The Language of War: George W. Bush’s discursive practices in
securitising the western value system in the ‘War on Terror’
Janicke Stramer
Abstract
The phrase, ‘western values’, is a broad one which includes matters
such as democracy, freedom, libertarian values (both economic and political)
and free speech. The American version of freedom is ambiguous and far from
self-evident or straightforward. What is particular about President George W.
Bush’s rhetoric during the ‘War on Terror’ is that it has a strong religious
element. This paper will examine his securitising speech acts as a means of
promoting ‘western values’. In order to assess these discursive practices and
expose the role of religious rhetoric in securitising the latter, I shall follow
the approach of the Copenhagen School of Security Studies.
Key Words:
Copenhagen School, religious rhetoric, securitisation, U.S. foreign
policy, ‘war on terror’, ‘western values’.
Janicke Stramer
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Introduction
‘Western values’ is a broad notion, which covers matters such as
democracy, freedom, libertarian values (both economical and political) and
free speech. The American version of freedom is ambiguous and far from
self-evident and straightforward: although a very prominent element of
presidential rhetoric, it generally remains implicit under cover of the strongly
religious tone and content, rather than being made explicit. Bush seeks to
sanctify the United States by stating that America’s strength and resolve is to
advance freedom, which is God’s gift to the world: hence America is doing
God’s work in its export and imposition of ‘western values’ to the rest of the
world, and to the Middle East in particular.
But, I shall seek to show, Bush's claims about religion and terrorism
in fact create a major internal problem for his own religious rhetoric.
Focussing on Bush's religious rhetoric and its importance for the strategy
followed in the so-called war on terror, I shall first argue that although Iraq
was an intended target well before 9/11, it was religious rhetoric that was
used as the means of focussing on it in the context of 9/11. I shall map three
important issues about Bush's religious rhetoric: what religious tradition does
his rhetoric stem from and how and why did it change during his presidency;
how was that rhetoric used and to what effect; and how do his claims about
terrorism and religion create an internal problem for it? Second, I shall
discuss how the vagueness of his language, in particular regarding
‘democracy’, enabled him to forge a fictional link between Saddam Hussein
and Osama bin Laden in order to target Iraq. Finally I turn to the Copenhagen
School's conception of the facilitating conditions of securitising issues: the
use of security grammar; the role of social capital -- the securitising actor
must hold a position of authority that allows her or him to securitise the
relevant matter; and external or historical conditions -- tanks on the border,
verbal threats from the enemy, or a history of attacks from that enemy.
1.
2.
Bush’s Language of War
After 9/11, the Bush administration declared war on terrorism,
referring to the struggle between the good represented by Western values and
evil as represented by terrorism and immediately extended to the so-called
rogue states of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. However, there had been plans to
invade Iraq long before 9/11, as evidenced by ‘The Project for the New
American Century’.1 9/11 offered the perfect platform from which
realistically to put this war plan in motion. Bush had already started thinking
about Iraq as part of the War on Terror, as early as the Camp David war
cabinet meeting on September 15, 20012 -- the only dissent came from Colin
Powell. Donald Rumsfeld made it very clear that “ . . . any argument that the
coalition wouldn’t tolerate Iraq argues for a different coalition”,3
demonstrating that the U.S. was willing to act unilaterally if need be. Dick
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Cheney concurred: as Bob Woodward puts it, “it was as if nothing else
existed”4 for him. At the same meeting Rumsfeld advised the group that they
would need to control information by, for example, exercising tighter control
over public affairs, and further advised the Administration to treat Iraq as a
political campaign with daily talking points, reminding them that “sustaining
requires a broad base of domestic support. Broad, not narrow. This is a
marathon, not a sprint. It will be years and not months.”5 Public support was
vital. A few days later, at another war cabinet meeting, when Bush outlined
his plan to give the Taliban leaders an ultimatum, he ended the debate by
saying, “I believe Iraq was involved, but I’m not going to strike them now. I
don’t have the evidence at this point.”6 Clearly Iraq was already a target.
From this point on Bush and his war cabinet would slowly but surely build
their case on a fictional link between Hussein and bin Laden in order to
persuade the public that war in Iraq was necessary.
