HRW Rejects Saudi Comedy Cash, Ignores US Complicity in Far Worse
HRW's principled stand against 'sportswashing' is commendable when it targets Saudi Arabia. Yet, strangely absent from the mainstream narrative—and HRW's publicly disclosed donor lists, according to OpenSecrets.org—are similar rejections of funds from entities or individuals deeply complicit in violence abroad, particularly when it involves US foreign policy. For instance, while HRW rightly
condemns Saudi abuses, the same vigilance often seems to dim when it comes to US-supplied weapons fueling conflicts, or US politicians who profit from defense industry largesse while enabling humanitarian crises. (It's almost as if some human rights are more marketable than others.) One might observe that 'moral consistency' often applies most rigorously where it doesn't challenge the fundamental
structures of Western power or its lucrative military-industrial complex. The outrage over Saudi 'sportswashing' is valid, but the glaring silence on the 'genocide-washing' performed by politicians who vote for endless wars, funded by the very corporations that profit from those conflicts, smacks of a hierarchy of human rights that conveniently sidesteps uncomfortable truths closer to home. How
many comedians would HRW reject if their entire careers were built on enabling US invasions?