Bush’s War on Terrorism as a Religious Crusade: Religious Language & Connotations are Integral to Bush’s War & Tactics

_{Image © Austin Cline
Original Poster: National Archives
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President George W. Bush has received quite a bit of criticism for some of the religious language he has used in explaining or promoting his worldwide War on Terrorism. Critics have pointed out that this War on Terror is usually framed as a political struggle against antidemocratic and anti-liberal forces of extremism, not as a struggle between religions. Even supporters argue that America can ill afford to make enemies of all Muslims by acting as though the War on Terror were a war on Islam. For a variety of reasons, I think that the references to religion were not mere slips of the tongue, but rather may be indications that the real targets of this war are not the ones usually given by Bush and his administration.

First of all, claiming terrorism as a target fails because terrorism is a tactic rather than an ideology or a people. For all that a "war on terror" makes for a nice rhetorical flourish, you can’t eliminate a tactic — anyone who picks up a gun or bomb and makes demands becomes a terrorist, and that isn’t something which can ever be completely prevented.

Second, to the extent that actual terrorists are targeted, it's notable that the antidemocratic and anti-liberal aspects of their ideology are rarely singled out for criticism, except in bland slogans like, “They hate us because we’re free.” That’s only to be expected, as so many of Bush’s biggest supporters hold similar antidemocratic and anti-liberal beliefs. Some even go so far as to promote these beliefs by arguing that liberties must be restricted in America in response to foreign terrorism. If Muslim extremists can’t achieve their goals through bombs, domestic Christian extremists would like to achieve much the same goals through legislation.

So if terrorism isn’t a real target in this war, nor is the ideology behind those who engage in terrorism, what’s left? Apparently, Islam and Muslims are what’s left — after all, non-Muslim terrorists aren’t pursued with the same zeal and rhetoric as the administration and its Christian supporters use against Muslims. Perhaps the more extreme versions of Islam and their Muslim practitioners will always be primary focus, but Islam as a whole and Muslims in general seem to be the principle targets of the Republican Party’s self-fulfilling War on Terror.

Given how much prejudice there is in America towards Muslims, and how much support has been expressed for imposing a subordinate standard of civil rights on Muslims, this doesn’t seem like an entirely implausible option. I’m sure that there are other possibilities, but given the facts on the ground it would be difficult to successfully argue for them.

The religion of those targeted by the Bush administration is not the only issue — the religion of those pursuing their war of aggression is an important factor as well. For many Americans, religion is political and politics is religious. They recognize no valid distinction between True Patriotism and True Religion, between the best political policies for America and the only valid religion for all human beings. Because of this, religious language will necessarily creep into political discourse — preventing it would require erecting a wall between religious theology and political ideology which simply cannot exist for them.

Theological beliefs structure, inform, and determine the course of political decision-making which can be difficult for more secularly-minded people to fully comprehend (even those who are themselves religious on a personal level). Thus any discussion of the War on Terror will necessarily include references to religion and religious terminology — not simply because religion is a motivating factor, but because these people cannot think in categories and concepts that are not religious in nature. Enemies are demonic, not simply mistaken or misguided. Wars are crusades because rather than having merely political causes, they are part of God’s agenda for humanity.

When Bush speaks about the War on Terror as a “Crusade,” he may be doing so because he really is targeting Islam and because he simply can’t avoid religious terminology. It appears, then, that we are being given a glimpse into the true workings of such people’s minds and we should not dismiss such evidence as irrelevant, unimportant, or “much ado about nothing.”

This image was originally a 1920s illustration of King Richard Lionheart landing with his troops during the Crusade. The two quotes were made at different times, not together, and were taken from the Positive Atheism list of historical quotations.

Don't forget to check out my own gallery of Christian Right Propaganda Posters. This week two new images were added.