-isis-are-muslims-calling-them-monsters-lets-us-off-the-hook; Prime Minister Cameron quoted in Mikey Smith, “David Cameron Just Said ‘You Ain’t No Muslim, Bruv’,” Daily Mirror, 7 December 2015, https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/david-cameron-just-said-you-6968836.

56 Kenneth Payne, “Winning the Battle of Ideas: Propaganda, Ideology, and Terror,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 32, no. 2 (2009): 119.

57 Kurt Braddock, “The Impact of Jihadist Terrorist Narratives and how to Counter Them: A Research Synthesis,” in Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses, ed. Anthony Richards, Devorah Margolin, and Nicolo Scremin (London: I. B. Tauris, 2019), 18.

58 Brett McGurk, “Countering ISIL: Are We Making Progress?,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing, 10 December 2014, http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA00/20141210/102795/HHRG-113-FA00-Wstate-McGurkB-20141210.pdf. Antony Blinken quoted in Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism, Country Reports on Terrorism 2015 (Washington, DC, 2016), 392.

59 President Obama quoted from here respectively: Robert Tait, “Barack Obama Woos Muslims from Secular Turkey,” The Guardian, 7 April 2009, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/apr/07/barack-obama-turkey-islam; Geoff Dyer, “Isis Is Not about Islam, Says Obama,” Financial Times, 19 February 2015, https://www.ft.com/content/d2977822-b85c-11e4-b6a5-00144feab7de. John Hannah, “Can Obama Spur a Reform within Islam?,” Foreign Policy, 21 December 2015, https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/21/can-obama-spur-a-reform-within-islam/.

60 Patrick Goodenough, “‘Ground Zero Mosque’ Cleric Says Parts of his Book Were Woven into Obama’s Cairo Speech,” CNS News, 27 August 2010, https://cnsnews.com/news/article/ground-zero-mosque-cleric-says-parts-his-book-were-woven-obama-s-cairo-speech; Rashad Hussain and Al-Husein N. al-Madhany, “Reformulating the Battle of Ideas: Understanding the Role of Islam In Counterterrorism Policy,” The Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, Analysis Paper 13 (August 2008), ix.

61 Prime Minister Brown quoted in Nicholas Watt, “We Must Win the Debate at a level of Hearts and Minds,” The Guardian, 6 January 2008, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/jan/06/uk.terrorism1.

62 UK Home Affairs Select Committee quoted in Sabir Shah, “British Legislators Blame Facebook, Twitter and Google for Terrorism,” The International News, 11 July 2016, https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/145417-British-legislators-blame-FacebookTwitter-and-Google-for-terrorism. Daesh simultaneously represents the acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria while also implying ‘to trample down and crush’, as well as the noun, ‘bigot’ (Patrick Garrity, “Paris Attacks: What does “Daesh” Mean and Why Does ISIS Hate It?,” ABC News, 14 November 2015, https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/paris-attacks-what-does-daesh-mean-why-does-isis-hate-n463551.

63 Cited in John Fahy, “The International Politics of Tolerance in the Persian Gulf,” Religion, State & Society 46, no. 4 (2018): 315. See also official launch of the Sawab Center, http://wam.ae/en/details/1395283046846).

64 Stengel, Information Wars, 135; Ted Cruz quoted in Doyle McManus, “‘Islamic’ Extremism Or ‘Violent’ Extremism? The President is Mincing Words and There’s a Reason For That,” Los Angeles Times, 20 February 2015, https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-oe-mcmanus-obama-islamic-state-terminology-20150222-column.html.

65 Eliana Johnson, Michael Crowley and Shane Goldmacher, “New Security Adviser Pushed Trump to Moderate his Language on Terrorism,” Politico, 28 February 2017, https://www.politico.eu/article/new-security-adviser-pushed-trump-to-moderate-his-language-on-terrorism/;President Trump’s address to Youngstown State University, 15 August 2016, https://businessjournaldaily.com/read-transcript-of-trumps-speech-at-ysu/.

66 Jonny Hall, “In Search of Enemies: Donald Trump’s Populist Foreign Policy Rhetoric,” Politics 41, no. 1 (2021): 59; Julia Manchester, “Tillerson: Gorka is ‘Completely Wrong’ on ‘Radical Islam’ Term,” The Hill, 27 August 2017, https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/348165-tillerson-gorka-is-completely-wrong-on-radical-islam-term/. Indeed, he replaced Flynn with Herbert McMaster who had spoken of both his “great disdain” for Trump’s campaign rhetoric and the need to “enlist the people within Islam who agree with you” (Graham Lanktree, “Watch Trump’s First Address to Congress to Check if he Mentions ‘Radical Islamic Terrorism’,” International Business Times, 28 February 2017, https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/watch-trumps-first-address-congress-check-if-he-mentions-radical-islamic-terrorism-1609044).