The first public step was the famous state-of-the-union-address in
2002, in which Iraq was named part of an axis of evil. There was, however,
no such axis: the three states did not share similar political goals, nor did they
share the same ideology. The “axis of evil” was born out of the need to create
an argument for going after Iraq. David Frum, the speechwriter charged with
the task, was inspired by World War II rhetoric, but since Iraq alone could of
course be no axis, he simply added Iran and North Korea to the lot on
account of their common contempt for the West. Originally, Frum had
termed it an “axis of hatred”, but his boss, Michael Gerson, changed it to
“axis of evil.”7 This was neither an accident nor surprising: Gerson was not
only Bush’s chief speechwriter, but a fellow Evangelist. Their shared
religious convictions are evident in Bush’s speeches, in which he often draws
on gospel hymns that resonate deeply among the faithful in his electoral base.
The speeches immediately following 9/11 spoke of good versus evil and the
righteousness of God in a more abstract way: after Iraq had become the overt
target, they focused increasingly on the predestination of America as an agent
of God in the war against evil represented by Hussein's regime and terrorist
networks.
Since Bush appeared on the political scene, he has been quite open
about his religiosity. Early on, Bush was inspired by a largely Wesleyan
theology8 of “personal transformation”, such as his born-again post-alcoholic
experience. One of the most important components of that theology is
experiential faith; today's Wesleyan churches insist on the centrality of the
conversion experience. The core of Wesleyan theology thus lies in the
individual's private faith and relationship with God. Bush, a convert at 39,
saw his later elevation to the presidency as an extension of the personal to the
political: after all, if "we serve one greater than ourselves," 9 then we do so as
office-holders no less than as private citizens; and of course his decision to
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run for President, as he later told Richard Land,10 was itself an act of
obedience to God’s will.11
Since his election, Bush's theology has shifted towards a Calvinist
theology12 of the “divine plan” laid out by a sovereign God for both country
and himself. According to Deborah Caldwell, he is (at the time of writing)
not only talking more about God, but talking differently about ethics.13 The
main differences between Wesleyan and Calvinist theology are in the way
they view human nature. For Wesleyans, although humans are sinful, they
can choose to avail themselves of God's grace in order to redeem themselves.
Events are not predestined: all human beings have the possibility of salvation.
According to Calvinism, however, human nature is sinful and irredeemably
incapable of righteousness. God's grace therefore only falls upon those few
chosen by God: events are predestined and there is nothing human beings
themselves can do to redeem themselves in the eyes of God to ensure
salvation.
The shift in a Calvinist direction appears to have taken place quite
suddenly, after 9/11, and since then Bush has made several statements to the
effect that God is directly involved in world events and that he, and by
implication the American people, are God’s tools in his refashioning of the
world. The shift from the nation’s being the agent of history, Bush’s claim in
the carefully scripted religious service in which he declared the “War on
Terror” from the pulpit of the National Cathedral -- “[o]ur responsibility to
history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil”14 –
to its being the agent of God, while very different in content, is remarkably
similar in form. Indeed, Calvinist predestinarianism makes it very difficult to
maintain even a substantive difference: for history is whatever God chooses
to make it, and “history’s call” is simply that of God differently expressed.
There is evidence of increasing Calvinism in Bush's rhetoric as we move
closer to the invasion of Iraq, as in this statement just a few months earlier:
“And we will continue to fight terror. It’s our obligation, our duty. History
has called us into action.”15 In his 2003 National Prayer Breakfast speech, the
term “history” takes on an explicitly religious meaning: “events aren’t moved
by blind change and chance. Behind all of life and all of history, there’s a
dedication and purpose, set by the hand of a just and faithful God.”16 God has
predestined America to undertake the mission of ridding the world of evil;
and from that it is only a short road to Baghdad.
