Critical Discourse Analysis of the Speeches of the Presidents' Declaration of War

Abstract

Retracted Paper
The current paper examines the speeches of President Trump, Putin, and Obama, in which they declared war and referred to it as a "special military operation," through the lens of Van Leeuwen's (2007) critical discourse analysis. The study compares declarations of war with those made by the Russians on Ukraine and American presidents on Arab countries and Ukraine at the beginning of the U.S. military conflicts. The study analyzed all three speeches in light of the hypothesis (Just War Theory).  They aim to justify their decisions to the public and persuade them of the necessity of these actions. To explore this, the study enhances our qualitative and quantitative analysis of each speech with data from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and El Diario. The findings revealed slight differences and big similarities among the three speeches, which emerged in the rationale for the attacks and in the perceived threats to their adversaries