The aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks fundamentally altered the lexicon of American foreign policy and domestic security, ushering in a new era of euphemistic language that sanitized controversial actions and reshaped public perception of conflict. Terms like "enhanced interrogation" replaced torture, "extraordinary rendition" became the mechanism for extralegal detainee transfers, and "enemy combatant" provided a legal classification for individuals held at Guantanamo Bay, stripping them of conventional legal protections. This linguistic shift, experts argue, was not merely semantic but a deliberate strategy to legitimize and obscure the darker aspects of the ensuing "war on terror."
In the years following the devastating attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a specialized vocabulary emerged, blending bureaucratic jargon with the illusion of precision. This new lexicon infiltrated mainstream political discourse, providing cover for actions that might otherwise have faced significant public and legal scrutiny. At the heart of this linguistic transformation was the broad and amorphous phrase "war on terror," a declaration that encompassed a sprawling, ill-defined global campaign.
This pervasive phrase came to define an era marked by significant geopolitical shifts, including the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the establishment of the notorious Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and a dramatic expansion of domestic surveillance and national security powers. Experts contend that this new vocabulary was instrumental in sanitizing violence, dehumanizing targets, and creating a moral distance between the public and the often brutal realities of the "war on terror." Though the phrase itself is now less frequently invoked by the White House, its underlying logic and the concepts it embedded remain deeply influential in American politics.
"The legacy of the war on terror is visible everywhere in U.S. politics today," stated Leonie Jackson, a senior international relations lecturer at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom. "In fact, I would argue that we are still very much operating within the framework established by this ‘war’."
A ‘War’ Without Defined Front Lines
Just nine days after the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush addressed a joint session of Congress, declaring, "Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there… It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated." This pronouncement signaled the commencement of a conflict unlike any before. Congress swiftly passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) on September 18, granting the president broad authority to act against those involved in the attacks or harboring those responsible.
However, the nature of terrorism itself posed a significant challenge to conventional definitions of warfare. "Terrorism is not a state, a territory or even a specific organization. It is a tactic," explained Christopher Baker-Beall of Bournemouth University. "Declaring a ‘war on terror,’ therefore, created a conflict without an obvious geographical boundary or clearly defined enemy and therefore, importantly, no natural endpoint." This lack of clear parameters allowed the conflict to metastasize and persist indefinitely.
President Bush further polarized the international landscape with his stark ultimatum: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." This binary framing, coupled with frequent references to "evil," served a dual purpose. Harmonie Toros, a professor of politics and international relations at the University of Reading, observed that this language "is used to sanitize actions taken by the U.S.—actions that could be seen as not okay for a normal, functioning democracy to undertake." Simultaneously, it constituted a "strong discursive effort to demonize" the enemy. The potent combination of fear, anger, and the desire for retribution fueled the creation and continuation of the "war on terror."
This narrative effectively divided the world into not only allies and adversaries but also into starkly defined camps of "good" and "evil." Jason Thomas, in his paper "9/11, the Crisis of Meaning, and Disinformation in the 21st Century," argued that this division stemmed from colonial-era notions of civilization versus barbarism. The U.S. constructed a narrative that "asserted the… ‘civilized/barbarian’ as a fundamental axis in world politics," thereby justifying its actions on a global stage.
The Euphemistic Veil: From Torture to ‘Enhanced Interrogation’
The military response to the 9/11 attacks began swiftly, with the U.S. invading Afghanistan less than a month later. This was followed in March 2003 by a U.S.-led coalition’s invasion of Iraq, predicated on the Bush administration’s repeated assertions of Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction—claims that ultimately proved unfounded. The "war on terror" rapidly evolved into an expansive global network of military and covert operations.
The U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, became a focal point of these operations, eventually holding nearly 780 detainees. A significant majority were later released without ever being charged with a crime, some having endured decades of detention. Clive Stafford Smith, a British-American human rights lawyer, was among the first to gain access to Guantanamo shortly after its opening. He recounted witnessing boys as young as 14 being held, describing the detention camp as "born a sorry lie and it remains one."
Beyond Guantanamo, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operated clandestine detention facilities, known as "black sites," in various overseas locations. The abuse and torture of prisoners by U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq became one of the most infamous scandals of the war. The dissemination of such practices was facilitated by a deliberately clinical and bureaucratic language.