67 Tom DiChristopher, “Rex Tillerson Says he Doesn’t Support Muslim Travel Ban, Needs More Info on Registry,” CNBC, 11 January 2017, https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/11/tillerson-on-muslim-registry-i-would-need-a-lot-more-information.html; Kevin Liptak, “Pence Praises Moderate Islam in Indonesia,” CNN, 20 April 2017, https://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/20/politics/mike-pence-indonesia-islam/index.html; Hall, “In Search,” 55.

68 Paul Reynolds, “Declining Use of ‘War on Terror’,” BBC News, 17 April 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6562709.stm.

69 Quoted in Zeke J. Miller, “Obama Calls on World to Reject ‘Cancer Of Violent Extremism’ in UN,” Time, 24 September 2014, http://time.com/3425319/obama-united-nations-general-assembly.

70 Cited in Alan J. Vick, Adam R. Grissom, William Rosenau, Beth Grill and Karl P. Mueller, Air Power in the New Counterinsurgency Era: The Strategic Importance of USAF Advisory and Assistance Missions (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2006), 1. See, for instance, this assessment from the Royal United Services Institute, “Iraq’s Persistent Insurgency,” 16 November 2007, https://rusi.org/publication/iraq%E2%80%99s-persistent-insurgency.

71 Cited in House of Representatives, The Isis Threat: Weighing the Obama Administration’s Response (Washington, DC, 2014), 33.

72 Olivier Roy, The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East (trans. R. Schwartz) (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 53.

73 Bush quoted in Joshua Gunn, “The Rhetoric of Exorcism: George W. Bush and the Return of Political Demonology,” Western Journal of Communication 68, no. 1 (2004): 12; Kerry quoted in Bill Roggio, “US Confirms Islamic State Executed American Journalist,” Long War Journal, 20 August 2014, https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/08/us_confirms_islamic_state_exec.php.

74 Peter Singer, The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush (Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2007), 224; Sherman quoted in House of Representatives, The ISIS, 23; Trump quoted in Gardiner Harris, “Trump’s ISIS Plan, as Described by Tillerson, Sounds Like Obama’s,” New York Times, 22 March 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/22/world/middleeast/rex-tillerson-isis.html; https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/08/31/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-end-of-the-war-in-afghanistan/.

75 Jørgen Johansen, “Acts of Omission in the ‘War on Terrorism’,” in The Ethics and Efficacy of the Global War on Terrorism: Fighting Terror with Terror, ed. Charles P. Webel and John A. Arnaldi (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 129; Obama quoted in Seth Lipsky, “Capitol Hill Buy-In: On ISIS, Obama Needs More than the UN,” New York Post, 24 September 2014, https://nypost.com/2014/09/24/capitol-hill-buy-in-on-isis-obama-needs-more-than-the-un/amp/.

76 Robert L. Ivie and Oscar Giner, Hunt the Devil: A Demonology of US War Culture (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama, 2015), 19–20.

77 General McKenzie quoted in Terri Moon Kronk, “McKenzie Says ISIS Leader Who Died during U.S. Raid Was ‘Evil,” Department of Defense News, 4 February 2022, https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/2923605/mckenzie-says-isis-leader-who-died-during-us-raid-was-evil/.

78 Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 3, 190, 193.

79 Laurie L. Calhoun, “Moral Personhood, Human Security, and the War on Terrorism,” in The Ethics and Efficacy of the Global War on Terrorism: Fighting Terror with Terror, ed. Charles P. Webel and John A. Arnaldi (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 79.

80 Frederick Kagan, “Missing the Target: Why the US has not Defeated al Qaeda,” in Is Al-Qaeda Winning? Grading the Administration’s Counterterrorism Policy (Hearing before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade of the Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives, 2014), 49.

81 President Bush quoted in Agnieszka Sowińska, “A Critical Discourse Approach to the Analysis of Values in Political Discourse: The Example of Freedom in President Bush’s State of the Union Addresses (2001–2008,” Discourse & Society 24, no. 6 (2013): 804.

82 Quoted in Catherine Bennett, “Why Would Anyone Be Party to Isis’ Sick and Sadistic Videos?,” The Guardian, 7 February 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/07/isis-sick-and-sadistic-videos.

