SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
... a French police official responsible for public security in a key section of central Paris, and two intelligence officials from NATO countries who directly work in counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations... said the circumstantial evidence available pointed to what would be openly called a coup attempt in any other nation.
...
One NATO source set the stage, using terms more commonly used to describe unrest in developing countries.
“The defeated president gives a speech to a group of supporters where he tells them he was robbed of the election, denounces his own administration’s members and party as traitors, and tells his supporters to storm the building where the voting is being held,” the NATO intelligence official said.
“The supporters, many dressed in military attire and waving revolutionary-style flags, then storm the building where the federal law-enforcement agencies controlled by the current president do not establish a security cordon, and the protesters quickly overwhelm the last line of police.
“The president then makes a public statement to the supporters attacking the Capitol that he loves them but doesn’t really tell them to stop,” the official said. “Today I am briefing my government that we believe with a reasonable level of certainty that Donald Trump attempted a coup that failed when the system did not buckle.
...
The French police official said they believed that an investigation would find that someone interfered with the deployment of additional federal law-enforcement officials on the perimeter of the Capitol complex; the official has direct knowledge of the proper procedures for security of the facility.
...
It is routine for the Capitol Police to coordinate with the federal Secret Service and the Park Police and local police in Washington, DC, before large demonstrations. The National Guard, commanded by the Department of Defence, is often on standby too.On Wednesday, however, that coordination was late or absent.
“You cannot tell me I don’t know what they should have done. I can fly to Washington tomorrow and do that job, just as any police official in Washington can fly to Paris and do mine,” the official said. The official directs public security in a central Paris police district filled with government buildings and tourist sites.
“These are not subtle principles” for managing demonstrations, “and they transfer to every situation,” the official said. “This is why we train alongside the US federal law enforcement to handle these very matters, and it’s obvious that large parts of any successful plan were just ignored.”
...
The third official, who works in counterintelligence for a NATO member, agreed that the situation could only be seen as a coup attempt, no matter how poorly considered and likely to fail, and said its implications might be too huge to immediately fathom.
“Thank God it didn’t work, because I can’t imagine how hard it would be to sanction the US financial system,” the official said. By sanctions, he means the imposition of the diplomatic, military, and trade blockages that democratic nations usually reserve for dictatorships.
“The broader damage around the world will be extensive in terms of reputation, and that’s why Putin doesn’t mind at all that Trump lost. He’s got to be happy to take his chips and count his winnings, which from the Trump era will be a shockingly quick decline in American prestige and moral high ground.
“Every moment the Americans spend on their own self-inflicted chaos helps China, it helps Putin, and, to a lesser extent, it helps the mini-dictators like [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban, who breathe cynicism about politics, human rights, and democracy as their air,” the official said. “They won’t miss Trump; they will be glad to see his drama leave so they can enjoy the poisoned political climate.”
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @05:56AM (25 children)
The main reason there was a minimal security presence at DC was specifically because requests for heightened security were repeatedly rejected [washingtonpost.com] by the house leaders. Those leaders are Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell. Ostensibly the reason they gave is that they didn't like the optics of having Biden's vote certified while a military presence protected it. A more cynical perspective is that they wanted to enable protesters relatively simple access to the chambers as a pretext for the coming authoritarian purge, political circus including another impeachment, and passing laws that will likely go down in history as the Patriot Act 2.0
Oh another fun thing. Trump did tell the protesters to go home. Twitter deleted his post posted January 6th at 4:17pm ET. It was a brief video. Here [factba.se] is what it said:
Seemingly unaware his Tweets were being deleted, about an hour and a half later he against reemphasized:
Twitter deleted every post he made telling the protesters to stop and/or go home. It's almost like "they" (by which I am not referring to Twitter alone) did want the protesters to stop or go home. Go figure.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday January 14 2021, @06:23AM (22 children)
Oh... so you are saying that it was clear and very likely that the protesters will get into the chambers and disrupt part of a constitutional process?
If it was so evident to you, how come the "stable genius" did nothing before it happened? Actually, he explicitely send them there [aljazeera.com] telling them "if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country any more."
Ah, after the mob did the damage.
