From Salon comes this particularly lengthy and turgid exercise in Leftist denial of reality. “The United States is at war with a very different, mythic Islam of its own making that has nothing at all to do with this Islam of the Qur’an,” says Raymond William Baker, without bothering to examine the Qur’an at all — what care Leftists for evidence-based reasoning?
After 9/11, “from the storehouse of the Western historical imagination, age-old images of a hostile Islam were retrieved” — at the behest of the Bush Administration, you see, which was eagerly pursuing its imperialist agenda. Never mind that Bush appeared in a mosque and proclaimed that Islam was a religion of peace. That doesn’t fit Baker’s narrative, so he ignores it. Instead, he tells us that after 9/11, “the Islamist Imaginary in the service of the neoconservative version of empire was born.”
Baker, like many Leftists (as well as anti-Semitic paleocons), assumes, or would have his readers assume, that opposition to the global jihad was created by neocons in order to justify the imperial ambitions of the U.S. (and Israel), and that therefore all foes of jihad terror must inevitably be in favor of the Iraq and Afghanistan misadventures. The idea of a foe of the global jihad who for years consistently said that those conflicts were being pursued in a self-defeating and wrongheaded manner is, to him, inconceivable. But here I am.
In one sense, however, Baker is right: the U.S. is not at war with any kind of Islam, but the official version of Islam proffered by Obama, Biden, Kerry et al is certainly an imaginary Islam. Meanwhile, significant numbers of the adherents of very real Islam consider themselves to be at war with the U.S.
“We are at war with an imaginary Islam: Lies, propaganda and the real story of America and the Muslim world,” by Raymond William Baker, Salon, September 26, 2015:
The United States is at war with a very different, mythic Islam of its own making that has nothing at all to do with this Islam of the Qur’an. To make sense of that conjured threat, scholarly studies of Islam or Islamic movements are of no help at all. Even the examination of the real-world history and practice of empire has limited value, unless the perceived Islamic dimension is considered. The American imperial project cannot be brought into clear view without assessment of the distinctive rationale that the Islamist Imaginary provides. The task is not an easy one. The Islamist Imaginary has no simple and unitary existence. Rather, it is a complex amalgam that shapes both the delusions of empire and a conjured threat to imperial power into a co-evolving composite. It is a “difficult whole,” in the helpful language of complexity theory. The Islamist Imaginary, unlike Islam itself and political movements of Islamic inspiration, does not exist outside of the imperial interests that shape it. It has no independent cultural or historical reality, outside its role as predatory threat to Western global interests. The American empire, in turn, requires a hostile and threatening enemy, which today takes the form of Islam of its imagination, to realize and rationalize its expansionist project that must remain unacknowledged and unspoken. The two elements of the imaginary and empire co-evolve. The needs of a threatened empire as vulnerable victim change over time. The Islamist Imaginary transforms itself to meet those needs. Imaginary and empire circle one another in a dance of predator and prey. Their roles are interchangeable, a clear sign that they are not entirely real. The predator is prey; the prey is predator. They develop in tandem in a complex process of mutual adaptation. Boundaries give way between the real and the imagined. In the end it is the imagined that haunts our imaginations and drives our policies….
The crime against humanity committed on September 11, 2001, had the unintended consequence of serving the breathtaking expansionist plans of the neoconservatives who dominated the Bush administration. Only a plausible enemy was lacking to make their execution possible. From the storehouse of the Western historical imagination, age-old images of a hostile Islam were retrieved. Islamic terrorists conjured up in a believable form for a frightened America the “threat to civilization” that every empire requires to justify its own violent acts of domination.
The Islamist Imaginary in the service of the neoconservative version of empire was born. The administration used all the resources of media control at its disposal to make sure that no links were made between the 9/11 crime and unjust U.S. Middle Eastern policies and the bloody instrumentalities the United States forged to enforce them. Plans for the United States to topple the Taliban and occupy Iraq, and for the Israelis to “resolve” the Palestinian issue by force, were all in place before 9/11. The most expansive version of the neoconservative agenda to advance U.S. and Israeli interests found forthright expression in a position paper written for the newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud party in 1996. It is entitled “Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” and was published by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. The document calls for a “clean break from the peace process,” the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the elimination of Saddam’s regime in Iraq, as prelude to regime changes in Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. The authors all became influential players in the second Bush administration….