With this subtly changing theology came an increasing predilection
in Bush’s rhetoric for pre-emption and unilateralism in American foreign
policy, and thus an encouragement of a national mission against terrorism
with or without the help of the international community.17 Consider this
example. In Bush’s speech to Congress on September 20, 2001 just after
9/11, he claimed that “[f]reedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always
been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.”18 Here God
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will exercise his agency and intervene in the world to mediate between good
and evil. By the time of Bush’s second inauguration speech, however, in
which he states that “[h]istory has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also
has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty,”19 the claim
is that there is no question of mediation since God has set the course of
events from the very outset. It is no longer a matter of God’s intervening in
the world (on America’s side), but one of America having been predestined
by God to fulfil his will on earth. By now, Americans are a “special people
watched over by a benevolent God.”20 And so as long as Americans believe
they are God's chosen, they need not worry about the outcome in this
conflict, because its course is directed by the hand of God.
Not only that. Since Americans are God’s chosen people, it follows
that their values are also God’s own. And so to say that God is on America’s
side is no longer to invoke the hope of a divine being who will come to
America’s aid, but rather a statement of the logically inescapable. From this,
it follows that there can be no doubt about the righteousness of exporting
those values:
We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion:
The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the
success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our
world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.21
Yet this statement, highlighting as it does the core of the Bush
Administration’s foreign policy -- the export of Western values of freedom
and liberty – raises an interesting theological problem at the root of Bush’s
rhetoric. Calvinist predestinarianism allows no logical space for “hope”, or
for the contingencies implied by the alleged increasing dependency of “our”
liberty on “theirs”. For Calvinists, “Whatever will be, will be”: and that’s
that. But here is not the place for a theological deconstruction of Bush’s
speech acts. Let me return, then, to my central argument.
The use of Christian biblical rhetoric has been a facilitating
condition in Bush’s speech acts, inasmuch as it has moved the security threat
from the military into the social sector by playing on the ideological aspects
of the conflict instead of its pragmatic military aspects. We are being told to
fear not only a terrorist attack on physical targets, but also an attack on our
value system -- freedom and liberty. Furthermore, the answer to terrorism is
to expand this same freedom and liberty as embedded in our democratic
ideals. Central here is the biblical imagery of good versus evil and the
specific use of the term “evil” with regard to terrorism. In his short press
briefing at the White House just a few days after 9/11, Bush referred to ‘evil’
or ‘evildoers’ nine times.22 Originally a biblical term relating to the neverending struggle of good versus evil and light versus darkness, “evil” is a clear
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facilitating condition in the staging of an existential threat to freedom and
freedom-loving nations from Hussein and al Qaeda.
Religious scholars such as Gaddy and Pagels have expressed
concern that Bush is using religious rhetoric to manipulate unfavourable
public reaction to his policies, by making them an issue of (theologically
based) morality and thus ensuring that the only way for Americans to be
“morally right” is to agree with Bush. By naming Iraq, Iran, and North Korea
as an axis of evil, he is by implication naming himself as head of an axis of
good: again, anyone who disagrees with his policies is in the moral wrong.23
Furthermore, this sort of religious rhetoric in times of conflict also helps to
motivate people to violent action, something far easier to do if they feel they
occupy the moral high ground. The other side of this state of affairs is of
course obvious: Gaddy and Pagels are not alone in voicing concern that the
portrayal of the United States as a Christian nation doing God’s will is bound
to make it a target for Islamic terrorist groups. To be described as “evil” is, to
say the least, provocative, and especially so when directed at those espousing
a set of religious beliefs in which such a description resonates. That is why,
they argue, this kind of religious rhetoric is dangerous and has no place in
American politics: “it discourages political discourse, disenfranchises
members of other faiths and puts the country at greater risk of attack by nonChristian militants.”24 It is dangerous because it plays right into the rhetoric
that the Islamists themselves are using, and so demands that people choose
between the Christian and the Muslim side. This in turn will of course
alienate the Muslim populations of the West who feel their religion is being
attacked.