83 Piers Morgan, “Watching ISIS Burn a Man Alive was the Most Abominable Thing I have ever Seen – and any Muslim Who Won’t Stand Up to these Barbarians Must Watch it Too,” Daily Mail, 3 February 2015, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2938746/PIERS-MORGAN-Watching-ISIS-burn-man-alive-abominable-thing-seen-Muslim-won-t-stand-barbarians-watch-too.html.

84 Salam al-Marayati quoted in Pete Lentini, “Demonizing ISIL and Defending Muslims: Australian Muslin Citizenship and Tony Abbott’s ‘Death Cult’ Rhetoric,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 26, no. 2 (2015): 239.

85 Alyas Karmani quoted in Jonathan Owen, “British Youths are Lured by a Psychotic Death Cult, Says Bradford Imam,” The Independent, 23 August 2014, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-youths-are-lured-by-a-psychotic-death-cult-says-bradford-imam-9687897.html; Dominic Casciani, “Preventing Violent Extremism: A Failed Policy?,” BBC News, 7 June 2011, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-13686586; Prime Minister Abbot quoted in Lentini, “Demonizing,” 241.

86 President Bush quoted from Imke Köhler, Framing the Threat: How Politicians Justify Their Policies (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2019), 109; Alan Kennedy-Shaffer, Denial and Deception: A Study of the Bush Administration’s Rhetorical Case for Invading Iraq (Boca Raton, FL: Universal Publishers, 2006), 38.

87 Sasha Havlicek, “The Islamic State’s War on Women and Girls,” Testimony to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, United States House of Representatives, 28 July 2014, http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA00/20150729/103835/HHRG-114-FA00-Wstate-HavlicekS-20150729.pdf; Turk al-Faisal, “The Middle East Today: Where to?,” Keynote Address to the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, 23 October 2017, https://ncusar.org/aa/2017/10/the-middle-east-today-where-to/.

88 https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmhansrd/cm151202/debtext/151202-0004.htm; Charlie Winter, War by Suicide: A Statistical Analysis of the Islamic State’s Martyrdom Industry (The Hague: The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 2017), 18.

89 Lesley Jeffries and Brian Walker, Keywords in the Press: The New Labour Years (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 159.

90 Lauren Turner, “No One Wants Afghanistan to Become Breeding Ground for Terror – PM,” BBC News, 15 August 2021, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58224383; Courtney Kube and Carol E. Lee, “ISIS Infiltrated a Refugee Camp to Recruit Fighters. Inside the Biden Admin’s Plan to Stop It,” NBC News, 6 October 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/isis-syria-al-hol-camp-population-reduced-biden-administration-plan-rcna50877.

91 Chris Hughes, “ISIS Threat: David Cameron Warns Fight against Islamic Extremism will Continue for a ‘Generation’,” Daily Mirror, 5 February 2015, https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/isis-threat-david-cameron-warns-5113887.

92 John Thornhill, “Nicolas Sarkozy,” Financial Times, 2 December 2005, https://www.ft.com/content/d9aeeb26-622c-11da-8dad-0000779e2340; Andrew Kaczynski, “Michael Flynn in August: Islamism a ‘Vicious Cancer’ in Body of all Muslims that ‘Has To Be Excised’,” CNN, 23 November 2016, https://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/22/politics/kfile-michael-flynn-august-speech/index.html.

93 Spencer Ackerman and Nicholas Watt, “Obama Urges Action to Halt Isis “Cancer” as UK Steps Up Fight against Jihadists,” The Guardian, 21 August 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/20/obama-urges-action-halt-isis-cancer-uk-steps-up-fight-jihadis.

94 Conor Gaffey, “ISIS ‘Spreading Like Cancer’ in Waves of Refugees: NATO Commander,” Newsweek 2 March 2016, https://www.newsweek.com/isis-spreading-cancer-waves-refugees-nato-commander-432319. Ash Carter, “It’s Time to Accelerate the ISIL Fight,” Politico, 22 January 2016, https://www.politico.eu/article/ash-carter-its-time-to-accelerate-the-isil-fight-syria-iraq-terrorism/.

95 Catherine Lucey and Lisa Lerer, “Clinton Says Trump Gives ‘Aid, Comfort’ to Islamic State Recruiters,” The Times of Israel, 20 September 2016, https://www.timesofisrael.com/clinton-says-trump-gives-aid-comfort-to-islamic-state-recruiters/; Full transcript of Trump press conference, BBC News, 16 February 2017, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38987938; Kagan, “Missing,” 40.

