Despite widespread social media activity

Jan 10th, 2021 | By
Category: Notes and Comment Blog

Politico reports that the Pentagon says it did everything right so shut up.

One obvious complication here is that Trump stuffed a lot of his people into the Pentagon in preparation for the coup so it could be Trump’s people now saying don’t be silly of course we didn’t help the coup attempt.

But Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and other top officials noted that in the days leading up to Wednesday, federal and D.C. law enforcement officials requested only 340 unarmed DoD personnel to do specific missions, primarily traffic and crowd control… At the time, officials had a wide range of estimates for the size of the crowds that would descend on Washington for Wednesday’s procedural vote to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s win, from 2,000 to 80,000 people, McCarthy said. In an earlier press conference, he said the idea of rioters storming the Capitol wasn’t in his “wildest imagination.”

Well why not? I wasn’t expecting it either but it’s not my job to keep track of security threats, but it is his job. Word is the planning was visible all over social media, and surely it is someone’s job to pay attention to coup-planning and pass the information on to people responsible for security. They certainly seemed to expect, or to be eager to pretend to expect, massive violence and insurrection last summer when it was protests against racism and police violence, so why not now when it’s literal plans to overturn an election by force? WHY NOT NOW? Why wasn’t it in Ryan’s wildest imagination that people who were publicly planning to storm the Capitol would do just that?

Despite widespread social media activity that suggested the protests might be violent, federal and local officials believed they had sufficient personnel to handle the situation, said chief Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman, noting that the Pentagon does not conduct domestic intelligence collection.

Ok but does the Pentagon listen to people who do conduct domestic intelligence collection? Pentagon people were there for Trump’s violent clearance of Lafayette Park and march to the church, so what was different about this recent march and insurrection?

The Justice Department and other law enforcement told the Pentagon repeatedly that they had no indications that there would be “significant violent protests,” said Ken Rapuano, the assistant secretary of defense for homeland security.

If that’s true then the people who told the Pentagon that were in on the plot. The “indications” were out there in public, including Trump’s tweets.

Once the protests turned violent and it became clear the Capitol Police would need backup, Miller moved to approve Bowser’s request for additional D.C. Guardsmen, and later authorized thousands more personnel from six states to help civil authorities maintain order in the city, the officials said.

Why later? Why not instantly?

Army officials initially expressed concern about the request, because part of the original agreement was to keep Guardsmen away from the Capitol on Wednesday, a defense official said. Officials have messaged for weeks that the military will have no role in determining the outcome of the election.

Yeaaaah I don’t think that’s supposed to mean “the military will stand by and watch placidly as armed fascists seize the Capitol and murder half the Congress.”

Top Pentagon leaders were criticized this summer when National Guardsmen helped clear Lafayette Square of peaceful protesters in order for Trump to stage a photo op in front of a church holding a Bible.

You couldn’t make it up. In the summer Trump staged a fascist military suppression of peaceful protest and the people cried foul, so in the winter Trump staged a violent coup to wipe out the Democratic half of Congress and hand the election to himself and the military watched it on tv.

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