Porky The Crusader says
Another serious mentally ill person.
Gail Griffin says
Baker is out of touch with reality. It is scary to think that people of influence who write for magazines cannot see what’s in front of their eyes. This makes me sick.
Blitz2b says
I hope he feels the wrath of this imaginary Islam soon…. What a complete moron.
These Islam brown nosers seem to be coming out of the woodwork without a clue about what they are advocating for…
cs says
And he is receiving considerable flak in his own backyard.
silvergreycat says
*…The most expansive version of the neoconservative agenda to advance U.S. and Israeli interests found forthright expression in a position paper written for the newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud party in 1996. It is entitled “Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”…* Which can be found here… https://web.archive.org/web/20131018052118/http://www.iasps.org/strat1.htm
Mr. Netanyahu, so far as is known, hasn’t followed the paper’s proposals.
kay says
Re: “The Islamist Imaginary, unlike Islam itself and political movements of Islamic inspiration, does not exist outside of the imperial interests that shape it. It has no independent cultural or historical reality, outside its role as predatory threat to Western global interests. ”
————————————–
And of course, the clueless Dr. Noam Chomsky emphasizes that Islamic State DEFENDS the people of Iraq. This type of argument fails altogether in 2015. The Cultural Left will fall to smash. Like the Soviet Empire did not so long ago.
My primary reference on this subject of Imaginary Islam and Islamic “inspiration”:
The Legacy of Jihad Paperback – March 1, 2008
by Andrew G. Bostom M.D. (Editor), Ibn Warraq (Foreword)
Paperback: 759 pages
Publisher: Prometheus Books (July 10, 2008)
ISBN-10: 1591026024
http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Jihad-Andrew-Bostom-M-D/dp/1591026024
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
( Umm, sorry to the old-timers here for repeat material. I follow formal debate methodology, in which a statement stands unless challenged. )
Angemon says
“Look there, Sancho Panza, my friend, and see those thirty or so windmills”
“What windmills?” asked Sancho Panza.
“The ones you can see over there,” answered his master, “with the huge sails, some of which are very nearly two leagues long.”
“Now look, your grace,” said Sancho, “what you see over there aren’t windmills, but wild giants, who intend to do battle and kill each and all of us, and what seems to be sails, going around in the wind and turning the millstone, are just their arms.”
“Obviously,” replied Don Quijote, “you don’t know much about conservatives.”
silvergreycat says
*The United States is at war with a very different, mythic Islam of its own making that has nothing at all to do with this Islam of the Qur’an…* Dr. Bill Warner disagrees… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wugWj42pLI
John C. Barile says
So then, the Great Satan is the dominant imperialist power in the Middle East (with our lapdog Little Satan in tow)? Hah. Not no more. Putin’s Russia is making bold moves to move in, with their new Iranian allies, abetted by Obama’s fecklessness and capitulation.
John C. Barile says
http://www.newsweek.com/real-reason-putin-sending-troops-syria-376682
Wellington says
I read this article by Baker earlier today at Salon and was sickened by it. This Baker academic is just one more overeducated fool who belongs to the “kick-America-first” crowd.
But what makes his risible and stupid comments all the more objectionable is that he quite conveniently overlooks the centuries upon centuries of Islamic barbarism that occurred before America was even born (and which said barbarities are occurring even to this day). He also (no surprise) does not in any way indicate all the truly hateful, repulsive verses in the Koran, hadiths and sira.. In effect, his deceit and stupidity are so transparent, his anti-American agenda so readily discernible, that one could almost think that the article he wrote was from The Onion.
Yes, his crap is this bad. Unfortunately, however, this silly, foolish man who teaches at Trinity College in Connecticut, and who has his PhD from Harvard (no surprise here, eh?), is “state of the art” respecting what now exists at most every college and university in America where “educators” are concerned.