96 Jonathan Freedland, “Isis and Ebola: The Twin Threats That Reveal Our Impotence,” The Guardian, 17 October 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/17/isis-ebola-twin-threats-islamic-state; Ian Hughes, “ISIS Plotting Ebola Terror Attack to Kill Westerners with Infected Syringes Warns Security Chief,” Daily Mirror, 31 October 2014, http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/isis-plotting-ebola-terror-attack-4542270.

97 Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Boston: Little, Brown, 2009), 209; Stuart Wright, “Martyrs and Martial Imagery: Exploring the Volatile Link between Warfare Frames and Religious Violence,” in Dying for Faith: Religiously Motivated Violence in the Contemporary World, ed. Madawi Al-Rasheed and Marat Shterin (London: I. B. Tauris, 2009), 19.

98 Arnold Whittick, Symbols, Signs and Their Meaning (Newton, MA: Charles T. Branford, 1971).

99 Quoted in Mark Hosenball and Kamran Haider, “Pakistan Faces Tough Questions over Osama bin Laden,” Reuters, 2 May 2011, https://www.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-56709720110502 and James Lamont, “Clinton warns Pakistan on Militant ‘Snakes’,” Financial Times, 21 October 2011, https://www.ft.com/content/93147c90-fbc7-11e0-9283-00144feab49a.

100 Simon Lancaster, You are not Human: How Words Kill (London: Biteback Publishing, 2018), 127; “Defence Secretary welcomes liberation of Raqqah,” 10 October 2017, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/defence-secretary-welcomes-liberation-of-raqqah.

101 Emily Schultheis, “President Trump Calls ISIS Fighters ‘Sneaky, Dirty Rats’,” CBS News, 26 January 2017, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-trump-calls-isis-fighters-sneaky-dirty-rats/; Max Greenwood, “Trump Aide: Admin Will Go after ISIS ‘Cockroaches’,” The Hill, 25 March 2017, https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/325809-trump-aide-admin-will-go-after-isis-cockroaches/; Philip Rucker, “Carson Likens Some Refugees to ‘Mad Dogs,’ Says ISIS ‘Greater Threat’ than al-Qaeda’, The Washington Post, 19 November 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/19/carson-likens-some-refugees-to-dogs-warns-of-terror-attack-on-u-s-soil/. Indeed, President Trump continued this latter theme when commenting on the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – “he died like a dog” (quoted in Daniel L. Byman, “Al-Baghdadi’s Death … and that Presidential Speech,” Lawfare, 27 October 2019, https://www.lawfareblog.com/baghdadis-death-and-presidential-speech27.

102 Edmund Leach, Custom, Law, and Terrorist Violence (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1977), 36.

103 Cited in Mumford, The West’s War, 103.

104 Michael Erbschloe, Extremist Propaganda in Social Media: A Threat to Homeland Security (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2019), 50.

105 President Bush quoted in Rastegar, Tolerance, 31; President Obama quoted in Mian, “What is Islam?,” 72.

106 Josh Earnest quoted in Jason Devaney, “WH Spokesman Gets Testy: ‘Our Enemy is not Islam’,” Newsmax, 14 June 2016, https://www.newsmax.com/headline/josh-earnest-islam-not-enemy/2016/06/14/id/733894/.

107 Hall, “In Search,” 59; President Biden quoted in Josh Lederman, “Trump’s Foreign Policy Views Would Harm U.S. Democracy, Biden Warns,” Toronto Star, 20 June 2016, https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/06/20/trumps-foreign-policy-views-would-harm-us-democracy-biden-warns.html.

108 Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire (Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2021), 133.

109 Joseph S. Nye Sr., “Get Smart: Combining Hard and Soft Power,” Foreign Affairs 88, no. 4 (2009): 163.

110 Arun Kundnani, The Muslims are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror (London: Verso, 2014), 68.

111 Juan Zarate quoted in Caleb D. McCarthy, “‘The Islamic State is not Islamic’: Terrorism, Sovereignty and Declarations of Unbelief,” Critical Research on Religion 4, no. 2 (2016): 162; Stengel, Information Wars, 121.

112 President Bush quoted in Tanja Collet, “Civilization and Civilized in Post-9/11 US Presidential Speeches,” Discourse & Society 20, no. 4 (2009): 458.

113 Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (trans. G. Schwab) (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 47.

114 Prime Minister Cameron quoted in McDonagh, “Like It or Not”.

115 Erin Steuter and Deborah Wills, At War with Metaphor: Media, Propaganda, and Racism in the War on Terror (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008), 38.

116 Lisa Stampnitsky, Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented "Terrorism" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 13; Richard Jackson, “Constructing Enemies: ‘Islamic Terrorism’ in Political and Academic Discourse,” Government and Opposition 42, no. 3 (2007): 421.