In Survivability, Vulnerability, Affect (Frames of war: when is life grievable?) , Judith Butler raises the often difficult and uncomfortable question of whether or not all lives matter equally. Through her examination on the war on terror in this article and various concepts such as “framing” Several justifications for both sides of the argument become apparent.
Furthermore, the concept of framing can be described as one in which a story or scenario, (in this case the war on terror) is examined whilst simultaneously ignoring the other side argument. Whether this is done intentionally or not is debatable. However, that being said there are harmful effects that can arise from this practice, such as important dialogue being shut down.
Anyways, back to the original question. Do all lives matter equally? Obviously in an ideal world they would all matter equally to the people in positions of power who essentially dictate who lives and dies in the war on terror as this tends to have a large effect on the thoughts of the public at large. Of course the other side to this argument would be that terrorists themselves have consistently shown through their own actions that they hold their own lives and the lives of others in their community with very little regard. This itself could be considered to be a sort of subliminal effect on the general public in the sense that most people may not realize they hold this bias because of these actions.
Continuing, a similar debate can be seen regarding the current migrant crisis the Europe is facing and unfortunately due to the war on terror, a lot of people in the west maintain the same negative misconceptions about middle eastern people that were developed through the war on terror.