Be of no doubt, all JW regular commenters who comprehend the menace which the totalitarian ideology which is Islam poses to liberty, that this nefarious religion has non-Muslim allies aplenty in the academic corridors across America who will continue to: 1) make excuses for Islam; and 2) blame America and all the West for a great deal of the Islamic world’s massively dysfunctional and regressive behavior.
Oh yeah, at least two, not one, enemies to liberty exist out there. The first is Islam of course. The second enemy is the servile dhimmi “community” (e.g., Baker) who excoriate the very civilization which pioneered freedom more so than all other civilizations, all the while continuing to exculpate the totalitarianism which is Islam——–for whatever base, vile, stupid, superficial or silly reason.
Mankind, and especially the West, remains in big trouble. This trouble is now, as it has always been, directly related to the extent that freedom is not understood, is not cherished, is abused, is discarded, or is even considered an outright enemy of man. Yes, measure everything by how liberty is wisely embraced and promoted. No greater barometer of where mankind is headed will ever be found.
kay says
Re: “Mankind, and especially the West, remains in big trouble. . .”
————————————————
Two hundred million killed so far. Of this global total, eighty million killed in South Asia.
Tens of millions enslaved, many or most of them African.
We are in very big trouble.
In particular, it is very possible to lose Europe over the next ninety years.
Everything is at risk. No pressure.
Bill says
The muslims living in Europe today were already saying within 20 years (between immigration and birthrate) and that was before the massive influx that is coming now. It will be much sooner than 90 years! If most of Europe does not descend into war within the next 5 years (and it could be sooner), I’ll be very surprised!
kay says
Not within five years. Not yet. But there IS an alternative. ( See video at end of text. )
There will be a progression of social friction and aggression towards social violence.
The threshold point will be varsity team grenade lobbing, more or less. In Sweden there is one city where carpet pilots lob grenades against police and so forth. Am trying to keep an eye out on this stuff.
It’s all moving very very fast, way too fast, and all the wrong way. That certainly supports your view more than mine. But I don’t see SUSTAINED warfare in five years in London, Paris, Dresden, Madrid, or Rome or Vienna. The Islamofascists do far far better to build tons of new social infrastructure. War comes much later, if these R.O.U.S.es are really smart.
What makes things tough? The combination of Islamic State, social media co-ordination, large migrant influxes, and a sociopathic jihad attitude. There will be community polarization and it will be necessary to come down hard on traitors. With major police and military force scaling up as necessary. Basically the Europeans have to triple their police forces and claim control of all street corners.
But the foundational steps are to defend free speech, shut down carpet pilot immigration, devolve Europe and crush Political Islam. And all the public narratives of Islamofascism. This is a lot of work, and people must Work together. It’s all about teamwork and strategy, about blocking the failure paths and building a success path.
The time to fight in the streets will come later, hastened by Angela Merkel and other leaders. But cultural counter-jihad is full on now, and people have to commit to that fight. Islam can be crushed and destroyed in the public square, but we have to show people how. This is made far more important by the white flag waving over at Canterbury Cathedral and the Vatican.
It is very straightforward to break Political Islam and Theological Islam using Christian analyses of the Koran. Pastor Jay Smith has been working on Islam for thirty years.. This Jay Smith video is excellent and indispensable, but not well known.
“And in one fell swoop we have destroyed the Koran and Muhammad.” – Jay Smith
An Historical Critique of Islam’s Beginnings – Jay Smith
jihad3tracker says
Hello again, Wellington —
Look on the positive side: Ben Carson (who was superbly in his ABC “This Week” remarks today) has Leftist cowards pissing in their panties.
It is not a coincidence that posts in Salon like this one — which is apparently part of a chapter from a previously published book by Baker — are popping up on the web like fleas on a feral dog.
We are in for another week of Hellacious poop hitting the taqiyya fan, as CAIR and its fellow scumbag liars try to pushback against Carson.
dumbledoresarmy says
The comments were interesting.
