Denouncing ISIS without denouncing US violence legitimizes the war on terror

Evidence

The foundational War on Terror myth was anything but novel. In two hours’ time, Edward Said synthesized his magnum opus, Orientalism, into a master class tied to the War on Terror and events that were unfolding at the time. A sage on that stage, Said demystified how Islam was flattened by scholarly discourses old and new, and how ideas shaped in ivory towers oriented Muslims as the enemy—ballads that preceded the bullets fired by snipers in Iraq, or the battalions in Afghanistan that bludgeoned innocent families and then branded them as “collateral damage.” In ways that only he could, Said tailored Orientalism’s definitive ideas to break down how the Bush administration deftly suspended civil liberties in the name of national security and persuaded a frightening majority of the American polity that Muslims, regardless of their legal status, were “impossible Americans”—a fifth pillar cast out of the caste of meaningful citizenship. With even greater diabolical deftness, the Bush regime carried forward a baseless war against a nation entirely disconnected from the 9/11 terror attacks: Iraq. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 267 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Vile terms like “enemy aliens” and “enemy race” would resurface; terms used to place people in internment camps decades earlier would be wielded again. That sordid history would meet this new millennium’s chapter of American empire. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 211 (#complicates, via linked claim)

The “clash of civilizations” rhetoric therefore became dominant in the aftermath of 9/11 and was the ideological basis for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well domestic attacks on Muslims and Arabs. For a while it appeared that the neocons were unstoppable—but they overplayed their hand. During its first term, the Bush administration built a “coalition of the willing” to invade Iraq, rejecting criticisms from allies it derogatorily labeled “old Europe.” The war on Iraq, however, did not go the way the neocons wanted it to. Instead of greeting US forces as liberators, the Iraqi people resisted and rejected US hegemony. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 421 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The war on terror is linguistically camouflaged state violence; Radical Islamic critique of US policy gets suppressed regardless of threat — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 415; Root-cause analyses of terrorism touted reduction measures opposing Bush’s war approach (+17 more)

Broader Connections

• The War on Terror recycled pre-existing Orientalist academic discourse into state violence #qualifies (0.95) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 267
• Anti-Muslim sentiment predated and undergirded the War on Terror #complicates (0.80) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 283
• War on Terror rhetoric recycled internment-era terms like enemy alien #complicates (0.80) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 211
• Clash-of-civilizations rhetoric ideologically legitimized both foreign wars and domestic attacks #complicates (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 421
• Terrorism’s psychological effects cannot be cleanly separated from other conflict factors #complicates (0.80) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4174
• Global war on terror is better understood as manhunting than combat #complicates (0.80)
• Terrorists justify violence through utilitarian and personal grievance framing #complicates (0.75)
• The War on Terror surveilled and classified Muslims into state-approved or suspect categories #complicates (0.75) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 261
• Counterinsurgency war can itself constitute the terror it claims to fight #complicates (0.75) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 209
• After the Iraq war most Americans judged it ineffective at reducing terrorism #complicates (0.70) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2428