Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tweeted Monday evening that she would have voted against the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Ocasio-Cortez was responding to tweets by fellow Democrat Rep. Juan Vargas (D-CA), who criticized Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for her repeated use of antisemitic rhetoric.

Vargas is staunchly pro-Israel, and was one of the few Democrats who dared oppose President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, as Breitbart News reported at the time.

Vargas tweeted:

It is disturbing that Rep. Omar continues to perpetuate hurtful anti-Semitic stereotypes that misrepresent our Jewish community. Additionally, questioning support for the U.S.-Israel relationship is unacceptable. (1/2) — Rep. Juan Vargas (@RepJuanVargas) March 4, 2019

Israel has and remains a stalwart ally of the United States because of our countries’ shared interests and values. I condemn her remarks and believe she should apologize for her offensive comments. (2/2) — Rep. Juan Vargas (@RepJuanVargas) March 4, 2019

Ocasio-Cortez, rallying to Omar’s side, claimed that Vargas was arguing “that it’s unacceptable to even *question* US foreign policy.”

I‘m curious if Rep. Vargas will further explain his stance here that it’s unacceptable to even *question* US foreign policy. Plenty of Dem members have asserted that discussion + debate on this issue is fair and merited. Is this stance a departure from that? https://t.co/2tcelsxFCU — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 5, 2019

She then went on to cite the Iraq War, and claimed, erroneously, that Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) was the only member of Congress to support it.

I remember a time when it was “unacceptable” to question the Iraq War. All of Congress was wrong, including both GOP & Dem Party, and led my generation into a disastrous + wrong war that virtually all would come to regret, except for the one member who stood up: Barbara Lee. — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 5, 2019

In fact, Lee cast the lone vote against the AUMF on Sep. 14, 2001, following the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, which killed nearly 3,000 Americans.

In her speech explaining her vote, Lee warned that the U.S. risked becoming like the terrorists: “Let us not become the evil that we deplore,” she said.

The AUMF provided the basis for the war in Afghanistan. After 17 and-a-half years, many members of Congress — on both sides — have begun to question, the efficacy of that war and the relevance of the AUMF. However, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the country was unified on the need to take action against the terrorists who had murdered thousands of Americans as part of a holy war to destroy the country and, indeed, western civilization.

Ocasio-Cortez noted her error — but then insisted that Lee was correct to oppose military action after 9/11, and suggested she would have opposed the war in Afghanistan:

Afghanistan War* my apologies — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 5, 2019

(But honestly we shouldn’t have been in either, and we should end the AUMF now while we’re at it) — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 5, 2019

In the 2008 presidential election, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), who said he would have voted against the Iraq War had he been in Congress, portrayed the war in Afghanistan as the “good” war, and vowed to hunt down Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. In 2011, President Obama announced to the nation that Osama bin Laden had been found and killed.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, would have opposed that effort.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.