Thus Bush's language of religion and terror creates a major internal
problem for his own rhetoric; because he is using the same language as the
enemy, in this case the terrorists. Bush and bin Laden both use the same ways
of analyzing their opponent. They both invoke God and “good versus evil,”
from each of their perspective. The result is that sometimes Bush comes close
to crossing the line between President and Preacher. 25 This is seen in his
frequent use of old gospel hymns to explain current events. Bush uses of
Scripture passages as metaphors to explain current events and this kind of
rhetoric makes it sounds as if Americans can carry out the will of God.26 This
is the same kind of rhetoric that Islamic radicals use in order to “ . . . sanctify
the cause and demonize the enemy.”27
This brings us to the core dilemma of Bush's rhetoric, that he
attempts to exploit the emotionally charged religious rhetoric in his language
of war to gain support for the war, while at the same time stating that it is not
a religious war. Bush does not speak of religion as being the cause of the
terrorism directed at the U.S.; instead he argues that the bin Laden terrorists
“fear” Western freedom and democracy, as if their hatred were motivated by
rejection of positive Western values.28 In other words, Bush uses religion
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positively by emphasizing that God is with people of faith, while at the same
time trying not to alienate Muslims by referring to Islam negatively. It is
interesting to note here that he most often refers to terrorists as ‘evildoers’
and speaks of their ideology without mentioning Islam, referring to it rather
as an ‘ideology of hatred’; and that he makes an effort to separate Islamic
Radicalism from mainstream Islam, differentiating the ideology behind
Islamic Radicalism from the religion of Islam in his speeches. While this
demonstrates the careful deliberation behind every word in order to not turn
this conflict into an open war between Christianity and Islam, it demonstrates
at the same time the internal contradiction in his rhetoric. For such careful
deliberation notwithstanding, he continues to use Christian biblical references
to justify military action; and the clearly implied contrast there is not with
“Islamic Radicalism,” but with Islam itself. And then we are back with the
so-called war on terror as a religious war.
4.
Linking Iraq with the War on Terror.
In extending the “war on terror” to include Iraq, Bush used
securitising speech acts to link Hussein with bin-Laden and thereby the war
in Iraq with the war, as illustrated in the following interview. When asked by
a reporter, “Mr. President, do you believe that Saddam Hussein is a bigger
threat to the United States than al Qaeda?” Bush answered:
The war on terror, you can't distinguish between al Qaeda
and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. And so
it's a comparison that is -- I can't make because I can't
distinguish between the two, because they're both equally as
bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive.29
This demonstrates the external facilitating condition of Bush’s
securitising speech act: according to Bush, if action were not taken
immediately, an attack by Hussein and al Qaeda was imminent. The history,
briefly described above, of 9/11 supports such a hypothesis and makes it
credible in the minds of much of the American population. His basic message
is that al Qaeda and Hussein are one and the same – despite the fact that he
has no proof that they share the same ideology and that there is plenty of
evidence to the contrary. Thus, while it is frightening, it is by no means
surprising that a large percentage of the public let themselves be convinced
that such a link existed, with sixty percent saying they believed Iraq had
provided direct support to al Qaeda,30 despite extensive evidence that Hussein
was not cooperating with bin Laden’s terrorist network. During the autumn of
2002, Bush continually warned the American people that “Iraq has
longstanding ties to terrorist groups, which are capable of and willing to
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deliver weapons of mass death.”31 On one occasion Bush made this
statement:
Countering Iraq's threat is also a central commitment on the
war on terror. We know Saddam Hussein has longstanding
and ongoing ties to international terrorists. . . . We must
confront both terror cells and terror states, because they are
different faces of the same evil”32
The message could not be clearer. Bush forges a connection between the two
in order to gain legitimacy for the attack on Iraq by characterizing Hussein
and bin Laden's terrorist network as two faces of the same evil. Nor is this
offered as a best guess or a plausible hypothesis; the connection is presented
as fact, a device greatly assisted by the non-specificity of the “terror cells” of
al Qaeda and the “terror states” indicating Iraq. One of the most effective
persuasive strategies in politics is to repeat short, catchy statements that are
easy to understand but the meaning of which remains at least greatly underspecified. And so the sentence ends by bringing under one “simple” head –
“the same evil” – two importantly different phenomena. The term “evil”, of
course, lends itself all too readily for such manipulation, with its pulling
together of theological and moral understandings as well as its allencompassing designation of what it is said to describe as beyond ordinary
understanding and explanation. Of all the ready-made facilitating conditions
of securitisation in this context, this is surely the most powerful. “Evil” is the
social threat par excellence.
