Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., right, and Senator Roy Blunt, R-Mo., confer during the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee confirmation hearing for Gina Raimondo, nominee for Secretary of Commerce, in Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC on January 26, 2021. / AFP / POOL / Tom Williams
(Ramin Mazaheri (@RaminMazaheri2) is currently covering the US election. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea, and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China,’ which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.)
Tuesday, 26 January 2021 10:40 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 26 January 2021 10:44 PM ]
Much ink could be spilled about the upcoming, and second, Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump, but that would be a waste of ink – the trial has nothing to do with social justice or patriotism and everything to do with aggravating political divisions for elites’ gain.
We could say it’s just “politics as usual”, but only if: the “True Rate of Unemployment” wasn’t pushing 30%, even per Politico; 2020 didn’t witness the biggest annual rise in the US poverty rate since the 1960s; America didn’t just have its most disputed election in anyone’s memory; there weren’t armed soldiers protecting politicians nationwide, or, according to nearly 40% of the country, there weren’t armed soldiers making sure politicians are illegitimately installed in the White House. In the US right now politics are not usual, whatsoever.
It is incredibly bad journalism the way the US Mainstream Media endlessly overplays the number of Republican defectors against Trump – they get way, way too much press, and of course it’s because they don’t want to admit Trump has any grassroots support (which is not from neo-Nazis). One might have easily imagined that scores of House Republicans were about to vote in favor of Trump’s impeachment, yet only 10 out of 211 did (5%). To give one mainstream example, it was totally misleading of the Los Angeles Timesto write that a “bipartisan House majority voted to charge him” after the House’s January 13 vote, and in their lede paragraph, no less, and to even mention the 10 Republicans in their headline. Trump remains the most popular Republican by leaps and bounds – there is no way 17 of 50 Republican senators will end their re-election chances just to appease a Never Trumper movement which only won the general election by a 51-47 margin. Trump’s first Senate trial was a landslide – by supermajority standards – for “not guilty”: 52-48 in favor of Trump.
Given the assurance of acquittal (again) we should ask who benefits from this second trial, and who does not benefit?
Obviously, the enormous mass of everyday Americans will see no benefit from the trial, and I listed just a few of the once-in-a-century reasons why they have more pressing concerns. It is never declared in the US media that the US public has no real appetite for the Senate trial – they need and want the governors of the nation to govern, and right now.
The only way Americans could possibly be convinced that the nation needs to shut down Congress for weeks with a trial whose conclusion is not in doubt is via constant Mainstream Media talking heads shrieking about its necessity, and with the very same fervor that they were shrieking that Russia stole the 2016 election. This is fake-news, too, and it certainly takes airtime away from discussing things like the “True Rate of Unemployment”.
The only people among average Americans who insist that seeing ex-president Trump in the dock is more pressing than resolving the multiple areas of socioeconomic disaster are the most bloodthirsty and rabid of the Never Trumpers. How can one easily switch off four years of demonization? Answer: many simply are psychologically unable to move on, and even though they got what they want – Trump is out of the White House. But while these people – generally upper- and upper-middle class persons who are not very touched by the economic crisis – are loudly obnoxious they are not in actual control of the levers of power.
It’s primarily the nation’s elite-level politicians who really want to make America’s Marianas Trench-depth cultural-political divide even deeper, but not for the reasons one may think.
Many Congressional Democrats are no doubt embarrassed and vengeful over having been turned into cowering, world’s fanciest gas mask-wearing deserters on January 6 – these people control the legislative docket and they want Trump to look afraid now. That would be a self-centered and over-emotional reaction, but why should we ascribe self-sacrifice for the well-being of the nation among the virtues of Congressional Democrats?
The Capitol Hill protest did make many Democrats even more dead-set on getting Trump out: Despite being elected president once and narrowly winning re-election – or rather, precisely because of this electoral success – Democrats want to try and ensure that Trump cannot run in 2024, and a Senate conviction would bar Trump from ever holding public office again. Again, they are deluded by endless MSM spin if they think they have a realistic chance of turning so many Republicans.
Those are two plausible motivations for the Senate trial, but they are not sufficiently convincing.
How elite Democrats gain from a trial, but America loses (unless a 3rd party truly sprouts)
There seem to be so many tiny groups which gain in the many instances where one reads “but America loses”? Thirty million Americans file for unemployment in 2020 – the S&P 500 gains $14 trillion in value over the same timeframe (up 16% annually). Four hundred thousand Americans die from coronavirus – the first vaccine announced only two days after Joe Biden prematurely declares victory, allowing Biden to change the media focus from his divisive and promise-backtracking early declaration.
By forcing a trial in the Senate Democrats seem to think they can win big by playing “divide and conquer” or even just “divide and divide”.
