Trump Protects Iranian Protesters, Cracks Down at Home
The piece rightly points out the cognitive dissonance of a president who 'protects' Iranian dissidents but unleashes ICE on Minneapolis protesters (Newsweek, 2018). But this selective empathy isn't new; it's a bipartisan tradition. For decades, US administrations have condemned human rights abuses in adversarial nations while funding or overlooking far worse from its allies. Remember the CIA's
1953 coup in Iran that installed the Shah, stifling dissent for decades? Or the Reagan administration supporting Contra 'freedom fighters' while crushing dissent in Latin America? This isn't about 'freedom'; it's about strategic advantage, framed by a media that rarely connects these convenient dots. So, when politicians wax poetic about 'freedom' in countries resisting US hegemony, one might ask:
whose freedom, exactly? And at what cost to the nations we arm and ignore? The 'rules-based order' always seems to apply differently when oil, geopolitics, or AIPAC's latest donation check is on the table.