Faux Outrage

"I'm sorry, but how dare you put the US in the same list as the Taliban." That's the top-response to representative Ilhan Omar's tweet on June 7. This response shows the kind of faux outrage that betrays the flag-waving patriotic refusal to think critically about the U.S. or its allies by some Americans, even Ilhan's own Democratic party members...

It's been more than a week now, so the public outrage about Ilhan Omar's tweet has settled down mostly, but it still makes me wonder about how we're ever going to get ahead, if we'll ever get rid of the anti-Muslim sentiments and if there's any hope for the Palestinians who are fighting against an apartheid regime in Israel. Here's the full text of the tweet:

We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity.

We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.

I asked @SecBlinken where people are supposed to go for justice.

The tweet was accompanied by a video showing her ask the question to Secretary of State, Antony Blinken. Now I ask you: what's with all the outrage here? Apparently it's that the U.S. and Israel are mentioned in the same sentence as Hamas, Afghanistan and the Taliban. It can't be because the U.S. and Israel have never committed crimes against humanity; both states do so on a daily basis. That may be difficult to hear or admit, but that doesn't make it not true. To put all the fake outrage in an even less favorable light, Hamas and the Taliban are creations of Israel and the U.S. respectively. Israel explicitly helped the formation of Hamas as an aid against the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). And the U.S. funded and trained the Afghan Mujaheddin, to act as allies in their proxy-war against the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War. Although there's not a direct link from Mujaheddin to Taliban, the latter is the result of the Mujaheddin's failure to form a stable government in Kabul.

Israel has declared Hamas, a Palestinian resistance organisation, a ‘terrorist’ outfit and did everything under its power to liquidate it during its recent two-week long operation in Gaza. But, not many people are aware of the fact that it was Israel which had helped the creation of Hamas as a counter to Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) during 1980s.
_{source: The Express Tribune}

So, Ilhan Omar isn't allowed to put the creators of the terrorist groups in the same sentence as the groups themselves? Apparently not. The anger against Omar was mainly because of a perceived equation of terrorist organizations and two democracies where the rule of law applies. That doesn't say much though when we remember that Nelson Mandela's ANC was also listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S.... Well, I could go on about the sad hypocrisy displayed by the Republicans and the Democratic Party leadership, but I think the below linked video does a far better job. It shows a commentary on two anchors discussing the tweet and its aftermath, and I found it hilarious and painful to watch, all at the same time, and it shows perfectly the political right's flag-waving patriotic refusal to think critically about "the land of the free and the home of the brave"...

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