A Discursive Analysis of President George W. Bush's Afghanistan Policy: Discovering the New Imperialism

This paper builds on a growing body of literature that utilizes decolonization as a paradigmatic lens to examine the actions of Western states. Focusing on Afghanistan, I seek to unmask and interrogate the way President George W. Bush used the historical moment of September 11th to bring American foreign policy across the precipice of an Empire. Therefore, this study seeks to examine not only what America was doing in Afghanistan, but why we were there, how we perceived ourselves and Afghans. This study argues that one can detect the continuity of a colonial worldview within the War on Terror. As such, the American invasion into Afghanistan was primarily used to establish American cultural primacy and a global hegemony. To substantiate this claim, this paper focuses on decolonization literature to identify patterns within the extensive Presidential speech records in order to unmask the implicit assumptions, ideas, and values that underpin the American War on Terror in Afghanistan