In the latter scenario Democrats certainly gain by forcing Congressional Republicans to openly divide themselves into pro- and anti-Trump factions, which will necessarily be revealed during the Senate vote on the 2nd impeachment. That vote will be like the 2003 Iraq War vote for Democrats (but only if we falsely imagine today’s Democrats to actually be an anti-war party anymore). If nothing else is gained for elite Democrats – who happily watched households crumble and workers go hungry until after Biden’s election to finally become willing to negotiate a second, paltry household stimulus – a Republican Party distracted by squabbles, and thus open to being bought into defection on certain key votes, is enough reason to waste everyone’s time with a Senate show trial.
The “divide and conquer” scenario is more worrying for national health, because the pro-War Democratic Party does like to conquer human beings: There are incredibly shocking efforts to blacklist, censor and seemingly criminalize Trump supporters. By forcing Trump’s Congressional supporters into the open Democrats will know exactly where to set their stigmatizing sights. I cannot believe that Democrats are going to lead a multi-month, much less multi-year, “Trumperphobia” campaign, but I also couldn’t believe the 2016 Russophobia campaign lasted until even after the 2019 Mueller Report’s exoneration of Russia. Is it possible that Democrats are going to persist in their anti-Trumper cultural pogrom for years rather than honestly discuss America’s decline?
But the main question is: How deep is the American duopoly? Answer: the deepest and oldest in the world.
What if Democrats are actually trying to create a Republican Party division into two parties, with the Trumper faction defecting to a new “Patriot” or “America First” party? That would end the need for Democratic legislative majorities – all they’d need is a plurality (as in every other modern democracy).
Is it possible that Trump will actually undo America’s awful legislative duopoly and bring in a multi-party system? Like most good things Trump has done, this boon would be an unintended consequence of Trump’s actual political agenda.
Are Democrats looking to end the two-party system by giving Trumpers a clear indication that they can either organize, drop out or get persecuted by the US system? Are anti-Trump Republicans daft enough to think that the Republican Party will stay Reaganite forever, even after Reaganites allowed the Great Financial Crisis to mushroom into the Great Recession for so many of their voters?
I would say that – in the end – Democrats are not looking to end the duopoly, in which they are the party which is paid no matter what: they are paid to make sure actual leftist ideas lose, by combining them with fake-leftists idea such as identity politics, and they are paid to make sure leftist gains are truly, truly minimal when they do occasionally have power.
But Democrats are US politicians, after all – they cannot think long-term, and they openly admit they spend 2/3rds of their working hours focused on getting campaign money for their re-election – and so they really don’t know what they are doing, or even care about the medium- and long-term consequences of their actions. The Senate trial of Trump is useless theater, but who knows what these professional actors really feel or if they even feel anything at all? If they feel anything it is for their supporters and “work family”, which can be found on Wall Street and not Main Street.
Just as the January 6th protest was improvised and not the start of a long-term “Occupy Capitol Hill” movement – it had none of the determination and planning of Egypt’s Tahrir Square” (in a nod to this week’s 10th anniversary of that wonderful progressive movement, which was repeatedly sabotaged by Washington and Tel Aviv and their Egyptian compradors). Democrats are now improvising a way to keep inflicting opprobrium, censorship and maybe even criminal convictions on the odious – yet quite popular and taboo-breaking – Trump. Just like in 2016: anything to keep from discussing the real roots of any sort of “drain the Swamp” political feeling and America’s undeniable decline.
Elite Democrats don’t have Russia to kick around anymore, let’s remember – all they have is Trump and his 74 million supporters. Kick them too much and Democrats might break their own precious duopoly.
(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)
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Congratulations! Joe Biden has been taken oath as the 46th U.S. president, terminating one of the most intense political transitions in modern American history. Due to various internal threats, heavy deployment of troops has turned Capital Washington into a military Garrison. The security measured taken never witnessed in the past. Donald Trump – who has not formally acknowledged the presidency to Mr. Joe Biden – ridiculed the inaugural ceremony, in a departure from longstanding precedent, Vice-President Mr. Pence handed over the Presidency to Mr. Joe Bidden. Mr. Trump has become the first president not to attend his successor’s inauguration since 1869. He left the White House early on Wednesday and flew to the nearby Andrews Air Force base.
President Joe Biden, 78, was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1942. At the young age of only 29, in 1972, he became one of the youngest persons ever elected to the U.S. Senate. He went on to serve as a six-term senator from Delaware. A well-versed, mature politician, having served under several US-administrations, having gained an in-depth understanding of state affairs, received greetings from all around the world and messages of good wishes. He is a ray of hope for many Americans and hopes for the rest of the world.
Trump-era was full of controversies, chaos, and unrest, especially during the last couple of months, he has created an enormous mess. The hate, turmoil, and internal drive he has left behind him, are an inheritance to President Joe Biden.
