Every empire tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, and its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.

FICTION: This imperial self-justification could fuel a story where an empire's noble rhetoric contrasts sharply with its actual plunder, or where a protagonist slowly realizes their civilization's mission narrative is self-deception.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamopho…, loc. 256