"Axis of Evil" Speech

Paper Summary:

In his televised 2002 State of the Union speech, President George W. Bush characterized Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as the "axis of evil." An invocation of this type has been labeled as demonizing. This paper defines demonizing in terms of Raymond Kelly's hypothesis about the origin of war in his work, "Warless Societies and the Origin of War," as a social practice in relation to the development of a social doctrine of social substitution. It describes how it has been used in contemporary times and suggests likely reactions and consequences to President Bush's coining of the term, "axis of evil".

From the Paper:

"Demonization is the process whereby individuals, groups, organizations, or national leaders portray others in ontological in a suspicious, nefarious, corrupt, frightening, or immoral light. Demonization is ontological, that it, it is human nature to do so under times of duress and fear.3 Actions and ideas also subject to demonizaion. Spoken and written words, pictures, caricatures, theatrical or film portrayals, cartoons, and protest actions constitute the demonization substance. Those demonized represent a wide spectrum, ranging from politicians like Cambodia's Pol Pot pictured as a monster who oversaw the killing of millions of his fellow Cambodians, Saddam Hussein pictured as a despot who employed nerve gas against his own people and publicly called a "world menace" by British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, or Germany's Adolph Hitler who unleashed what was the most heinous barbarism known in history, as well as promoters of ideas like Malcolm X, who at one time advocated formal Black and White racial separation etc."

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