Taking on the project of ridding the world of evil is a vague foreign
policy goal at best, and it presents an array of difficulties in assessing what
constitutes the enemy and determining when the battle is won. On the other
hand, declaring war against evil confers moral legitimacy on the nation's
foreign policy and even on a contested presidency.33 The Bush presidency
had a controversial beginning, partly due to the contested election result
caused by problems in the ballot counts, and partly because Bush did not win
the popular vote:34 the “war on terror” gave the Bush administration an ideal
opportunity not just to initiate the long-planned attack on Iraq, but at the
same time to wash away such discussions as simply inappropriate, . Just
forty-three days after 9/11, the Patriot Act was passed -- with minimal
debate.35 This was not the time to question the legitimacy of the presidency,
but rather a time for Americans to rally behind their President and, of course,
their own values. As history has shown, wars always achieve that.
5.
The Felicity Conditions
Placing the elements of Bush’s rhetoric thus far discussed into the
framework of the Copenhagen School has shown how securitising grammar –
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the first facilitating condition – plays its part, through religious rhetoric, in
the general securitising process necessary for Bush’s prosecution of the “war
on terror”; and how he has been able to use his authority as Commander in
Chief to extend that securitising process by fulfilling the second facilitating
condition, that of invoking social capital. (Admittedly the latter could only
every be partially fulfilled through rhetoric: it is the central fact of realpolitik
-- the United States is clearly the world’s major political power -- that
allowed Bush convincingly to speak of unilateral action against Iraq as a
means of enlisting a “coalition of the willing” for the act itself.)
The third facilitating condition – external/historical factors -- has
several facets. In relation to al Qaeda and bin Laden, the external condition
was fulfilled by the 9/11 attacks. Operation Enduring Freedom was launched
in Afghanistan as retaliation against the terrorists behind 9/11 and the regime
harbouring them, an attack fully supported by the United States’ allies as well
as the United Nations on account of 9/11’s being regarded by all concerned
as an act of war against the United States. Operation Iraqi Freedom, however,
was another matter. Unlike the attack on Afghanistan, it required an
enormous rhetorical effort to draw Iraq into its allotted role as an essential
part of the “war on terror”, a role carefully scripted as part of a larger plan
originating long before 9/11, namely “The Project for a New American
Century”.
6.
Conclusion
When looking at how all three felicity conditions were fulfilled it
becomes even clearer how carefully directed Bush's language of war was
from the beginning, and how events played into the policymakers’ hands, as
well as how powerful a role this language has in the Iraqi case. An attack on
US soil by Al Qaeda, an organisation quite unrelated to Saddam Hussein’s
regime in Iraq, in crucial ways – political and religious – utterly antithetical
to it, and sharing only one thing in common, namely an antipathy towards the
west in general and the United States in particular, was able to be rhetorically
manipulated to “justify” , at least to the majority of the American population,
and certainly to just about its entire political elite, an attack on a target
identified years earlier: Iraq. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the rhetoric used to
accomplish that does not survive analysis; indeed, such an analysis lays bare
precisely the differences between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, as well as
the intellectual contradictions underlying that religious rhetoric itself.
Nonetheless, it has achieved its purpose: to gain, and to a considerable extent
to maintain, support for the attack on Iraq (if not necessarily for the resulting
wars in Iraq – but that remains to be seen). But not only that, it has also
enabled the US administration to implement the patriot Act, with all, its
denials and withdrawals of freedom in the name of Freedom. Perhaps nothing
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less than a religious framework would have sufficed to achieve that, whether
theologically presented and understood as calling on Americans to heed the
voice, whether of History or of God, entreating them to defend and to spread
freedom, or simply to realise themselves as the vehicle of God’s
unchangeable will.
This paper has demonstrated in particular how the shift towards
Calvinist theology added a strongly predestinarian element to Bush’s
securitising grammar; and the cost of that shift, What the implications turn
out to be of Bush’s securitising speech acts, not just as Commander in Chief,
but as spiritual leader, and of the irony of that parallel with Osama bin Laden,
remains to be seen.
1
For more information see: http://www.newamericancentury.org/
B. Woodward, Bush at War, Simon & Schuster, New York, p. 2002, 81.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid, 346.