Isn't this like pushing grandma down the stairs then helping her dust her garments while thinking "Damned witch, she didn't break her neck"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @07:00AM (17 children)
He did act earlier as well. I didn't mention his other Tweets since they were not deleted, but I just realized people can't see them anymore since Twitter banned him. At 2:38pm, exactly 5 minutes after reports that some rioters had entered into Statuary Hall, Trump tweeted:
There's a pretty good timeline available here [usatoday.com]. As for "fighting". It's rhetorical. This [youtube.com] is what an actual call to violence from a politician looks like. Skip to around 1:05 for the juicy bits. You don't need to somehow divine some magical intention. Politicians do not use innuendo in calls to action.
By contrast, Trump used "fight" rhetorically throughout his speech. Let's ctrl+f the term. I'll even do it for you. Apologies for the length of the final quote, it was the conclusion of his speech (and the one the media have focused on) and so I wanted to provide complete context for it.
---
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday January 14 2021, @07:56AM (15 children)
Yes, he was addressing to a bunch of people with a honed and keen taste for the exquisite metaphors the yuuugest poet on the stage was reciting for them in the context of a festival of poetry, literature and interpretative arts.
And, in the heat of the moment, their abilities to perceive the subtle nuances of rhetorics were at their peak, after being fed for two months with the "stop the steal" fiction and kraken mythology, they were really ready to stage the "storm is coming" masterpiece.
I'm ready to believe that what happened at the Capitol was just that, a happening [wikipedia.org]. Tell me more, those 5 people were consumed by the artistic fire burning in the other actors, right?
What's next? You gonna try to convince that "inject bleach" was a piece of sarcasm of the same stable genius author?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @09:36AM (14 children)
Why do you think I'd have the arrogance to believe I could change your view, when I know personally it's probably near impossible for you to change mine even though I'd like to imagine I'm much more open minded than you?
The one thing I believe is that everybody ought be able to defend a view they disagree with in a fashion that people who hold said disagreeable view would agree is a reasonable representation of their position. I could do that easily enough for your view, but due to media propaganda I strongly doubt you could do that for my view without straw manning - even if completely unintentionally. My one and only goal is to give you that knowledge and ability. And, should it happen that circumstances play out as I expect they will in the future, perhaps *then* you might choose to give more credence to these sort of views and the issues we're discussing today.
Indeed if things do *not* play out as I expect then I will certainly be the one giving more credence to what you're saying then. Though certainly not today.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday January 14 2021, @10:02AM (13 children)
Take into consideration the notion of "responsibility for one's action" too, even when the actions is just speech. If you do it, maybe we could find a common ground, maybe not, but without it is certain that we aren't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @03:48PM (12 children)
But of course. The one issue I expect we'll differ on is that I believe we should interpret people's words in the most charitable way possible, and not the most cynical way possible. There are two reasons for this. The first is simply that the charitable way is generally the correct one. The second one is because English is imprecise and full of metaphor, innuendo, and figurative speech. Sometimes this sort of nuanced word artistry is intended, but many other times it is not - and interpretation can lead you to see things that are not there.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 14 2021, @05:37PM (8 children)
Lucky for us the legal system uses the preponderance of evidence instead of your feels when determining guilt.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @06:55PM (7 children)
Not necessarily.
Preponderance of evidence is in matters such as civil disputes, contract issues and so on.
Criminal cases work by reasonable doubt, and based on the ambiguity in the speech and the documented suggestions to go home, there's reasonable doubt all over this case.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @08:19PM
Feelz over realz amirite? TRUMP 2020 (for prison)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday January 15 2021, @12:10AM (5 children)
Apply reasonable doubt then, over what Trump rhetorically said and what part of the audience understood: ‘Death Is the Only Remedy’: Capitol Rioter Charged for Beating D.C. Cop With American Flagpole [thedailybeast.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @04:19AM (4 children)
You don't even believe this. Take the entire audience that was there. It was easily in the tens of thousands, very possibly in the hundreds of thousands. Now take the number of individuals in that group that actively committed violent acts. Divide the latter by the former to get the percent of the audience that "understood" his message to be referring to actual violence. It's near zero. And that's assuming people would *only* commit violence because they believe Trump would condone it. And of course we must also now ignore Trump immediately calling for peaceful protest the moment that protesters were let into the House was announced.
