The total strength of government building security in DC is around 2 battaglions.
You think there is nobody who can bring 2000-3000 people to the rifle, and numerically overwhelm them? And it seems that not insubstantial numbers of DC security personnel did simply desert their posts.
Commando paratroopers with heavy weapons, and moreover armour will leave no chances for a regular army unit, let alone civilian police.
I expect (given the consequences of allowing them in and prior use of lethal force against demonstrations by Americans in America) the security personnel to be ready, willing, and able to use lethal force to keep armed protestors out, even if the doors were open.
I expect the doors to be strong enough to withstand anything short of an RPG.
I do not expect security personnel to desert their posts in their own capital city.
Surely that was out of concern for their own safety (to retreat can be a valid strategy) and / or not willing to open fire on US civilians in such a symbolic place.
It's still a shame. I do wonder if there's something else they could have done. I don't know anything about how hard it is to stop a car.
The latter assumption is a serious mistake. Sure, the mob is not as well trained as professionals, but when you consider the number of vets with some military experience, the fairly large numbers of militia organizations which provide amateur levels of training in both virtual and real contexts, and the high availability of training materials (military manuals etc), it's smart to assume that any given mob will contain some people who know what they're doing and are able to direct others.
But DC has rather strict laws about firearms, so it was rational to rely on a swarming approach and then try to exploit the gains from that tactic. While the attempt to take over the capitol failed insofar as Congress reconvened to finish the process of counting electoral college votes, and many of the participants have been or are about to be arrested, the far right has scored an outstanding propaganda victory (complete with photogenic martyrs) at little real cost. I would say 2021 has got off to a spectacular start for them.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshuaPotash/status/1347277542588...
If your aim is to stage a putsch for real, you wouldn't be bothered by some gun laws, you would've gone all in.
But you make a good point; perhaps the plotters over-relied on shock value and ended up half-assing it, or perhaps there was no more plan other than stirring up disorder and hoping to capitalize on an emergency situation.
I'm pessimistic about the long-term implications; the far right gave up on the idea of a political solution some time ago and the less far right is now about ready to join them.
To me, it felt they were quite demoralised.
Obviously this is a developing situation. And the details don’t actually matter to my point. Clear and present evidence to commit acts of domestic terrorism was available, and people were still allowed to loiter and vandalize as they pleased.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/pipe-bomb-rnc...
It did show great weakness, but be careful drawing conclusions from this observation, such as a presumption of actual weakness.
As a commenter below notes:
https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=25667558&goto=item%3Fi...
>> Per the capitol police website they have 2,600 officers and a budget of $460 million. It honestly just ... didn't look like they were trying very hard. They managed to arrest what, 14 people? Compare that to the BLM protests on the west coast where unmarked vans of feds were literally rolling up and black bagging people off the street. USCP is charged with protecting Congress, and I think members of congress should be thinking hard about whether the police were complicit in what happened today.
--
> We were just wanting a dumb action movie to pass the time. The North Korean terrorists just basically walked in and took the White House. We were like, how stupid is that, no way that could really happen. And here today, we literally saw it happen.
Technically, you did not see that happen - the people that walked in were not North Korean terrorists. This distinction may be important, or it may not.
> People took over one of our nation’s most important buildings with extremely high level people in it without a sweat, without resistance, and basically without repercussions. I remarked today to my family that I bet Russians and North Koreans were watching going, wait, we can just walk in?
I would bet my money that they're thinking something else entirely, something more along the lines of: Now isn't this an interesting development! What is the range of plausible explanations for this unusual and counter-intuitve series of events, that took place at one of the most strategic locations in America's capital, on a very special day, when large quantities of protesters were known (in advance) to be present, and violence was expected? Is this strange situation purely organic, or might something more interesting be going on?.
Thirty years ago I expect American journalists would be asking similar questions. Unfortunately, the only place you are likely to find such curiosity and diversity of thought in modern America is in conspiracy theory forums - but you know what they imply(!) (over, and over, and over) about them: "If they propose an idea, or explanation for something, it should be considered to be false".
