The Appeal of Fear as a Rhetorical/Persuasive Strategy in Legitimizing the American War on Iraq

Abstract

This paper discusses how the appeal of fear has been exploited by George W. Bush in his presidential speeches given between September 2002 and March 2003 to legitimize the American war on Iraq. Bush depended on deception, misleading, propaganda and false pretensions presented to his audience that contributed to the emergence and hegemony of the discourse of "the Iraqi growing threat and danger". The paper examines, in particular, the discursive and linguistic means of deceptions and misleading by which the appeals of fear, represented by "the growing threats and dangers", have been realized and have taken great influence to persuade audience of the necessity and obligation of the American future intervention in Iraq as the last option to stop "the growing threats and dangers" to America..