Many questions are arising in the minds of many Americans as well as around the globe. Like: Who is the real threat to the U.S. national security? It has been propagated often that the U.S. is facing external threats, especially from China and Russia. These are a phenomenon of the cold war era and vanished long ago. However, the chaotic Capitol riots on January 6 have set an alarming message to the world as a new food for thought. The internal clashes and civil unrest of the U.S. Capitol’s type have switched external military aggression as the primary source of threats to human lives and state stability. It directly affects the collapse of the internal system and the erosion of “democracy” and the typical capitalistic system. Failure of state rit and helplessness of state institutions means a destruction.
President Biden has frequently stressed the term “unity” in his opening address, precisely what’s needed in present China-US relations. Because over the past four years, a small number of anti-China politicians in the United States have misled and lied too much out of their political interests and prompted too much hatred and division, and the people of both countries have all been hurt because of it. Many people of vision from China, the United States, and the international community hope China-US-Russia relations will get back to the right path at an early date. All sides can work together to meet the significant persistent challenges facing the world today. The same is valid in the case of Russia-US relations. President Biden said in his opening address; democracy allows disagreement, and “Disagreement must not lead to disunion”. It is hoped this should also be revealed in his foreign policy. Countries with different political & social systems, cultural backgrounds, and ideologies should and are fully capable of coexisting in harmony, engaging in dialogue and collaboration, and collectively work for world peace, stability and prosperity. President Biden also mentioned that the United States “has too much to heal, much to restore.”
The world welcomes the United States’ return to the Paris Agreement and looking onward to its positive contributions to fighting climate change. The Paris Agreement is an outcome of multilateralism, which united together countries worldwide, reinforces the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and is an essential legal instrument to guide post-2020 international collaboration on climate change.
U.S. withdrawal from WHO, it is well-known that WHO is a specialized organization in international health and plays a vital leading and coordinating role in international anti-epidemic collaboration. In particular, against the grim situation of the raging COVID-19 Pandemic, the International community welcome the United States’ return to WHO and wishing to strengthen cooperation with the United States and other countries.
The Capitol riots have exploded unprecedented U.S. political and social anarchy like a spark falling into an oil container. Especially while the U.S. claimed global superpower and claimed its leadership role for the whole world, such mishaps were never expected. It has irreversibly, irrecoverably, and unforgettable damaged the reputation and image of the U.S. internationally. Although the chaos dragged the country into its darkest moment was controlled temporarily, it might take decades to restore completely. The FBI is cautioning that it has received information of “armed protests” in all other states in the days to come. It is expected that the departed President Trump may not sit idly, but continue to create more hurdles for President Joe Biden, and ultimately bleeding America. The hate and divide, which he has made in American society, is not easy to mend.
The Capitol invasion, the anti-racism protests that brushed the U.S., and the rapid-growing and uncontrolled epidemic are sufficient to prove that the U.S. is decaying speedily and badly sick. The ailing economy has also impacted adversely and aggregated in the radicalization of the situation. The U.S., punctured with deep flaws, is now being plagued by ongoing internal crises. It’s rational to say the country’s internal division has touched the level where it’s hard to mend. The political and social divergence has produced hatred, high risks of violence, and unrest. Civil war could be ignited at any moment. A country is mostly known for its gun culture, the legislation over guns and ammunition is another factor to endanger the risk of the civil war-like situation.
Americans are known for planting sabotage, subversion, and conspiracies around the world. But due to the Pandemic, they could not travel abroad, and finally, they have to stage it on their soil. It is time for a typical American to feel the pain of such crimes committed in other countries. It is hoped that such things will not be repeated in any part of the world, and human rights must be respected irrespective of race, religion, or ethnicity.
Will American society be restored or continue to be torn apart? Will the U.S. see more turmoil or keep its stability? If the U.S. still can’t sort out the real threat to its national security and flops to diagnose that the biggest enemy of the U.S. is itself, the scenarios of the country will be even miserable. In fact, Americans are the victim of superiority complex and feel shame to acknowledge their weaknesses or flaws. They are reluctant to learn from others and have closed all options to improve their thinking or political system.
Why has the U.S. been stuck in such grave internal crises? One of the reasons is that, for a long time, Washington has spared little interest in addressing domestic problems but has been more excited about shaping ideological adversaries, engaging in geopolitical competition, and provoking major power confrontations. The 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy declared “inter-state strategic competition” as a significant national security concern. Over some time, the domestic problems kept on compiling, and finally, the volcano has to burst one day.
The U.S. sets itself as a “firm” protector of national security and interests by creating a hype about the “China threat” or “Russia threat.” For example, U.S. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe in December 2020 branded China as “national security threat No.1,” blaming China for posing the greatest threat to America, as well as to democracy and freedom around the globe. U.S. president-elect Joe Biden termed Russia as Washington’s most severe global threat during his election campaign.
