What Can America Say to Assad?

Michael Bloomberg was born in 1942 to a Jewish family. With a net worth of $19.5 billion, he is America’s 12th richest man. He is, at the same time, the mayor of New York City. He was a Democrat, then became a Republican personality when he entered politics in 2001. These days, he identifies himself as Independent. But recently, he became renowned for dispatching fully armed police officers on civilian protesters.

If you elected a character such as Bloomberg to be mayor, you must have known what he was going to do. He is sitting in that seat as a representative of the top 1 percent of the American population. For this reason, he hates the Occupy Wall Street protesters. In his opinion, capitalism, which is responsible for his wealth, cannot be questioned.

As you know, thousands of American citizens have been protesting the system for months in New York’s Zuccotti Park. They are unarmed people, set up in tents, fighting for social equality, a solution to unemployment and a better world. Last Wednesday, the New York City police (we know them as the NYPD from television shows that glorify the American police state) descended on the park fully armed, used excessive force and arrested hundreds of protesters. All of this happened in the so-called “land of freedom!”

While the NYPD were swinging batons and spraying people with pepper spray, Bloomberg said, “Unfortunately, some protesters today have deliberately pursued violence. Police used harsh measures to protect themselves.”*

These days, we are hearing similar things in the capital of another country.

The Ba’ath regime in Syria, while slaughtering unarmed civilian demonstrators, hid behind the excuse that “armed agitators have leaked in among the protesters’ ranks. Syrian soldiers may target civilians when trying to defend themselves.” What is the difference between this statement and the one made by the mayor of New York while he was dispatching “Robocops” on innocent demonstrators?

Look at the coincidence: We saw that at the same time that New York City police were attacking Zuccotti Park, nearly 500 people throughout the United States in similar encampments were arrested and the “Occupy” camps were dispersed with force. These actions coincided with the American media suddenly labeling the demonstrators as “pro-terrorist” and “anarchists.” (When the New York encampment was being raided, the caption on CNN’s broadcast was “Occupy Wall Street Anarchy.” While innocent people were being beaten by the police, CBS coolly proclaimed that the protests had turned violent.)

It is obvious that the ruling power is upset at the extent to which the system has been questioned. In fact, it is important to understand what kind of president we are dealing with. This was evidenced by the comment made by the White House spokesman about the police intervention in the demonstrations: “[T]he president’s position is that … it balances between a long tradition of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech in this country and obviously of demonstrating and protesting, and also the very important need to maintain law and order.”

The Syrian dictator Bashar Assad is killing people with the same rationale that Barack Obama is using against the protesters in his country.

The Sept. 11 attack on the “super power” has steered America away from its tradition of freedom and toward a repressive future. (Don’t be surprised if America has a president like Putin in the near future). Despite the fact that the “ruling elders” of Europe, Italy and Greece, cannot pay their debts and have concocted “interim technocratic government regimes,” we are talking about a healthy democratic process in the Middle East. With America and Europe like this, just forget about it.

In a world like this, to believe that the notion of the Arab Spring is real and long-lasting is either optimistic or requires one to have a very good imagination. In a world in which images of Gadhafi’s lynching were seen as necessary or were not greeted with a reaction, everything is possible.

Really … I wonder why Tahrir Square has begun to heat up again?

*Editor’s note: This quote, accurately translated, could not be verified.