Bush’s inclusive rhetoric on Islam directly contradicted his militaristic Middle East policy.

Evidence

Six days after the terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush visited a mosque and declared, “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.” Three months later, at an Eid celebration, Bush highlighted the similarities between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, the three largest world faiths. He hinted at an Abrahamic national heritage when he advised his audience “to remember how much we have in common: devotion to family, a commitment to care for those in need, a belief in God and His justice, and the hope for peace on Earth.” In direct contradiction to these statements, however, Bush implemented a Middle East foreign policy centered on the presumption that Muslims are a despotic people whose use of violence is irrational and terroristic. Indeed, Bush’s signature “Freedom Agenda” sought to spread freedom by means of military intervention and occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq. The heathens had to be civilized by force, resulting in the merging of a Cold War mind-set with American Orientalism. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 718

Categorization

• CANDY: The stark contradiction between a president’s mosque-visit language and his actual military policy against Muslim nations is a compact, shareable irony.
• XREF: The ‘civilize by force’ framing of the Freedom Agenda connects to Edward Said’s Orientalism and to broader critiques of liberal interventionism. — connects to: US rhetoric about Islam contradicted its own arming of Islamists — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 395