The U.S., since the Cold War, has been the single superpower in the world. No matter how hard it tries to expose alleged foreign foes, no external forces can cause such a big country to flop.
But can shaping alleged foreign adversaries bring American unity? Should the U.S. have dedicated more resources and energy to resolving its domestic flaws, getting liberated from ideological prejudice and a sense of supremacy over its political system, and converging more on major power collaboration rather than rivalry, it may have encountered a different domestic situation.
The only element that can cripple the country is its internal crunches. The domestic dilemma the U.S. is facing demonstrations the country’s biggest enemy is itself. The question is: Who dares to speak this out in the U.S.? It is hoped the scholars, intellectuals, politicians, and visionary individuals and professionals may think neutrally and realize their faults and formulate policies to rectify things in the best interest of humankind worldwide.
Author: Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan, Sinologist (ex-Diplomat), Editor, Analyst, Non-Resident Fellow of CCG (Center for China and Globalization), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan. (E-mail: awanzamir@yahoo.com).
The header picture shows the rotunda dome of the People’s House as first seen by me in a video captured on 1/6. I had been to Washington years before. I had viewed the Jefferson Memorial through the cherry blossoms, attempted to enter the Washington Monument (the stairs were accessible, but the elevator was broken), explored the Smithsonian, stood in President’s Park and gawked at the White house before following the route of the deplorables to the Capitol grounds.
On 1/6 an insurrectionist, a domestic terrorist, gave me my first glimpse of the Capitol’s interior. He had entered the Capitol by a broken window, creating a running video as he did so, complete with voice commentary. He navigated the confusion of the interior hallways until he arrived in the rotunda. There his feet stopped; his commentary reduced to an incredulous gasp as he encountered the immensity above. I shared his experience of that instant. My heart skipped a beat, I felt an identical rush of breath as the camera lifted towards the dome. We were both in awe of the architecture and ornament, the majesty of this space limned with light, the incomparable human-crafted heaven of the dome. For an instant I was at one with the insurrectionist, both of us transfixed with humility as our minds processed the incredible beauty around and above us.
This is the first item in the defense of Mr. Trump. It is most facile and inconsequential from a legal point of view. But from a human perspective, 1/6 was the first opportunity granted many Americans to gaze upon this space, to behold the wonder of this place of work, the gilded factory of democracy. The Court will not care a whit for these sights. The inadvertent presentation of them to the American people will be deemed irrelevant; the Court will be unimpressed by Mr. Trump’s role in this presentation. All these things are true. But the American people may come to thank Trump for causing their first introduction to the sacred space of this political temple.
I now caution the reader that she or he may wish to cease his / her reading of this essay. What follows is an attempt to set out the truth of 1/6 and the defense of Mr. Trump. It may be a grisly truth, an uncomfortable truth. It may be a warped truth, a biased truth, a sad truth, a revelatory truth. Whatever form of truth you may find it to be, it is as honest and uncompromising as I am able to make it. If you, dear reader, are easily offended, or made uncomfortable by an expression of truth, then you should turn away from these pages. Contemplate your own memorial, your own ceiling, your own cherry blossoms. Or plan a pilgrimage to this shrine to opulence, the great cathedral of capitalism built of stone quarried by slave labor in Maryland.
Generations from now, ordinary citizens will come to gaze on the same sights that froze the insurrectionist and myself. Tour visitors will shuffle like slow penitents through the halls of the Capitol. Arrived in the magnificence of the rotunda, the great dome of mammon, they will be fixed in awe as both the insurrectionist and I were fixed in awe. And, after some minutes of silence, perhaps one of them will inform the tour guide that his great grandmother entered this space when she was 33 years old. That on her first encounter she too was overcome with awe just as I and the insurrectionist domestic terrorist were overcome.
The old man will go on to say she too took a video, but it was confiscated as evidence on her arrest and, when finally released, it became impossible to view because of all the changes in digital formats over so many years. That the only remaining record of her experience were some faded legal papers, a discharge certificate, something else which recorded her jail time. There was a family diary that spoke of the difficulty his grandfather had in the years without her.
And the tour guide will lean in close and thank him. For 1/6 had entered the historical record and was now recognized not as the ending of the great tyranny, but as that moment in time when the great tyranny was first pulled into focus, when it first became visible to the American people. The guide will ask to shake the old man’s hand. And then he will turn to the other tour group members and explain, and they too will thank the old man and speak well of his great grandmother. Others will disclose they too have come because of the stories passed down through the generations, because of the Hollywood movie, having listened to the family history, reviewed faded records, old notebooks, pieces of glass from a broken window collected by a family member as a souvenir of that fateful day.
