Terminal Indifference: The Hollywood War Film Post-September 11

Abstract

even be said to have before us the absolute event, the ‘mother ’ of all events, the pure event uniting within itself all the events that have never taken place ’ (Baudrillard 2003a, 3-4). Terrorist attacks on New York’s Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 prompted a renewed and vigorous call from America and the West to defeat the threat of terrorism. Writing in the aftermath of this incident, Jean Baudrillard observed that ‘moral condemnation and the holy alliance against terrorism ’ constituted the dominant reaction to these events by the West (Baudrillard 2003a, 4). Such rhetoric continues to form the basis of America’s miliary involvement in the Middle East. In early 2003 Iraq became the frontline in the war on terror, with president George W. Bush implementing Operation Iraqi Freedom as part of America’s response to ‘defeating terrorist organizations’, as advocated in its National Strategy for Combating Terrorism (2003, 15). The mission ‘to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people ’ was offered as justification for US military action (Bush 2003). Contestation of the motives behind the Iraq War that discount Bush’s rationale and explore alternative agendas (such as securing oil supplies and US global power), reveal the ‘threat of terrorism ’ to be a powerful discursive and ideological framework within American political discourse and public

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