I guess I’m the only one who remembers when a conservative group flew an airplane into the Pentagon.
Still think it’s “nutty”?
Yes. One crazy person ramming a barricade is not justification for thousands of national guard being permanently stationed around the Capitol. There have been many nuts who have attacked the government in Washington before without that kind of drafonian response. Shots have been fired at the White House, a plane was flown into it, the Capitol has had activists from groups like Code Pink try to shout down running sessions, bombs have been detonated in the Capitol Building, etc.
Here in Canada we had a guy break into parliament and start hunting politicians. An old commissionaire stopped him with his service weapon while the politicians hid. We did not lock down Ottawa because of it.
The District of Columbia isn’t locked down, either. Except for the Tidal Basin to keep tourists away from the cherry trees – because of COVID. Enforced social distancing.
And after he committed his crimes, Canada seriously ramped up security measures on Parliament Hill:
And that was just because of one armed attacker. If you’d had a several-hundred-person-strong mob led by organized right-wing extremists breaking into the Parliament buildings, injuring and killing police officers and threatening to hang legislators, you might still have had some troops on Parliament Hill three months after the insurrection too.
Hey, your giving Code Pink* ideas!
*The noted, heavily armed, terrorist organization.
This is a bizarre way to describe the two men who shot and killed the assailant.
34 year old RCMP Corporal Curtis Barrett and 58 year old Sergeant at Arms Kevin Vickers are not an old door attendant.
WTF?
With Sgt. Richard Rozon on his left, Const. Martin Fraser on his right and Cpl. Danny Daigle positioned as rear-guard, he walked up the steps of Centre Block and into the rotunda.
Barrett said he smelled gunpowder immediately and knew shots had been fired.
He saw members of the House of Commons Security Services signalling at him and pointing towards the far end of the Hall of Honour, near the Library of Parliament.
All four officers had their firearms drawn and, as they continued moving forward, Barrett noticed Vickers taking cover against a wall.
After seeing movement by the Library doors, they heard a loud gunshot. As they moved forward, there were more shots and Barrett says he felt the percussion and shockwave of a bullet going past him.
Zehaf-Bibeau did not appear to know Vickers was there and the distraction provided by the RCMP officers allowed the Sergeant-at-Arms to break cover and fall to the floor as he was shooting at Zehaf-Bibeau.
At the same time, Barrett was firing as he walked toward the gunman.
When the RCMP corporal was within a few feet of Zehaf-Bibeau, he started to go down.
As the OPP report noted: “(Barrett) strongly believes that all his 15 shots hit the gunman. The one round he can physically remember is the shot going into the gunman’s head.”
“An old commissionaire,” indeed.
Hmm… As I recall, the initial reports said that the guy who stopped the gunman was a commissionaire, and the only reason he had a wwapon was because he retained his old service weappn which he kept in a drawer. But now I remember that later reports clarified what happened and included the other officees.
I remembered the first report, but not the second. My bad.
Still, the point remains that while we did beef up security, we didn’t do anything like surround parliament with fencing and razor wire and station thousands of soldiers there to protect it. Because that would have been a gross overreaction.
In the meantime, it’s looking like the large proportiin of ‘insurrectionists’ are unlkkely to be charged with anything more serious than trespassing.
Do you understand the difference between one person and a thousand people?
Hint: it’s about a thousand people.
Yeah, I don’t think anybody ever seriously suggested that there were more than a few dozen organized right-wing extremists in the several-hundred-strong mob. But that’s a few dozen more than ever attacked the Canadian Parliament Buildings, of course.
I completely agree (and so do D.C. folks of all political stripes, as I pointed out earlier) that deployed National Guard troops aren’t appropriate as a permanent response even to organized insurrection attempts on the Capitol. At least not until the right-wing extremists get way better organized and firepowered than the last gang was.
However, in the short term I think it’s appropriate to let the security services make their own decisions about when the deployment of troops is no longer necessary. Even if some sheltered Canadians in their liberal society with no personal experience of right-wing domestic terrorism mobs may consider it “terrible optics”.
The riot was Jan 6. It’s now April. Just how long is ‘temporary’? Since there have been no credible threats of organized terrorist plans, just what facts on the ground would change to make the soldiers go home?
And how reasonable is it to keep national guardsmen deployed for such a long time? They aren’t supposed to be a standing army, and many of them are away from jobs and loved ones. You need a damned good reason to keep them deployed, and not just general fears of what ‘the right’ might do.
I think this is political. The Democrats are preparing their ‘domestic extremism’ and gun control bills, and surrounding themselves with soldiers helps them make the case for increased surveillance and disarming of their political enemies.
If I’m right, the ‘threat’ will ease and the soldiers will go home after the bills pass, and the fact of their leaving will be spun as proof that the bill was the right thing to do and now Washington can breathe a sigh of relief and send the soldiers home.
If the soldiers stay, then the Dems are actually paranoid and believe there is some cabal of militias out there ready to invade Washington.
There was a cabal of militias out there ready to invade the Capitol. In fact, they did just that. Followed by vague rumblings about ‘a real inauguration’ in March and even some about this fall. Temporarily stationed National Guard troops are not a standing army (the Army+ is actually that). There has always been a plan for phasing down and then ending the NG presence. Come back and huff and puff when that date has come and gone and the NG states’ governors ask for their citizen solders back and haven’t gotten them.
Until May 23, according to the Pentagon.
Why, of course they are, along with the rest of the US military forces. Honestly, Sam, this is what, the third time I’ve had to explain to you what a “standing army” is?
I think what you mean is that they’re not supposed to be full-time active duty military personnel. But the National Guard is and always has been part of the USA’s standing army.
Let’s see, the Pentagon and intelligence services and local law enforcement say there are credible threats along with needed upgrades to USCP capabilities that justify keeping deployed National Guard troops at the Capitol for another few months to support the USCP.
On the other hand, some rando Canadian whose track record on assessing security issues is none of the best, and whose practical experience with them is nonexistent, thinks “this is political”.
Gosh, whatever shall we do when it comes to evaluating the relative credibility of these two competing views. So hard to decide.
Mobile anti-aircraft batteries were in strategic locations around the area from 9/12/2001 until 1/2/2002. Just some food for thought.
Look we needed to protect ourselves from the Code Pink air force so that was totally reasonable.
About that guy that crashed into the fencing…
Suspect is a member of the Nation of Islam, not a right wing militia guy.
I would like to “like” or “Cecil” Kimstu’s post but at this time and time of night all I can do is say: +1 or maybe embed a gif showing someone saying and pointing the word “This”.
So, now the dead cop actually counts?