US Counter-Terrorism Strategy and Al-Qaeda : Routledge : 9780415552325 : 041555232X : 09 Sep 2009 : This book examines the communicative aspects and implications of US counter-terrorist policies towards al-Qaeda. Recent US counter-terrorist strategy has been largely based upon projecting certain perceptions of America as an actor to those drawn to al-Qaeda, and this book investigates in what ways, and to what extent, US officials believed that the signals sent by what America did and said could influence the behaviour of the terrorist and would-be terrorist. The study then draws on a growing understanding of that audience to analyse how those drawn to al-Qaeda were and, indeed, still are likely to be influenced by the perceptions of America that Washington's policies generated. The study's central argument is that, given al-Qaeda's unconventional strategy and the particularities of the world-view characterising those drawn to the group, America's counter-terrorist signalling proved la