I don’t really have to say yet again that I do not condone the violence that happened, but, when you call people you disagree with Nazis and White Supremacists and raaaaacists and such for years, then conduct an election that is full of, let’s call them, irregularities, which can’t be explained and are not explained, people are going to be pissed. When they hear the plans of Democrats, they are pissed. But, hey, dissent is now no longer patriotic, and will be deemed an insurgency
Attack on Capitol was the beginning of an American insurgency, counterterrorism experts warn
After ransacking the U.S. Capitol and threatening the lives of members of Congress on Jan. 6, they walked down the building’s broad steps unmolested and into the mythology of right-wing extremism. Many wore shirts identifying them as accolades of QAnon, riders in “the Storm†who believe the fever-dream conspiracy that they are foot soldiers in a war against Satan-worshipping pedophiles in the government’s “deep state†bureaucracy. There were also neo-Nazis and anti-Semites in the overwhelmingly white crowd, including a man wearing a “Camp Auschwitz†sweatshirt. Racists rallied to the Confederate flag of rebellion that some of the insurrectionists waved in the halls of Congress.
Yes, this hyperbole is actually in the straight news section. As far as ransacking, it was nothing compared to what BLM/Antifa did to privately owned stores across the country
With President Trump only days away from an unceremonious departure from the White House, the vision of a mob desecrating the citadel of democracy felt for many observers like the end of a shameful period of norm breaking and tradition smashing. But for counterterrorism experts who have spent the two decades since the 9/11 terrorist attacks closely studying and fighting violent extremist groups overseas, the spectacle looked like something altogether different: the likely birthing of a violent American insurgency.
Retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal was formerly the head of Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq and the commander of all U.S. and allied troops fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan. “I did see a similar dynamic in the evolution of al-Qaida in Iraq, where a whole generation of angry Arab youth with very poor prospects followed a powerful leader who promised to take them back in time to a better place, and he led them to embrace an ideology that justified their violence. This is now happening in America,†McChrystal told Yahoo News.
A radical group of citizens have adopted a very hard-line view of the country, he noted, that echoes the Lost Cause narrative that took root in the old South after the Civil War. “Only President Trump has updated Lost Cause with his ‘Stop the Steal’ narrative that they lost because of a stolen election, and that is the only thing holding these people down and stopping them from assuming their rightful place in society,†McChrystal said. “That gives them legitimacy to become even more radical. I think we’re much further along in this radicalization process, and facing a much deeper problem as a country, than most Americans realize.â€
Similarly, counterterrorism experts say a number of the white supremacist groups who took part in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol have reached out and formed linkages with white nationalist counterparts in Germany, Canada, Norway and Russia. “I worked with the State Department to designate as terrorists an extreme white supremacist group in Russia that has many ties to U.S.-based groups,†said Ali Soufan, a former FBI supervisory special agent and counterterrorism expert who led some of the highest-profile investigations of al-Qaida attacks, speaking on Thursday to reporters. He noted that a National Security Council strategy document identified the Nordic Front, a neo-Nazi group spreading throughout Nordic countries, as a threat to the United States. “If the Nordic Front is a threat to the U.S., that means they have some connection to activities here. There are also [right-wing] extremist groups in Canada designated as terrorist organizations by our ‘Five Eyes’ allies, but they still operate with impunity here in the United States. That has to stop.â€
So, dissent will now be labeled terrorism and insurgency. Should be a fun four years.
