Discursive (re)construction of the prelude to the 2003 Iraq War in op/ed press

What is it about?

The present study examines the fallacious reasoning strategies deployed by the US-British newspaper opinion/editorial writers to build a case for the pending war on Iraq in 2003. Their recourse to defamation strategies (ad hominem fallacy) has a powerful persuasive power as its goal is to exclude the other party from rational dialogue by ridiculing him or trying to tarnish his reputation before the targeted overhearing (third-party) audience. Equally instrumental are appeals to pity maneuvers, which enlist the emotional involvement of the constructed readers. Arguments from pathos (emotional appeal) bring to light the persuasive ‘rhetorical’ function of media cultivation of a sense of guilt through their bearing witness accounts. The aim of this chapter is to show how language played a crucial role in the framing of the Iraqi conflict in ‘moral/ethical terms, based on adversarial rather than dialogical argumentation. By synergising the approaches to critical discourse studies with methodological insights drawn from pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, this study seeks to unravel the ideological properties of mediated political discourse in the context of the Iraq War. Pragma-dialectics provides a promising avenue for the analysis of the different types and ideological function of ad hominem and pity appeal arguments put forward by pro-war discussants to legitimise Bush’s pending threat to attack Iraq. The study covers the period from 1 February to 20 March 2003 (the period leading up to the US official declaration of hostilities against Iraq

Featured Image

Why is it important?

This chapter shows how ideology may manifest itself in discourse through the use of argumentative manoeuvring strategies that can be geared to manipulate meaning construction. It describes how argumentum ad hominem and argument from pity were strategically deployed in pro-war argument in a way that provided blinkers that prevented the American–British public from viewing the Iraqi conflict from different perspectives. Operation Iraqi Freedom marked not only the US’s second incursion into Iraq in just over a decade but also an unprecedented alignment of the media with the interests of the US government.

Perspectives