The unbearable hypocrisy of Donald Trump’s crackdown on peaceful US protests after supporting Hong Kong’s
- Yonden Lhatoo says the very people who condemned the slightest move to restore law and order during Hong Kong’s social unrest are now unleashing a massive show of force on Americans protesting against racism
Remember when the People’s Liberation Army was “deployed” at the height of Hong Kong’s “revolution of our times” last year?
It was a one-off, lasting for an hour, and they jogged back into their barracks, never to be heard of again, but we never heard the end of it from local opposition figures and America’s useful idiots, as well as Western governments and politicians. As the self-appointed guardians of Hong Kong’s freedoms, they were outraged that the military had been trotted out in an unacceptable “show of force to intimidate peaceful protesters”.
Fast forward to what’s happening in the US now, and listen to the deafening silence from those same, two-faced virtue signallers as American authorities effectively declare war on peaceful protesters rising up against systemic racism that has plagued the country since its founding. The tipping point was the case of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died while being subdued by police officers arresting him on suspicion of using a fake banknote.
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The first reaction of US President Donald Trump was to brand everyone as “THUGS” (in capital letters) and warn them cheerfully, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”
Just look at some of the stuff he’s been saying since then: “I have strongly recommended to every governor to deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers that we dominate the streets. Mayors and governors must establish an overwhelming presence until the violence is quelled … As we speak, I am dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults and the wanton destruction of property.”
And here he is berating governors for being too “soft” on protesters: “You have to dominate, if you don’t dominate you’re wasting your time. They’re going to run over you. You’re going to look like a bunch of jerks. You have to dominate … The only time [violent protests are] successful is when you’re weak. And most of you are weak.”
This unabashed military groupie is the same man who claimed last year that Chinese President Xi Jinping “has got a million soldiers standing outside of Hong Kong that aren’t going in only because I asked him, please don’t do that”. Oh, the humanity!
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Look at America now, with armoured vehicles and truckloads of reserve troops patrolling the streets of every major city, heavily armed and masked police everywhere, all kinds of overt and covert security forces on deployment, and its leaders openly speaking the language of war against their own people – while they’re still gravely concerned about “repression” in Hong Kong. Give us a break.
He was holding up a Bible for the cameras, but it’s a pity he will never actually open it to Matthew chapter 7, verse 5, which would tell him: “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”
I can’t vouch for its authenticity in this age of fake news, but one image really caught my eye out of all the protest pictures from the US. It shows someone holding up a placard that reads: “Be the America Hong Kong thinks we are.” Lol and Amen.
Yonden Lhatoo is the chief news editor at the Post