You know this stuff is fake and that it's propaganda. You're consciously blinding yourself to it because you *want* it to be true. Your logic is not even consistent. Would you now attribute the numerous murders, countless assaults, and unimaginable property destruction of the BLM riots to the various politicians that spurred it on encouraged them and spurred them on? And far from calling for protesters to remain peaceful, the political establishment remained absolutely silent on it for months while pretending the violence and destruction of those riots simply did not exist or by marginalizing it in often comically absurd ways [leadstories.com] : "Fiery but mostly peaceful protests" reads the chyron as a reporter looks like he's reporting from Iraq circa 2003.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday January 15 2021, @07:28AM
What I believe is that Trump is a narcissistic vindictive person who had nothing to lose and the entire circus since Nov 3 was his way of payback, with the added opportunity to fill some of his coffers [bloomberg.com] and potentially chasing for other things.
And, to satisfy his urges, in his disregard of anything else - the welfare of the American during a raging pandemic included - he used the stochastic terrorism tactics [wikipedia.org]. Whether or not he understood what he was doing, whether or not he could predict what could happen, he does bear a responsibility in what has happened.
Blaming them and absolving Trump is in no way less disrespectful than Hillary's "basket of deplorable".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday January 15 2021, @07:49AM (2 children)
Any normal person could infer that in such a large audience there will be a number of persons that will reside to violence**.
Not explicitly telling them to refrain from violence before sending them there - especially when before sending them there Trump played the rhetoric to enhance their feeling of loss and asked for action in words with strong violence connotations - this only and it is still enough to hold Trump responsible.
---
** you yourself admitted as such when ascribing to the "cynical perspective" of "they wanted to enable protesters relatively simple access to the chambers".
No matter what Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell wanted or not, fact is Trump pumped them up then sent them there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 17 2021, @04:55AM (1 child)
Yes, and for not paying attention to that, Trump does bear some blame. But that does not mean he purposefully and intentionally meant to incite those small numbers of folks.
Yes, his words, while not explicitly calling for what happened, can be way too easily twisted into appearing that he was secretly calling for violence. He bears responsibility for his choice of words. But he also did not,, in those same words, ever explicitly tell them directly to go commit what they committed. So while he bears some responsibility for poor word choice, and not realizing that there were likely to be a small number of nutcases that will take anything too far, the nutcases are directly to blame for the break-in and subsequent activity.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday January 17 2021, @10:40PM
People go to jail for manslaughter [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday January 15 2021, @01:24AM (2 children)
Yet another "master of rhetoric" Rudy Giuliani Says 'Trial By Combat' Was Reference To 'Documentary' 'Game Of Thrones' [huffingtonpost.com.au]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 17 2021, @04:59AM (1 child)
And yet, that very phrase: "trial by combat" is used throughout the five Game of Thrones books. So it is also, very explicitly, a Thrones reference.
Now, if one has never read the books, and only watched the HBO show, the phrase was not uttered nearly as often in the actor dialog that makes up the show. So only watching the show, one would not see the connection so closely.
But in the books, that exact quote occurs easily on a few hundred pages out of the thousand plus pages that make up all five books.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday January 17 2021, @10:36PM
And you assume, as a precondition to participating in the insurrection, everybody must've read the books or watched the movies?
Many of those haven't had enough time to do it, reading and connecting all the Qanons dots.
I didn't read or watched anything "Game of Thrones", I found better ways to waste my time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @04:40PM
Sounds like he was referring to the traitors who let the mob in and were part of the mob.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @07:42AM (2 children)
Basically there is an immense amount of pressure put on politicians behind the scenes from the "establishment". Many politicians have been in congress pretty much their whole lives. For instance Biden has been in politics for about 50 years. And the establishment is also very much intertwined with corporate interests which is one reason "public service" is a bit of a misnomer since it's really a great path to becoming a multi-millionaire. These interests includes commercial corporations like Google, Apple, Disney (who owns ABC), Comcast (who owns NBC), the military industrial complex like Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, as well as banking interests like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc. And finally there are also our intelligence agencies who effectively work as a tool for the establishment.
Collectively this group (the "establishment") has an amount of influence and control that simply cannot be overstated. Trump made it extremely clear that the goal of the protests was to give their politicians the courage and support needed to do whatever they feel is the just and constitutionally correct thing to do. Right now those establishment interests are currently working to completely destroy any politician who did not support Biden, and every single congressman in DC knew this would happen. Going against the establishment in US politics is *extremely* dangerous and takes immense bravery.
