[e_c] Because of the new type of warfare against an amorphous and irrational threat instead of state enemy.
[r_e] Thus the US assumed the rules of state-to-state conflict do not apply.
Being labeled a terrorist is devastating and dehumanizing.
[ s ] Because the enemies of the GWOT are characterized as an irrational existential threat.
It immediately brands a population as a biological threat to the entirety of the global system, deserving complete obliteration to ensure the health of society.
This is described in Foucault’s concept of
biopolitics.
By framing them as a threat as opposed to a foe, it strips them of any political aims or history of oppression. Rather, like a cancer, they are imagined as merely irrational purveyors of death and destruction.
This was most apparent in the extra-judicial internment of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Quarantined indefinitely without the status of either ‘prisoner of war’ or ‘criminal,’ outside the protection of the law.
[ s ] Because the enemies of the GWOT are culturally profiled.
[e_m] The threat they pose is seen as coming from an “extremist” strain of Islam.