RT Journal Article SR Electronic(1) A1 Bhatia, Aditi YR 2008 T1 Discursive illusions in the American National Strategy for Combating Terrorism JF Journal of Language and Politics VO 7 IS 2 SP 201 OP 227 DO https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.7.2.02bha PB John Benjamins SN 1569-2159, AB Social realities are often negotiated and determined by elite groups of society, including political and religious leaders, the mass media, and even professional experts, who give meaning to complex, multifaceted constructs such as terrorism consistent with their individual socio-political agendas. The Bush Administrations National Strategy for Combating Terrorism (NSCT) (2003) defines what we the public and media understand by the term terrorism; who are terrorists; what constitutes terrorism; how we can fight terrorism, etc. In order to convince audiences that the version of reality that the NSCT is representing is the objective truth, particular themes such as the construction of religion, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), orientalism, and attack vs. self-defence, typically realised through the use of rhetorical resources such as category work, appeals to historicity, negative other-presentation, and the use of metaphor, are utilised. Metaphors are used to construct new and alternate realities. They allow a subjective conceptualisation of reality to appear more convincing through the invocation of emotions and ideologies. Drawing on a detailed analysis of NSCT, the paper investigates how metaphors are combined with other features of language and rhetoric to achieve the themes mentioned above enabling the discourse of illusion to take effect., UL https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/jlp.7.2.02bha