Public dehumanization of Muslims made their torture acceptable state practice.

Evidence

Something led the architects of the War on Terror to think that the indefinite detention, torture, rape, and murder of Muslims—no matter how “bad” these Muslims are—would be acceptable. Muslims are so dehumanized in public discourse that treating them as just bodies, Agamben’s “bare life,” has become, in fact, acceptable. Muslims are not just represented as monsters—they are monsters. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 757

Categorization

• DEFINE: Brings in Agamben’s ‘bare life’ as the operative analytical category — the point where legal protection is stripped and a person exists only as a body.
• DEEPTHINKING: The culminating move collapses representation into reality: ‘Muslims are not just represented as monsters—they are monsters.’ This is the payoff of the entire book’s argument and rewards extended reflection.
• XREF: connects to: Orientalist binaries made imperial intervention in Muslim societies seem morally obligatory. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 184