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The Consequences Of A "War" Paradigm For Counterterrorism: What Impact On Basic Rights And Values?, Laurie R. Blank

Georgia Law Review

Policy makers have used the rhetoric of "war"
throughout the past century to describe a major
governmental or societal effort to combat an evil that
threatens society, national security or other communal

good. It is both a rhetorical tool and a resource
mobilization, and above all a coalescing of authority to
meet the challenge, whether poverty, drugs or-most
recently-terrorism. Soon after 9/11 made al Qaeda a
household word, the Bush Administration characterized
U.S. efforts to defeat al Qaeda as the "War on Terror."
Here, however, the terminology of "war" goes far beyond
rhetoric, resource re-allocation and centralizing of
authority. When …