> Of course they couldn’t because they aren’t white “Americans”. And all of this really paints a nasty picture of what happened today. It was a soup of treason, violence, white privilege, disgrace, sadness, and weakness.
Technically, this is just your heuristic prediction of what happened, and what it is. What really happened, what it really is, is unknown (to the general public).
> I really could not believe how they could just take over the place. I even saw a video where police actually just opened the gates for them.
I don't find it hard to believe at all. I don't even find it mildly surprising - but I do find it extremely interesting. So interesting that if any journalists bothered to look into it, I'd be tempted to read such articles to see what they come up with. I wonder if any such articles will be written, or if this remarkable phenomenon will be universally (by all major media outlets) attributed to "white privilege" or some such simplistic, evidence-free answer.
Let's see what CNN has to say about this performance:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/politics/capitol-police-react...
In this article, we have observations that security was obviously lax despite it being "...known for weeks that President Donald Trump was promoting a rally he said was aimed at preventing the certification of Joe Biden's win."
What we do not have here, is anyone asking questions about why security was so lax.
FTA:
- Lawmakers say they are perplexed at the lack of preparedness among law enforcement given that it had been known for weeks that President Donald Trump was promoting a rally he said was aimed at preventing the certification of Joe Biden's win. Rep. Mike Quigley, an Illinois Democrat who was locked in the House chamber during an armed standoff between Capitol Police and a rioter, praised the officers who were in the building that put their lives on the line to protect the lawmakers. But Quigley made clear that they were outnumbered and law enforcement was under prepared. "The Capitol Police I was around did an amazing job under difficult circumstances," Quigley told CNN. "My concern wasn't with how valiant the Capitol Police were. It was that an hour before the debate started, I looked at the throngs of people surrounding different sections of the Capitol -- and said, we don't have enough security." Quigley added: "I'm no expert in security, but you can tell we were out-manned in an hour before the debate," referring to Congress' proceedings to certify Biden's win.
--
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/06/politics/capitol-riots-what-h...
In this article we have more observations of unusual anomalies. And again, what we do not have here, is anyone asking questions about why security was so lax.
FTA:
- The chaotic federal response to the Trump rally Wednesday, which was overwhelmed by rioters who stormed the US Capitol, stood in sharp contrast to the heavily-armed presence of thousands of federal authorities during summer protests in Washington, DC, following the police killing of George Floyd.
- The law enforcement response that allowed a typically heavily secured federal landmark to fall under attack, with rioters breaking through windows and into lawmakers' offices and gathering places, came from a hesitant federal bureaucracy after early assurances from DC and Capitol law enforcement agencies. Agencies that had law enforcement that could help Wednesday waited to be asked. "It was a mess. Nobody was communicating. No one knew what we were supposed to be doing there," said one federal law enforcement officer who was dispatched to the Capitol.
- Justice Department officials were in charge of coordinating the federal agencies and US National Guard response ahead of President Donald Trump's rally near the Washington Monument. Some organizers publicly said they planned to conduct a "wild" march to Capitol Hill as the joint session of Congress met to certify President-elect Joe Biden as the next president. But agencies were waiting to be asked by other authorities to help -- even as Trump's election protest unraveled.
- "Law enforcement failed to understand what the likelihood of this threat was," CNN law enforcement analyst Jonathan Wackrow, a former USSS agent, said of the day's events, though "no one should be surprised that this was attempted," given Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani's comments at the rally earlier in the day that this should be a "trial by combat." "There should have been a wall of law enforcement," Wackrow said. Department of Homeland Security spokesman Alexei Woltornist said the agency was running a "virtual situation room" to track communication between agencies, but was "not tracking any active threats." US Customs and Border Protection, a law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security, had dozens of personnel prepared if needed.
- As for the Justice Department, acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen deployed more than 300 agents and officers from the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the US Marshals Service, to assist the Capitol Police. But the Capitol Police had already lost control. Some of those deployments came almost an hour after the mob put the Capitol into lockdown.
- "By the time the Capitol Police asked for help, the crowd was already inside the building," another federal law enforcement official said.
