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đŸȘ” The Threshold

Islamist groups are labeled allies or terrorists based on US interests

Properties2
tagsja-picks, xref, storystem, question, causal_relationships, trade, corroborated, category/causal-relationships
aliases@kumar_islamophobia_2012, loc. 400

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Islamist groups are labeled allies or terrorists based on US interests

Evidence

The Clinton administration viewed Iran as a hub of international terrorism and Islamic “extremism” and instituted sanctions and banned trade with Iran. However, it consorted with the Taliban, whose ultraconservative Deobandi philosophy had created horrific conditions for women in Afghanistan (as noted in Chapter 3), because of an interest in forging a pipeline deal that would, it was hoped, give US companies access to the oil and natural gas reserves in the Caspian Sea. At the end of the day, Islamist forces that cooperated with a vision of the world adopted by the United States were allies, and those who did not were enemies and cast as “terrorists.” This is how imperial ethnocentric racism works. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 400

The Clinton administration viewed Iran as a hub of international terrorism and Islamic “extremism” and instituted sanctions and banned trade with Iran. However, it consorted with the Taliban, whose ultraconservative Deobandi philosophy had created horrific conditions for women in Afghanistan (as noted in Chapter 3), because of an interest in forging a pipeline deal that would, it was hoped, give US companies access to the oil and natural gas reserves in the Caspian Sea. At the end of the day, Islamist forces that cooperated with a vision of the world adopted by the United States were allies, and those who did not were enemies and cast as “terrorists.” This is how imperial ethnocentric racism works. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 400

Categorization

  • XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s existing knowledge of US-Taliban dealings and to Chomsky-style analyses of labeling. Also connects to the ‘Complaints’ and other empire-focused work. — connects to: The US frames alliances with Egyptian dictators as terrorism-war pacts to justify outsourcing torture — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of
, 42; The US once allied with Islamist forces before treating them as enemies; US instrumental use of Islamists produced today’s negative Islam frame — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of
, 395 (+10 more)
  • STORYSTEM: A concrete case: the US socially constructed ‘terrorist’ status depending on pipeline geopolitics — a strong pattern for a character-driven piece about state hypocrisy in foreign policy.
  • QUESTION: Worth chasing the specific Taliban-Caspian pipeline deal (Unocal/Argent) chronology to nail the documentary record.
  • corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of
, 400

Broader Connections

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