Because not all the commenters were convinced. Indeed, quite a lot of them weren’t.
Wellington says
I noticed that too, dda. It provided some relief from the unremitting stupidity and vileness of the article written by Baker.
jihad3tracker says
CHECK THIS OUT — “WHY DO LIBERALS LOVE ISLAM?” http://jonathanlast.com/why-do-liberals-love-islam/
I have never run across its author, Jonathan Last, until last night . . . Please send him a short note of appreciation if you think he is right.
So many truth-tellers work hard to cut down trees in the forest of Western privilege guilt — but with the abundant liberal bullcrap dominating MSM, we cannot find their insight.
Gbox says
Using a phrase like “The American imperial project” marks the writer as a leftist propagandist. Worse, he is yet another Islamist apologist working hard to indoctrinate our college students.
His bio states his approach to teaching and research employs “…focusing on questions and the logic and persuasiveness of evidence to answer them…” yet he is in denial of the objectives of today’s Islamists and the Qur’an that inspires them.
vlparker says
Never mind 1400 years of Islamic history and don’t believe your lying eyes. Our leftist overlords know better.
mortimer says
Raymond William Baker, PhD, hasn’t read the Islamic source texts regarding jihad, and yet he presents himself as an EXPERT ON ISLAM!
Raymond William Baker, PhD, believes he can understand Islam through political science ALONE with the slightest contribution from the Koran, the hadiths, the Sira, Sharia law and authentic Islamic commentaries by leading Islamic jurists.
How does he figure he can ignore ALL of the Islamic sources of authority and come up with the correct conclusions?
I was taught you cannot understand a philosophy unless you understand it COMPLETELY from THE INSIDE.
Apparently, Raymond William Baker, PhD, allows himself to be exempt from the rigors of academe that require lesser mortals to READ THE SOURCES TEXTS before drawing any conclusions!
What a superman Raymond William Baker, PhD, must believe himself to be.
kay says
Re: “Raymond William Baker, PhD, allows himself to be exempt from the rigors of academe that require lesser mortals to READ THE SOURCES TEXTS…”
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Source texts AND histories. We have a very clear track record here. Two hundred million killed. That is equally important evidence.Sharia plus jihad is the system. Two sides of the same coin. That is the essential key here.
See? This isn’t so hard to understand. I really should teach this stuff. But Bill Warner and Andrew Bostom covered everything already. Except for the mass insanity part. I find that to be crucially important. Nobody else talks about that part but me. Don’t know why. Maybe I get some crucially important stuff here that others really don’t get at all.
dumbledoresarmy says
Kay
I think some of us get it.
When I read “Legacy of Jihad” it was horrifying. After a while, as you wade through rivers of blood and contemplate mountains of skulls, you are forced to the conclusion that Islam is *all about* the killing. Murder – mass murder – is its raison d’être.
Alternatively, one could argue that Islam deifies Thanatos. Which is precisely why Islam, Muslims, so obsessively target *Jews* and Judaism; and in particular, pregnant Jewish women (the rabbi’s wife at the Norman House in Mumbai was heavily pregnant when she was tortured to death by a group of jihadis; and look up what a group of armed jihadis did to heavily-pregnant Tali Hatuel and her four little girls). It is because the House of Israel is *the* House of Life; of all peoples on the face of the earth, it is the Jews who have most steadfastly and longest affirmed Life.
kay says
Oh. This:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Hatuel_family
Jesus H! A two year old, a pregnant mother, and 3 other young girls…
Bloody hell. 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁
Such people have no honor. Ehhh, these s.o.b.s go straight to the burning hells. It’s guaranteed.
I do my best to love humanity, but it’s Nazis, Communists, and above all the effing Islamists I cannot stand. These carpet pilots are fubar.
Then there’s all the rape and enslavement and gruesome killings too.
It just goes on and on. Effing endless war and cruelty and insanity.
Even wrapping the guts of little children around their mothers’ necks.
Or raping women before executing them.
How can anyone put up with this history? Much less defend it?
