About Article

This article first analyzes some of the main features of the political discourse on ter rorism interlinked with the counterterrorism discourse as first instantiated under the Bush administration. It then focuses on the appropriation of the US-led discourse by the Moroccan government as well as on some of its major effects, going beyond the for mulation and acceptance of the counterterrorism strategy known as the War on Terror. Its main aim is to contribute to further opening a critical space of reflection in seeing terrorism primarily as a discourse and to underline some of the effects deriving from the appropriation of the discourse. The focus will be especially on the furthering of domestic agendas as well as the targeting of certain individuals and groups in the name of secu rity. To do so, this article seeks to go beyond an analysis of the effects of the discourse limited to the military and legal aspects to focus on wider societal effects. It thus locates itself in the wider debate on the tradeoff between security and liberty, and in particular on the issues democracies face when dealing with matters of security.