Outside the Speaker’s Lobby there will be a wall plaque which records that in this place Ashli Babbit was felled by a single gunshot. The weapon was a 9mm automatic and the range was less than 5 feet. The bullet had a muzzle velocity of 1,180 feet per second and was through and through, grazing Ms. Babbit’s spine before it exited the back of her neck, continuing its upward trajectory until it embedded itself in the wall of the Capitol high over the head of all the subsequent visitors to this space.
An insurrectionist had filmed the gunshot, filmed Ms. Babbit’s collapse, filmed the last twitch of her body, filmed the attempted resuscitation, filmed the fruitless attempt to restore life to her body. The bullet remains embedded in the wall, the film remains embedded in the mind of each viewer, embedded in the consciousness of peoples around the globe, embedded in the history of humankind’s struggle for freedom. The original recording is embedded in the National Archives along with the Zapruder film and the Bobby Kennedy film and the Martin Luther King film and the Regan film and the 9/11 film, and all the other films maintained by a once great state attempting to preserve some record of its people and their times of great distress. None of this has any application to the defense of Mr. Trump. But it was during his second term that he ordered the preservation of various records and artefacts and caused the Architect of the Capitol to uncover the original hole in the wall and remove the coverup plaster and paint ordered by Speaker Pelosi. He also ordered the plaque which was affixed to the wall beneath the restored bullet hole.
This is the second defense of Mr. Trump. It will not by accepted by the Court as the law forever looks backwards. The Court imposes the rule of the past upon the present. That is the intent of the law – to create stability, continuity, to avoid the fevers of the mob and the intolerant. To examine the facts of a case with care and honesty and give full respect to the law and its precedent. The era of the quick lynching died out years ago. Or so some people claim. The absence of precedent was ignored on the date the Congress arrogated to itself the right to convict a political opponent who was now a private citizen. This action set a new precedent in American law. This was the start of the “troubles,” so called because it was unsafe to speak of them due to the danger of summary conviction. But historians generally agree that the moment the Congress assumed the power to try political opponents for offenses under the Jefferson Truth and Reconciliation Act marked the onset of the “troubles.”
The third defense of Mr. Trump was ruled to be fake news and therefore inadmissible. When It became known that a Republican representative advocated the rounding up all Trump supporters and confining them in Guantanamo, the Bidenists applauded this suggestion. It conformed with the dictates of Biden’s inauguration speech on the importance of unity of the American people, and American political parties. The initiative hit a small snag when it was realized Gitmo lacked the capacity to accept 78 million Insurrectionist Domestic Terrorists. Then the new government of United Afghanistan offered space in Abu Ghraib on a contract basis. This was followed by similar negotiations with the Government of Independent United Iraq to accept the Insurrectionist Domestic Terrorists as indentured labor to clean the DU – 38 from the sands of Iraq.
This was celebrated by the BPA (Blue People of America, the name adopted by the United political party composed of former Dems and Repubs and inspired by the films of James Cameron) as it solved a variety of problems: First, it addressed the horrible problems inflicted on these two countries by earlier Trumpist adminstrations. It was thought only fair that those who caused the problem should be forced to clean it up and accept the personal risk of DU-38 contamination.
Second, it created lebensraum within the continental United Peoples of All Races Creeds Sexual Identities Belief Systems and Blue Loyalists (this was the later shortened form of the renamed Bidenist united state. The original name had included all the TGLGBHRXUBCY rainbow acronyms and the great diversity of personal pronouns (numbering in the hundreds and too many to fully document here). When the BPA introduced the Free United Bidenist Androgynous Recognition (the FUBAR medal, the highest honor in the new state) it was realized that a medal alone was insufficient recognition for the heroes who had led the peaceful protests which erupted across North America in the summer of 2020. More honor was needed. More recognition. It was quickly realized that once the convicted Insurrectionist Domestic Terrorists entered into indentured service with the Government of Independent United Iraq, they would be forced to abandon their houses and property (following the Bidenist precept that it was inhumane to separate a child from his, her, or its, parents it was decreed that the entire family of any Insurrectionist Domestic Terrorist should be sent to Iraq to atone for the great damage they had caused there. This created surplus housing stock throughout the nation and FUBAR recipients were granted first choice of this housing).
Third, the adoption of the FUBAR housing rewards scheme created vacancies in some of the most desirable homeless encampments across the BPA. All the vacant tents, rusted out recreational vehicles, and cardboard mansions, were now available to accommodate the surge of new immigrants who flooded the BPA in search of the BPA dream. They could not be disappointed. Each immigrant was assigned its own tent, vehicle, or mansion. If they were unsatisfied in any way, they were immediately found in violation of the Insurrectionist Domestic Irredentism Overseas Terrorist Act. Referred to in secret as the IDIOT Act, this was used to convict those persons who refused to accept the united policies of the BPA which were strictly enforced to ensure no further social upheavals such as had occurred during the extremist assault on 1/6. The Cubans objected but were quickly convicted and exported.