Sanitizing Violence Through Language
Torture and abusive interrogation methods, including waterboarding, prolonged sleep deprivation, and stress positions, were rebranded as "enhanced interrogation techniques." The covert transfer of detainees outside of established legal processes was termed "extraordinary rendition." Christopher Baker-Beall highlighted the striking bureaucratic and technical nature of these terms, noting that their effect was to create "moral and political distance." This distance, he explained, "can sanitize acts of extraordinary violence and turn them into something that sounds like an ordinary instrument of government policy."
Legal memoranda, widely known as the "Torture Memos," from the Bush administration’s legal team constructed an exceptionally narrow definition of torture, ostensibly to provide legal justification for the CIA’s increasingly brutal interrogation methods. Leonie Jackson observed that this euphemistic language helped cloak such practices in "a veneer of legality," enabling leaders to circumvent international legal protections while projecting an image of the U.S. as a force for good.
Tahir Abbas, a professor of criminology and global justice at Aston University, argued that this linguistic strategy also desensitized the general public. It fostered a growing numbness to the "deeply dehumanizing and depersonalized ways in which death and destruction were discussed," often in relation to innocent victims.
The Rise of Suspicion and the Surveillance State
Just 45 days after the September 11 attacks, President Bush signed the Patriot Act into law, dramatically expanding the U.S. government’s surveillance capabilities and facilitating information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement agencies. This post-9/11 security framework also fundamentally altered perceptions of immigration, border control, and domestic policing. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 consolidated numerous agencies under a single national security umbrella.
Security policy began to focus less on what individuals had done and more on what they might do. "The key political shift went from responding to actual threats towards governing possible future threats," explained Baker-Beall. "Once that happens, the potential scope of security policy becomes much wider." This paradigm shift created fertile ground for expanded intelligence gathering, detention, border enforcement, and executive power. Governments across Europe also enacted sweeping counterterrorism legislation and enhanced surveillance, disproportionately impacting Muslim communities.
Abbas described this as a "boomerang effect," where citizenship stripping, securitization, and surveillance became normalized aspects of life for Muslims. The language of the "war on terror," he contended, contributed to a broader politics of "othering," casting entire communities as potential threats. This made mere suspicion a sufficient justification for surveillance, detention, and other forms of state control, even in the absence of any wrongdoing.
The Enduring Legacy of the ‘War on Terror’
By the time Barack Obama assumed the presidency in 2009, the specific terminology of the "war on terror" began to shift. On May 23, 2013, Obama announced the "end" of the "war on terrorism." However, the institutions and structures established in the wake of September 11 did not dismantle. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), created as part of the Department of Homeland Security, has become a visible symbol of this enduring legacy, with its agents frequently depicted patrolling streets and making arrests.
Guantanamo Bay, a potent symbol of the post-9/11 suspension of ordinary legal norms, has continued to be utilized, even by the Trump administration for the detention of migrants. The "war on terror" thus left a legacy of constructing threatening communities, a "practice of villainizing a specific group of people," according to Toros. This could manifest as targeting gangs, specific immigrant groups, or even based on gender or gender identity. The discourse surrounding the "war on terror" provided individuals with enhanced skills for vilifying communities.
This legacy extends into U.S. foreign policy. In 2025, former President Trump ordered the executive branch to use "Department of War" as a secondary title for the Department of Defense, arguing it better reflected America’s readiness to "fight and win wars." These ideas have been evident in subsequent actions. The U.S. has re-engaged in military operations in the Middle East, with justifications for actions against Iran, such as preventing nuclear weapon development, drawing parallels to the pre-invasion rhetoric surrounding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
The Trump administration also drew upon elements of the post-9/11 lexicon while developing its own. Military actions were again framed as "pre-emptive" and "precision" strikes, and Iran was repeatedly labeled a "terror regime" and the "world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism."
"It is not simply a continuation of the ‘war on terror,’ and the circumstances are very different," acknowledged Jackson. "But the same pre-emptive security logic is familiar." She emphasized the persistent power of the political argument: "We cannot afford to wait for the threat to materialize, so action has to be taken now." The enduring impact of this era, Jackson concluded, is that "the legacy of the war on terror is everywhere in U.S. politics today." While the overt language may have faded, the effects of the "war on terror" remain deeply ingrained in American society, shaping its security apparatus, its foreign policy, and its domestic discourse.