- After criticism from Washington, DC, municipal officials over the heavy-handed response during the summer Black Lives Matter protests, federal authorities had a visibly lighter presence for the Trump rally.
- Two federal law enforcement officials said Capitol Police assured Justice officials that they were prepared for the rally, particularly since the Capitol grounds are already barricaded in preparation for the Inauguration ceremonies in two weeks.
It's interesting though....it seems like such an obvious question, doesn't it? Shouldn't at least some journalists have this question?
Or, imagine a scenario where this took place at a business owned by anyone in this forum - wouldn't they be asking some questions about wtf happened? Yet when it is the US Capitol, most people have no curiosity.
To me, there are at least two interesting aspects to this. The first is the conspiracy theory aspect (why was security so lax), and then the psychological/neurological aspect (why do so few people who are highly skilled in logic have no curiosity)?
The US Congress of of great symbolic and relatively little actual importance. If the North Korean military walked in to the Senate and gunned down everyone in it the outcomes would roughly be: US loses ~80 corrupt leaches. US loses ~20 great people. Northern part of the Korean peninsula becomes a glassy wasteland inhabited by cockroaches.
Mobs of grumpy people routinely yell at US politicians, I've seen various protesters screaming politicians into a defensive corner. The BLM protests at the 2020 RNC convention jumps to mind as having scenes that were probably felt just as scary for the politicians involved (the treatment of Rand Paul jumped out at me as unpleasant). US citizens get to scream at their politicians an they frequently exercise that privilege. There isn't an obvious racial element to it.
Others disagree. Nearly half a billion was spent in total in the fight over the seat for Georgia.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/us/politics/georgia-senat...
The institution of Congress is critical. But the specific people in it at any time are important because of how they got there/who supported them on the way in and not because of who they are. They could be replaced and it wouldn't be a big issue, technically speaking. Practically there'd be huge consequences for whoever was stupid enough to disrespect the US Congress.
The intent was partisan, to remove representatives of one side to change the result of votes.
> Practically there'd be huge consequences for whoever was stupid enough to disrespect the US Congress
A few people have been arrested. I don't expect many of them to serve prison time. Those who organised this, encouraged it, sold tshirts with "Civil War 6 Jan" on, will not experience any consequences. And don't forget the president can still pardon them.
Selling offensive t-shirts isn't even remotely close to a problem. I too doubt they will experience any consequences.
Hopefully the violent looters and lawbreakers in the protest get prosecuted. But there are recent precedents on this issue; most of the protesters will have been peaceful and shouldn't suffering consequences for exercising basic freedoms.
Interesting time to make this observation. Let’s see.
If North Korean terrorists were to execute 100 senators, you've already lost. Massacring a bunch of poor pawns in North Korea doesn't solve anything except maybe appeasing some people's ideas of revenge. The DPRK hardly cares today about most of population, but in return they would effectively shutdown the US government and possibly put the entirety of the government into a standstill, possibly freezing tons of regular processes. Before any other bomb is launched, people would be more concerned about making sure they are properly secured - after all if north korean terrorists already executed the Senate, your main fear would be that you're next; and glassing peasants wouldn't prevent that.
In other words, your opponent has just taken your all your Rooks, Knights and Bishops and in response you wipe out their pawns while the opponent's queen is about to checkmate you.
I recently watched the movie Olympus Has Fallen. We were just wanting a dumb action movie to pass the time. The North Korean terrorists just basically walked in and took the White House. We were like, how stupid is that, no way that could really happen. And here today, we literally saw it happen. People took over one of our nation’s most important buildings with extremely high level people in it without a sweat, without resistance, and basically without repercussions. I remarked today to my family that I bet Russians and North Koreans were watching going, wait, we can just walk in? Of course they couldn’t because they aren’t white “Americans”. And all of this really paints a nasty picture of what happened today. It was a soup of treason, violence, white privilege, disgrace, sadness, and weakness.
I mean, a bomb on the grounds was found and detonated by a bomb squad and people were still allowed to stay on the premises. I really could not believe how they could just take over the place. I even saw a video where police actually just opened the gates for them.