Fourth, many of the enlightened regimes in the United Middle East had changed their names so as to repel the B-52s, the big drones, the mini drones, the wasp drones, the F-39s, the F-57 [all 57 varieties were equally lethal and equally invisible] and the Tomahawks regularly conducting freedom of air navigation operations in all the disunited regions. These newly united countries had also suffered great harm from the past decades conduct of prior Trumpist administrations. They too began to contract for Insurrectionist Domestic Terrorists as cheap labor to deploy as servants, grounds keepers, household pets, houseboys, second and third wives, and a great many other utilitarian purposes. Even this demand was insufficient to exhaust the excess supply. This was especially true once the United Muslim Countries of Europe began to apply the lessons learned from the BPA for the purpose of uniting their own populations. So great was the surplus labor that it was decided to employ it to clean the DU-38 from the sands of the Sahara and then to go on and scrub the melting icecaps of Greenland and Antarctica before any residual trace of DU-38 found its way into the sea. Once the icecaps were scrubbed, the next herculean task was the cleansing and reforestation of the Amazon basin. The Bidenists were hailed round the globe as a force for good by peoples of all the major 52 sexual identities and the 643 minor identities.
The Fifth Defense of Mr. Trump was based on the argument that he could not have incited the Insurrectionist Domestic Terrorists as the assault on the Capitol commenced while his supporters were still in President’s Park nodding off to his speech which eventually ended at 13:13 pm. Trump sought to introduce images obtained from Google which showed that it took 33 minutes to walk the 1.6 miles from the site of the Save America rally to the place of insurrection. Google objected to this use of their intellectual property and this evidence was refused.
Trump then sought to introduce press reports which showed the assault on the Capitol commenced while he was still speaking 33 minutes away. He claimed it was not possible for him to incite an activity that was 1.6 miles distant and beyond earshot of him. The Articles of Impeachment made specific reference at Page 4, Lines 7 and 8, to a phrase uttered at the end of his speech; by then the assault had been underway for over 20 minutes and therefore could not have been incited by Trump. This evidence was dismissed as conjectural.
Trump then attempted to introduce a series of screen captures from a blog. These described the day’s events from a supporter’s perspective and were contained on a series of slides. Unfortunately for Trump, his manacles made it difficult to operate the projector (Trump had been refused all counsel because of his of political views. Giuliani was in a holding cell three down from Trump and the guards continually played the excretable songs from the inauguration to prevent the two either sleeping or communicating).
Senator McConnell then asked Trump if he was trying to make a mockery of the proceedings. Trump said no, he was making a beautiful defense, really beautiful, and then claimed all the slides had been in perfect order before he was placed on suicide watch (the attending Doctors were unable to determine if the cause was Brooks, Lopez, or Gaga. Trump claimed it was all gaga and the physicians ordered the music to be dialed down to 11). Senator Harris then asked Trump if he thought this was a Kangaroo court. Trump gave a puzzled look and before he could answer Senator Saunders rose on a point of order and informed the assembly that Kangaroos enjoy protected legal status and that was not the case in this proceeding. After much discussion it was decided it would be unwise to accord marsupial rights, or any rights at all, to the defendant. The Chief Justice appeared to nod his head in approval. Others claimed he was just having a nap.
Trump drew attention to the fact the first of his supporters to reach the Capitol found the assault well underway. He presented video which showed a man smashing a Capitol window while the surrounding black clad cloud chanted “Antifa, Antifa, Antifa” in an endless cycle. Then a red hatted Trump supporter entered the frame from the left and pulled down the man smashing the window before he was himself battered down by the black clad mob. Trump asserted there were two groups at the Capitol on 1/6. The first, early group, did not wear red hats and commenced the assault. This crowd of organized active assault teams prevented the later, second group, of Save America attendees from immediately getting close to the Capitol. Most did not climb to the west terrace but remained on the expanse of lawn before the Mall.
Trump also claimed there was emerging evidence of preplanning and organization. Trump stated that over the past four years the chief complaint against him has been that lacked any competence in these two areas. Press reports disclosed the F.B.I. had advanced knowledge of the attacks. Trump asserted that throughout his time in office, the F.B.I. leaked intelligence to the press but rarely informed him. Trump was forced to rely on the fake news to find out what was happening in his administration. The fake news contained multiple accounts by government office holders proudly stating they were secretly doing all they could to undermine government policy and direction. Some of these proud persons were alleged to be senior officers of the F.B.I. and other senior department heads.