And this applies not just to the right. Why do you think Sanders goes far left only to jump right back under the umbrella of the establishment, like a trained dog? I don't think it's because of some nonsense like "controlled opposition." It's simply because he knows that if he persists acting in a way that might genuinely imperil the establishment, then they will relentlessly destroy him. And so he probably rationalizes that he can help make 'baby step' changes from the inside. Of course he won't be able to, but at least he's able to lead a comfortable life while still occasionally espousing his views convincing himself that this is better than nothing. Or similarly why do you think democrats lined up to sign away their rights to even vote on the Transpacific Partnership trade agreement when Obama was trying to shove it through in such an undemocratic way?
Trump obviously knew there would be some violence at the protests, much how democratic leaders obviously also know there will be some violence at BLM related protests. But I think he himself was also caught off guard by the protesters effectively being let into the House. And let in they were. The doors of the House are going to be deeply reinforced. Simply shut and lock the doors and nobody's getting in. But once the protesters were in, the entire image, shape, and character of the protests changed. And I think that was entirely intentional. Just keep this mind as our new mono-government introduces Patriot Act 2.0, under whatever name they will give it.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday January 14 2021, @08:36AM (1 child)
listen, I don't know your age, but let me remind you that "politics is the art of the possible". And determining what is possible will always require negotiation in a democracy.
If the "patriots" will ever manage to create their own party (which I doubt, given they are too heterogeneous and have no idea what they want), they'll play the same style and become "of the establishment" themselves. Because any other set of rules for the play ends being much worse.
And you'd want freshers to negotiate your interest with the others, right? With no experience in politics. Somebody who declares "It's my way or I'll throw a tantrum" is exactly the one you'd need?
What are the chances you're gonna end with something even if only marginally better for all involved?
Well, the correct solution should involve at least getting rid of the financial consideration in politics, right?
How come Trump sided more in his 4 years with the corporate world than with the middle class, then?
His tax breaks for the middle class were scheduled to expire in 2025, the corporate tax break never - even if his whole tax breaks were to add tens of trillions on the US govt deficit, his plans were that only the middle class will cover it.
He was not at all concerned about "Citizen United" and about letting the corporate money speak in politics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @05:10PM
I grew up in that culture, and I think they have a good idea what they want.
- Overturn Roe v. Wade
- Repeal 13A (abolished slavery), 14A (citizenship), 15A (black suffrage), 16A (income tax--they believe this one was never actually ratified in addition to their sovereign citizen woo), 19A (women's suffrage), 22A (term limits), probably 24A (abolished poll tax), and 26A (lowered voting age to 18)
- Exterminate Jewish, (most) Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Mormon, and LGBT people (not sure whether they want to exterminate Hispanics these days, and Asians never really came up)
- Exterminate Democrats, Greens, anarchists, and socialists
- Enslave Africans (they believe the bible commands this based on the cool bro story about Noah getting drunk off his ass)
- Rebuild economy for total war [wikipedia.org]
All of that is supposedly preparation for the second coming of Man Jeebus who will personally lead the total war economy on a jihad to continue the genocides internationally. Supposedly after the jihad, then the world will be ready for New Jerusalem to descend from heaven and rule the world with an iron fist for a millennium. iirc, the white throne judgement ("white throne" takes on a whole new meaning in Christian Identity!!) happens after the millennium.
They really are that evil and that crazy. The more I look back on it, the more I realize I am lucky I got out alive. Probably the only reason was that Da didn't want to get arrested for my murder. The idiot actually believed I'm a literal shape-shifting demon who murdered his real son. Did I mention these people are nutso?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 14 2021, @05:35PM
What, you think the National Guard is under the control of the Executive Branch?!?! FAKE NEWS!!!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @01:54PM (1 child)
Nancy "I just don't even know why there aren't uprisings all over the country" Pelosi is a complete [speaker.gov] idiot. [speaker.gov]
She pays lip-service to "progressive" causes but uses "dehumanizing language" such as "a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a daughter" [twitter.com] when she's clearly a meatbag with a front hole [thehill.com] and as corrupt as they come. [nationalfile.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday January 15 2021, @12:29AM
Pelosi is in her 17th term. Who are the "idiots"? You think corruption matters to their supporters?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..