The Universality of Civil War Definitions: A Study of How Regional Considerations Impact Civil War in Somalia, Colombia, and Angola

Civil war is a socially intimate phenomenon. The viability of the conflict hinges on recruitment for the cause, military strategy, community support, and a variety of other conditional factors. Despite this dependence on local society, many researchers approach civil war from a global perspective, attempting to discover universal truths about this kind of conflict. This capstone project focuses on restricting the operating parameters of civil war research projects to the span of a single continent, hoping to achieve deeper insight by focusing the research using a more culturally sensitive set of parameters. By using cultural data to guide civil war research, conflict indicators can tailor conflict prevention to escalating violent scenarios.

Transcending Cultural and Language Differences: Ethical Codes of Conduct for Translators and Interpreters in Afghanistan

This project examines what an ethical code of conduct would look like in Afghanistan through analysis of historical, cultural and linguistic aspects found within its regions, as well as an examination of ethical codes of conduct for translators and interpreters in other countries. While numerous ethical guidelines and codes of conduct for translators and interpreters exist throughout global communities, it seems that creating a successful standardized ethical code of conduct in Afghanistan may be difficult to achieve given cultural and linguistic complexities. An ethical code of conduct for translators and interpreters in Afghanistan should include particular focus on: cultural sensitivity and courtesy, impartiality, conflict of interest, options for withdrawal, as well as reflect the importance of Pashtunwali.

Slaying the Hydra: Al Qaeda's Evolution and America's Plan of Attack

In response to 9/11, the U.S. launched airstrikes in Afghanistan against al Qaeda to diminish its ability to conduct future attacks. Next, the U.S. turned its attention to Iraq. A series of problems and missteps there subsequently created an opportunity for al Qaeda to evolve, aligning itself with active insurgencies and other terrorist groups around the world. This paper identifies the largely preemptive strategies employed by the U.S. and analyzes how those efforts positively and negatively impacted the War on Terror. While some significant gains were made, the results show that al Qaeda remains a threat to the international community and demands more effective U.S. and international counter-radicalization strategies, including diplomacy and aid, to curb its global appeal.

Rotten Symbol Mongering: Scapegoating in Post-9/11 American War Literature

A rhetorical approach to the fiction of war offers an appropriate vehicle by which one may encounter and interrogate such literature and the cultural metanarratives that exist therein. My project is a critical analysis—one that relies heavily upon Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic method and his concepts of scapegoating, the comic corrective, and hierarchical psychosis—of three war novels published in 2012 (The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, FOBBIT by David Abrams, and Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain). This analysis assumes a rhetorical screen in order to subvert and redirect the grand narratives the United States perpetuates in art form whenever it goes to war. Kenneth Burke’s concept of ad bellum purificandum (the purification of war) sought to bridge the gap between war experience and the discourse that it creates in both art and criticism. My work extends that project. I examine the symbolic incongruity of convenient symbols that migrate from war to war (“Geronimo” was used as code for Osama bin Laden’s death during the S.E.A.L team raid; “Indian Country” stands for any dangerous land in Iraq; hajji is this generation’s epithet for the enemy other). Such an examination can weaken our cultural “symbol mongering,” to borrow a phrase from Walker Percy. These three books, examined according to Burke’s methodology, exhibit a wide range of approaches to the soldier’s tale. Notably, however, whether they refigure the grand narratives of modern culture or recast the common redemptive war narrative into more complex representations, this examination shows how one can grasp, contend, and transcend the metanarrative of the typical, redemptive war story.