Twenty-five years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States finds itself living inside a political architecture built not only from legislation and military force, but from language itself. The Bush administration's careful engineering of terms like 'enhanced interrogation' and 'extraordinary rendition' created moral distance between policy and its human consequences, allowing extraordinary violence to be conducted beneath the cover of bureaucratic normalcy. Though the phrase 'war on terror' has largely receded from official speech, the institutions, surveillance powers, and l
How 9/11's 'War on Terror' Sanitized Violence Through Language
Nearly 780 detainees passed through Guantanamo Bay; most were freed without charges after years of detention. Muslim communities faced normalized surveillance, detention, and securitization. Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandals involved systematic torture.