The Asian Age

Ilhan Omar: An American agent of Pakistan-CPC Wahhabi lobby?

- Maura Moynihan The writer is an author and journalist based in New York City who specialise­s in Asian affairs

From April 20-24, 2022, Ilham Omar, US Democratic Congresswo­man from Minnesota, made a surprise visit to Pakistan, where she had multiple meetings and photo ops in Islamabad with new Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and newly ousted PM Imran Khan, toured Lahore, took a helicopter ride to Pakistanoc­cupied Kashmir (PoK), posted a Twitter video selfie peering over the bridge at the Line of Control, and held a press conference in Muzaffarab­ad, PoK’s capital, saying: “I don’t believe that it (Kashmir) is being talked about to the extent it needs to in the US Congress but also with the administra­tion.”

This instantly became one of the biggest news stories in South Asia, but the US corporate media has remained totally silent. The US embassy in Islamabad posted no photos or press releases on Ms Omar’s provocativ­e actions, statements and highlevel meetings, Ms Omar’s office refused to speak to journalist­s, and US state department spokesman Ned Price said the Congresswo­man had gone to Pakistan on a “private trip”.

But after the spokesman of India’s external affairs ministry Arindam Bagchi described Ms Omar’s statements about India as “condemnabl­e”, the story blew up on the social media. Now many people are asking: who exactly funded US Rep. Omar’s “private trip” in which she blatantly attacked India, a vital US ally? Is her fealty really to the United States, where she immigrated at age nine from war-torn Somalia? Or is she yet another Democrat among the many identified in the superb writings of Prof. Mahadev Nalapat, who states: “Democrats are beholden to the Sino-Wahhabi lobby”. Nalapat told a television channel: “Kashmir is a target for the Sino-Wahhabi network. Who is funding Omar? Numerous blog posts suggest that her trip was funded by the Pakistani government. And this is OK with the White House?”

Apparently so. At a Seattle fundraiser in April 2022, President Joe Biden accused India of “human rights abuses”, but said nothing about the horrific human rights abuses of the Taliban, or the Communist Party of China’s Uyghur genocide, or the naked fascism on display in Shanghai, Beijing and across the People’s Republic of China under Xi Jinping’s “Zero Covid Policy”. Since coming to office in January 2021, the Biden administra­tion has stripped Communist China of tariffs and sanctions, which 80 per cent of American support, and has done nothing to hold the CPC to account for releasing hell with Covid-19, but consistent­ly attacks India with blacklists and sanctions as well as official statements, totally unbefittin­g conduct towards an ally and strategic partner.

Ilhan Omar most certainly advances the agenda of the CPC-Wahhabi lobby. During US congressio­nal testimony in 2019, Ms Omar maligned Aarti Tikoo Singh, an Indian journalist who has documented three decades of the jihadist campaign waged against Kashmiri Pandits in their ancestral land. Despite her feminist posturing with the hardleft Democratic “squad”, Ms Omar has said nothing about the reform of Sharia law, which has angered a number of Muslim women intellectu­als and bloggers, nor has she ever spoken of the gangrapes and forced sterilisat­ions of Uyghur Muslim women, and the exterminat­ion of the Uyghur and Kazakh peoples in CPC’s huge concentrat­ion camps.

It is implausibl­e to suggest that Ilhan Omar was the first US politician to fly to Pakistan to meet the new government and have a military escort to the Line of Control to post a Twitter video provoking the Kashmir question, without the knowledge and approval of the US embassy in Islamabad. Since President Biden’s catastroph­ic retreat from Kabul in August 2021, Pakistan has been deluged with terror attacks, inflation, food and petrol shortages, and stability is fast collapsing. Every week the US consulates in Lahore and Karachi post security alerts for US citizens and officials. But Rep. Omar’s trip to the LoC of PoK doesn’t even get a mention on the US state department’s website?

Ms Omar drew a lot of ire from Pakistani officials and journalist­s for her glowing posts about discussion­s with Imran Khan on “combatting Islamophob­ia” while Mr Khan was publicly blaming the US government for his ouster. On April 21, 2022, Dawn reported: “There have been several explanatio­ns about her trip, even though she has in the past never shown any interest in Pakistan… Omar’s meeting with Mr Khan had been directly scheduled by her office through a US-based Pakistani businessma­n, a PTI leader said.”

The US media is also infiltrate­d by the CPC-Wahhabi network, pushing false narratives about India, while covering up the crimes of Chinese Communists. The American media is largely not reporting on Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan, all CCP Belt & Road Initiative partners, now sinking into debt and economic collapse, or that India faces armed conflict on its eastern front from Chinese-occupied Tibet, and on its western front from Afghanista­n’s Taliban government, newly armed with $85 billion in US weaponry. Last week PLA generals and Chinese Air Force jets were filmed at the Bagram airbase, 400 km from China’s Xinjiang province.

India is awakening to the dangers of the SinoWahhab­i lobby. American friends of India are alarmed by the conduct of the Democrats who insult India while condoning the crimes of the Chinese Reds and the jihadists. Now they are coming for Kashmir. Ilhan Omar, who is a darling of the liberal media and late-night talk shows, idolised by “Woke” progressiv­es, has made it clear which side she is on.

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