The re-making of the 'noble' soldier: a case study of coalition governments' response to the Abu Ghraib scandal

Media reports about widespread abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib prompted widespread criticism of the Coalition of the Willing’s use of military engagement to fight terrorism. This paper will utilise a qualitative discursive analysis to investigate the discursive strategies used by the US and Australian government to respond to the Abu Ghraib scandal in the media. I will argue that one of the more successful discursive strategies used by ‘Coalition’ governments was to separate the acts of brutality from the overall representation of the ‘moral’ need for military engagement in Iraq. However, the paper will illustrate that this discursive separation meant that Coalition governments re-presented once 'heroic' American soldiers similarly to the terrorist 'others' so derided in the media.