The Curated Outcry: Why Some Dissidents Matter More Than Others
When The Hill opines about Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai, urging the US to prevent him from becoming 'another Liu Xiaobo,' it spotlights a curiously selective empathy. The concern articulated centers squarely on figures deemed useful for challenging adversarial states like China. One might wonder why a similar fervor for 'human rights' fails to materialize when dissidents are jailed by
Washington's allies. Curiously, the same outlets that decry Beijing's treatment of its critics often remain silent, or even supportive, when countries like Saudi Arabia execute political opponents, as they did to 81 individuals in a single day in March 2022. There was no widespread call for US intervention to 'save' these dissidents, nor do we typically see such impassioned pleas for the release
of Julian Assange, whose journalistic work exposed US war crimes and led to his current incarceration in the UK, facing extradition to the country whose secrets he dared to publish. This isn't about the individual fates of Lai or Liu, but the predictable, almost ritualistic, application of moral outrage. The framing serves a distinct geopolitical purpose: delegitimizing rivals while granting
impunity to partners. This double standard became particularly stark in 2003 when Secretary of State Colin Powell infamously presented manufactured evidence of WMDs to the UN, leading to a war that cost hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, all while the West lauded its own commitment to 'democracy.' What's actually happening is a master class in manufacturing consent, where the 'human rights'