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... 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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) 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