Daily Times

WASHINGTON –Deepa Kumar – an Indian-American associate professor of media studiesat the Rutgers University – hasset off a firestorm in the media and academic circles by declaring that the United States is more brutal than the Islamic State because it has killed more people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Yes ISIS is brutal, but US is more so, 1.3 million killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Prof Deepatweeted in March in a broadside consistent with her anti-US and anti-war critiques.The tweet attracted some attention in the immediate hours and days after it was posted, with several responses asking her to get out of America if she thought so poorly of it and others dismissing her as a joke.

A few liberal colleagues defended her right to express her views.The kerfuffle was raked up again by the Fox News channel which featured the tweet and some more caustic responses. “I feel bad for Deepa Kumar’s students at Rutgers. Only a complete ideologue could claim the US is more brutal than Islamic State. Our government isn’t in the habit of rounding up thousands of young girls to have them raped dozens of timesor throwing homosexuals off rooftops,”said Max Abrahms, professor of political science at the Northeastern University who specialises in the study of terrorism.

‘Toxicanti-US ideology’

Prof Deepadefended herself in an interview with a higher education journal even as her critics said that she was polluting academia with what they saw as her toxic anti-US ideology. Her body of leftist, liberal work includes authorship of the book – Islamophobiaand the Politics of Empire. “This is not the only case of a professor being targeted by Fox News,” the associate professor said.