Western media collapsed Al-Qaeda into representing all Muslims as extremists

Evidence

Few journalists explained to Americans the role of the United States in creating and arming the mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets in the 1980s, many of whom later joined Al-Qaeda. Rather than accurately portray Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden as the extremist fringe that they were, Western media stories made them out to be representatives of Muslims both abroad and in the United States. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 755

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the US-armed mujahideen trajectory; the blowback dynamic parallels the ‘grafting’ theme of nurturing systems that later turn on their creators. — connects to: Jewish Americans mostly reject that Muslims sympathize with al-Qaeda.