Barack Obama’s Political Visions On Iraq War Issues During Us Presidential Campaign 2008 As Represented In The Blueprint For Change – War In Iraq

Oleh :
Sonny Hendrawan Saputra - C0305059 - Fak. Sastra dan Seni Rupa

This research has the objectives to describe the political visions of Barack Obama toward Iraq War during US presidential campaign 2008 as represented in his text “The Blueprint for change – War in Iraq” and to identify his ways or strategies in expressing those political visions. This is a descriptive qualitative research. It uses two types of data. Those are primary and secondary data. The primary data is collected from a source of data which is the text of “The Blueprint for Change - War in Iraq”. The primary data of this research are Obama’s written expressions (words, phrases, sentences) taken from Blueprint. It contains the political visions: his criticism, praise, and future programs toward Iraq War issues. Meanwhile, the secondary data which are used to support the primary data are the facts and ideas taken from journal, books, magazine article, and online articles. This research is conducted under the frameworks of American Studies. Thus, it involves interdisciplinary perspectives. It uses semiotics and rhetoric theory as the way to find the real meaning of Obama’s text. It also uses various pertinent perspectives to support that theory: socio-cultural, political, and historical perspectives. The finding shows that Blueprint represents Obama’s political visions toward Iraq War issues that are actually pertinent to the economy, military, and socio-cultural issues of US. In economy area, Obama has the vision to end Iraq War to give more focus on US financial recovery. He delivers that vision by using the expression of irony and exaggeration. In military area, he has visions of ending Iraq War and conducting responsible phased withdrawal of soldiers to avoid further massive deaths of US Armed Forces and to eradicate the burden of soldiers because of multiple deployments in Iraq. The expressions of exaggeration, appreciation, and sympathy are used by Obama in delivering the texts in response to military issue. In socio-culture area, Obama has the vision that by ending Iraq War, he can be the symbol of hope for US citizens without promoting American culture of fear strategy. In response to socio-cultural issue, Obama does not use the expression of dramatization toward the US current condition and he chooses the dictions representing the hope for US citizens.