When Trump paused, the Chief Justice asked him if the defense wanted to rest and Trump replied “No, please. No rest. I would rather stay here. I don’t want to face the music.”
“In that case may I examine you?” asked the Chief Justice.
“You can do anything if it stops the music.” Trump looked fearfully around the chamber as if searching for hidden loudspeakers.
“As I understand your theory of events, your defense, if you want to call it that, rests on two key assertions. The first is that you were down in President’s Park putting your followers into a deep hypnotic sleep until 13:13 pm. Is that correct.?
“It wasn’t just them. I had to go back to the house for a beautiful nap.”
“I understand. While your followers snoozed in the Park, 30 minutes from the Capitol, at approximately 12:50 pm, group of dark, radically black clad leftist insurgents were initiating a concerted pre-planned Domestic Terrorist attack on the Capitol. And it is therefore impossible for these insurgents to have been incited by the remarks cited in the Articles of Impeachment, which remarks came toward the end of your speech near to 13:13 pm.. In fact, the attack had commenced some 20 minutes before,” the Chief Justice placed great emphasis on the word before, “you uttered the alleged words of incitement. That is your second key assertion. Am I correct?”
“You said it beautifully. Completely beautiful. Very, very nice. Thank you. All my supporters thank you for making that clear.”
The tone of the Chief Justice’s voice had changed. It was deeper, more resonant, a sound of concern. “Mr. Trump, do you possess any knowledge of these leftist radical extremists having the support of agencies affiliated with either of the Chinese or Russian states?”
“Oh, your honor.” Trump sounded greatly relieved as the true culprits hove into view. “You have it beautifully. It is bad. Very bad. Much worse. It affects my supporters, everyone.”
The Chief Justice had by now snapped fully awake and fixed Trump with an intense stare. “And who do you think was the dark force behind this attack on our cherished democratic freedoms?”
“Pelosi. She controls everything up here. None of this could have taken place unless she was co-ordinating it. She is a master of the dark arts. The only other person is Brennan. He does this stuff all the time. He even does it on air. Comey too. They write books about it! Then there are the love bird weasels and . . .”
The Chief Justice immediately smashed his gavel down with a sound like a thunderclap, drowning out the loud murmurs racing around the chamber. “At this moment we are adjourned for an early lunch of two hours duration. This hearing will resume at noon o’clock.”
Everyone filed out of the Chamber. Trump was led away in his manacles and such an overly large orange jumpsuit it looked like a misappropriated circus costume. Everyone forgot about the slide projector which had been startled into life by the resounding thwack of the gavel. The projector appeared to be stuck, or being operated by some occult force. It flashed an image on screen for 3 short repetitions, then flashed up the same image for three long repetitions, immediately followed by a further three short repetitions before it allowed five seconds of darkness and then repeated the cycle. As it continued flashing, the projector seemed to speed up, continually flashing the identical sequence but at ever more urgent intervals. The image itself slowly dissolved. Before the hearing reconvened, it had almost completely melted away.
For the first time in modern American history, the possibility of a peaceful transfer of power is in doubt. Extremists swarmed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, and at least some of them intended to hunt down and kill elected officials. During their riot, they left bloodstains on the inauguration grandstands.
Now, in the final hours of the Trump presidency, security forces have turned Washington, D.C., into a fortified encampment in an attempt to prevent further violence. The transformation of the U.S. Capitol into a Baghdad-style Green Zone is unlike anything Washington has seen since 9/11. Joe Biden, already physically isolated by COVID-19, will be further distanced from the American people, who have traditionally crowded onto the National Mall by the hundreds of thousands to witness a presidential swearing-in.
The Secret Service is facing a challenge the likes of which it has never experienced.
More than 130 staffers tested positive for COVID-19 after agents on its protective details were forced to attend Trump rallies and put themselves in the splash zone of a highly infectious president. During the Capitol siege, Secret Service officers rushed Pence—the target of would-be assassins, according to prosecutors—to his office near the Senate floor, just steps ahead of the mob. Now the service must adjust to a world where white-supremacist or restorationist violence is expected, where mobs can suddenly breach perimeters, where drone technology is cheap and therefore easily available, and where members of the military and law enforcement are potential insider threats.
Any possibility of normalcy evaporated during the Capitol siege. “That went out the window, based on the current threat environment,” Chuck Marino, a former Secret Service supervisory special agent who retired in 2015, told me. “The domestic threat, violent extremism, and what we saw on [January 6]—you’re seeing, in this case, the Secret Service adapt.” he said. The agency could do more to make sure that extremism in its ranks is detected and neutralized, six former members of presidential protective details told me. (The Secret Service did not respond to a request for comment.)