The Vietnamese have a saying: “Du Mha Nhu”
We say DOOM ON YOU.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Doom+on+you
voegelinian says
In one sense, however, Baker is right: the U.S. is not at war with any kind of Islam, but the official version of Islam proffered by Obama, Biden, Kerry et al is certainly an imaginary Islam.
Indeed. In the PC MC narrative (witlessly parroting the sly narrative of the Islamopologists), the actual Islam is deemed “imaginary”, while the fantasy Islam they have constructed is deemed to be the real thing (when they are not denying that a single Islam even exists because, hey, it’s “not monolithic” but rather wonderfully “diverse”). Like the Red Queen in Alice’s Wonderland they can believe “six impossible things before breakfast” and expect everyone else to, too.
Jay Boo says
Good morning Muslim World,
Question for today is “WHY”
Why is Muhammad same height as Allah in most mosques?
Hmmm?
Why does Allah ‘(pray)’ upon Muhammad? Should it not be the reverse?
Why does Allah swear upon the pen?
If Allah is in charge Allah need not swear upon anything.
Michael Copeland says
Here is a helpful memo for Raymond William Baker PhD.
Can someone give it to him?
Or failing that, print it out and distribute it around the campus.
WHAT ISLAM INSTRUCTS FOR NON-MUSLIMS
Between us and you animosity and hatred forever 60:4
Allah does NOT LOVE the non-muslims. 30:45
Allah is the ENEMY of non-muslims. 2:98
KILL the non-muslims wherever you find them. 9:5
The Koran is part of Islamic law.
Its teachings are “universal and trans-time”.
One who denies any verse has to be killed.
The killing can be done penalty-free by anyone.
Allan Mandrowski says
To be fair a lot of the comments on that Salon page on the article are calling the article out for the BS that it is and I suspect most of these commenters to be lefties, so not all hope is lost.
dumbledoresarmy says
Yep. I noticed that. And I read them all.
Once people run across a certain number of news stories about people being beheaded by other people who chant ‘allahu akbar” whilst performing the ritual murder – and the news stories come in from all sorts of different places, with the *only* common factor being the Islam of the beheader – something called ‘pattern recognition’ and ‘survival instinct’ starts to kick in.
Allan Mandrowski says
Yes, completely agree.
Still disgusting that Salon publishes tripe like that, but hopeful that not all fall for it that easily!
Michael Copeland says
“We are at war”?
Not according to Obama, “The United States is not and never will be at war with Islam” (a treasonous statement).
“We are at war”?
Yes, according to London 7/7 bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan.
http://libertygb.org.uk/v1/index.php/news-libertygb/6716-we-are-at-war
duh_swami says
Another useful idiot for Allah’s causes…A PHD in word magick and word trickery doesn’t impress me, I have several of those.
I read Allah’s book three times and have stuck my nose in it so many times that the resident jinn and I are on a first name basis, What I learned that the Quran is a dark and evil fairy tale, whispered into the ear of a psychotic Arab, by an incoherent angel named Gabriel…everything went downhill from there.
Terry Gain says
The claim that the United States went into Iraq to expand its empire is a gross and stupid lie. If that had been the goal we would have installed our own dictator and helped ourselves to their oil. Instead we took not one drop of oil and allowed them to write their own Islamic constitution. Iraq failed because it is Islamic.
analise says
lefties goverment on this generation will be writen in history, how they repeatly lie to the world and being a traitor.
rubiconrest says
The USA is not the first nation to battle Islam. It takes a person with blinders to attribute islamic jihad to neoconservatives. You could say the US has stirred up the hornets nest but we did not create the hornets nor the nest. Islam has spread for centuries behind a curtain which has been lifted in the information age. How much longer can the propaganda deny realty? Islam has never been so exposed. For the author to say that the US is at war with a “mythic Islam of its own making’ that has “has nothing at all to do with this Islam of the Qur’an” is so far from reality that it is impossible to take seriously but perhaps it is satire and therefore myopic by design.
Ed says
Salon must have made a ton of isslamic money by publishing Taqiyya.