5
Ibid, 88.
6
Ibid, 99.
7
M. Reynolds, ‘Axis of evil' rhetoric said to heigten dangers’, January 21,
2003, viewed September 15, 2007, Los Angeles Times,
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0121-03.htm.
8
The Methodist doctrines, polity and theology developed from a Protestant
Christian movement founded in England by John Wesley in the 18th century.
9
Deborah Caldwell, ‘An Evolving Faith: Does the president believe he has a
divine mandate’, Beliefnet, February 7, 2003, viewed May 25, 2005,
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/121/story_12112_1.html.
10
Friend of Bush and President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty
Commission, the public policy entity of the Southern Baptist Convention.
11
Caldwell.
12
Calvinism has a rigid doctrine of predestination and a theocratic view of
the state. It also stresses that only those who God chooses can be saved,
humans can do nothing for their own salvation. It introduces the idea of the
chosen ones.
13
Caldwell.
14
J. Wallis, ‘Dangerous Religion’, Sojourner’s Magazine 32, Iss.5, 2003, p.
20, Proquest, via http://proquest.umi.com.
2
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15
G. W. Bush, ‘Remarks by the President at the National Prayer Breakfast,’ 6
February 2003, viewed September 4, 2007 White House News Releases
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030206-1.html>
16
Ibid.
17
D. Bostdorff, ‘George W. Bush's Post-September 11 Rhetoric of Covenant
Renewal: Upholding the Faith of the Greatest Generation’, Quarterly Journal
of Speech, 89, 2003, pp. 293-319. Taylor and Francis, via
taylorandfrancis.metapress.com
18
Caldwell
19
G. W. Bush, ‘Inaugural Address’, January 20, 2005, viewed May 10, 2007,
The American Presidency Project,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=58745&st=&st1=.
20
Bostdorff, 302
21
G.W. Bush, 'Second Inaugural Speech,' January 20, 2005, viewed
September 23, 2007,
http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/bush.transcript/index.html.
22
G. W. Bush, ‘Remarks upon arrival at the White House,’ September 16,
2001, viewed May 31, 2005, White House News Releases,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010916-2.html#.
23
E Pagels and Rev. Dr. C. W. Gaddy, ‘President or Preacher: Audio News
Conference on the President’s Irresponsible Use of Religious Language’,
February 11, 2003, viewed May 25, 2005.
http://religionandpluralism.org/GranteeArticles/Pagel_and_Gaddy_ANC_Pre
sidentsUseOfReligiousLanguage.pdf. p. 13 – 14.
24
B. C. Neff, “Bush and God-talk”, National Catholic Reporter 39, Iss. 16,
2003, p.4.
25
D. Kellner, From 9/11 To Terror War: The Dangers of the Bush Legacy,
Rowan and Littlefield Publishers, New York, 2003, p.61.
26
Chris Hedges, ‘War, Love, and the Divine,’ Beliefnet, viewed February 4,
2005, http://www.beliefnet.com/story/114/story_11400_1.html.
27
Ibid.
28
Kellner, 63.
29
G. W. Bush, ‘President Bush, Colombia President Uribe Discuss
Terrorism,’ September 25, 2002, viewed June 7, 2005, White House News
Releases, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/200209251.html.
30
D. Balz & R. Morin, ‘2 Years After Invasion, Poll Data Mixed: Bush's
Approval Ratings’, Washington Post On-line Edition, 16 March 2005,
Viewed 20 May 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/politics/daily/graphics/bushApproval_031305.html.
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31
G. W. Bush, ‘Radio Address: Iraqi Regime Danger to America is ‘Grave
and Growing”’, October 5, 2002, viewed June 7, 2005, White House News
Releases, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021005.html.
32
George W. Bush, ‘President, House Leadership Agree on Iraq Resolution,’
October 2, 2002, viewed June 7, 2005, White House News Releases,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-7.html.
33
Wallis.
34
Bush had 47.8% of the popular vote against 48.9% of the Democratic
nominee Al Gore. For more information see The American Presidency
Project <http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showelection.php?year=2000>.
35
For more information see The Patriot Act:
http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html
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