Orientalism supplied the pre-existing tropes that the War on Terror redeployed against Muslims

Evidence

The clash of civilizations explanation reduced the conflict between radical Muslim terrorism and the West to something inherent within Islam (and thus something that can only be fixed within Islam). On this understanding, the irrational anger and hatred of Muslims toward the West leads some Muslims to use the teachings of Islam to justify their terrorist activities against innocent people. Neither the Bush administration nor the larger political establishment devoted much effort to reflecting critically on the history of Western involvement in the Muslim world, nor did they seriously consider whether the particular economic and political grievances toward the West articulated by many Muslims, not just the small minority of terrorists, might require a significant rethinking of foreign policy to minimize the chance of future attacks. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 266 (#exemplifies, 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 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Enlightenment thinkers retained older anti-Muslim stereotypes — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 161; The Bush administration’s Iraq war justifications rested on three anti-Muslim stereotypes — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 276; Orientalism sustains the credibility of preexisting Muslim monster images (+36 more)

Related

• The War on Terror was a globalized crusade recruiting nations for domestic political gain (similarity 0.91)
• The War on Terror was ideologically framed as a civilizational clash (similarity 0.90)
• The War on Terror weaponizes an invented Orientalist past to victimize Muslims today (similarity 0.89)
• Neocons deliberately leveraged academic Orientalist authority to sanction their wars (similarity 0.88)
• The War on Terror recycled pre-existing Orientalist academic discourse into state violence (similarity 0.86)
• The clash of civilizations narrative is a constructed frame, not a given fact (similarity 0.85)
• Huntington repackaged Orientalist binaries into a new lexicon of civilizational clash. (similarity 0.85)
• Bush’s war declaration framed the enemy as Islamic and civilizational. (similarity 0.85)
• The War on Terror draws its ideology from Orientalism’s invented past (similarity 0.85)
• Academic Orientalist ideas preceded and justified military violence against Muslims. (similarity 0.84)
• The government sponsored Orientalist conferences to weaponize religion (similarity 0.84)
• Juxtaposing contending ideologies lets thrillers move beyond war-on-terror binaries. (similarity 0.84)
• The Bush administration’s Iraq war justifications rested on three anti-Muslim stereotypes (similarity 0.84)
• Huntington popularized a clash-of-civilizations thesis built on Lewis’s earlier Orientalist work. (similarity 0.84)
• Orientalists reframed Islam as a political system rather than a religion. (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• The War on Terror weaponizes an invented Orientalist past to victimize Muslims today #corroborates (0.85)
• Clash of civilizations framing located terrorism’s cause within Islam itself #exemplifies (0.75) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 266
• Clash-of-civilizations rhetoric ideologically legitimized both foreign wars and domestic attacks #expands (0.70) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 421
• US post-war hegemony repurposed Orientalism and modernization theory to justify empire. #expands (0.65) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 28
• Orientalism and Islamophobia are related but not identical concepts #qualifies (0.60) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 236