One of the things the Secret Service is adapting to is the previously unimaginable fact that the president of the United States is the one inciting political violence. “You do need to take the president into the threat environment,” Marino said. “It’s not normal that we need to take the language of a commander in chief into account in the threat assessment. But here you needed to.”
On the day insurgents attacked the Capitol, Donald J. Mihalek, a former Secret Service agent and the executive director of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, worried about his brother, Daniel, assigned to guard one of the doors to the complex for the Capitol Police. After learning that Daniel was safe, he wrote on LinkedIn that “a reckoning [for] these radical extremist[s] must occur.”
This is a touchy subject. The Secret Service, which guards foreign dictators with the same vigilance as it guards U.S. presidents, maintains that its nonpolitical stance is a rigorously enforced foundational value. “Violence is violence,” Stephen P. Monteiro, a member of President Bill Clinton’s detail, told me. “There is violence on the left and violence on the right. We don’t differentiate between the origins of violence.”
Some violent movements tend to differentiate themselves, as some are more salient than others: The U.S. does not now face a threat from, for example, anarchists (a radical named Leon Czolgosz killed President William McKinley in 1901) or Puerto Rican nationalists (several launched an assault on President Harry Truman in 1950).
Getting into the service requires intensive panel interviews and a polygraph. Usually, agents are reexamined for character deficiencies or suspect affiliations once every five to seven years. But radicalization, especially online, can happen far more quickly than that. A “continuous evaluation process” is required, J. J. Hensley, who worked in the agency’s personnel-and-recruitment and protective-intelligence divisions, told me. “A lot can happen in five years,” he said. Social-media posts have already landed at least one officer in the uniformed division under investigation since the siege; according to The Washington Post, the officer urged “patriots” to go on the “offense” to secure victory for Donald Trump.
Protective advance trips need to change, too. The Hollywood version of Secret Service advance work shows agents looking at a watchlist and keeping tabs on people known to have threatened a protectee. In real life, Hensley said, preparing a city for a protectee’s visit is far more challenging—and will become even harder in the future. “You go there maybe a week … ahead of the president or vice president. Now you’re going to be looking at social media and seeing what’s out there on open source. You have to rely on local counterparts because maybe they may have a lot more information than you do just coming off the plane, especially coming out of Washington, D.C., and you land in Joplin, Missouri—you’re not going to know everything about it.”
“They still have the old threats, and now they have the new threats: We’re worried about everything from a switchblade to a drone, which could have explosives on it.”
Vic Erevia was the special agent in charge of President Barack Obama’s detail from 2011 through 2013. He oversaw the hundreds of people involved in the president’s security operation during his second inauguration and white-knuckle foreign trips to Indonesia, Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Israel and the West Bank. Erevia was also in charge of the detail when more than a dozen agents were sent home because they’d patronized prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia. None was a member of the presidential protective detail itself, and Obama’s personal security was never compromised, but that was small comfort. The service had deeply embarrassed the president.
I asked Erevia about how the agency was responding to COVID-19, Trump, and the insurrection.
“The culture is rigidly hierarchical and unforgiving, with every aspect of an agent’s performance scrutinized with no margin for error,” he said. “I worry, frankly … how the last four years may have impacted that culture. My hope is that that has not changed. This current period feels distinctly more dangerous than at any time during my lifetime. I believe the challenges it presents will persist. Travel will bring new tests for the protective details as they deal with emboldened actors armed to the teeth. You can’t launch the National Guard every time the president goes somewhere, and this will result in greater demands on local partners.”
A security plan, Erevia and several other agents told me, is only as strong as its outermost perimeter. And although local police have been sufficient in the past, they might not be today. “You didn’t have the emotional content in the environment that you do now,” Erevia said.
“Distance is your friend in security,” he said, meaning it’s best to stay far away from threats. “One of the most immediate things I can envision happening is I can see the travel of the president potentially limited more than what we’ve seen in the past.”
Monteiro predicted a change in the “push and pull” balance between presidential staffers on the one side, who want to make sure the president sees and touches—and is seen seeing and touching—as many people as possible and the service on the other side, which would envelop the president in an armored-glass box if it could. That balance, he said, will likely tip in favor of caution. “Now I don’t think you’re going to see the staff even want to do any of this … They’ve seen our political leaders accosted. So I think it’s going to be a natural occurrence where we’re going to be pulling back from the type of exposure [to risk] that we’ve had in this country.”
Monteiro was on Clinton’s detail in 1996, when Lew Merletti, then the special agent in charge, got into a shouting match with the president about rerouting a motorcade in Manila, in the Philippines, according to author Lewis Gormley. The National Security Agency’s embassy-based surveillance had picked up chatter about a bomb plot, but Clinton did not want to change his plans. Merletti won the argument and the day: Police later found explosives underneath a bridge on the original motorcade route. In 2005, President George W. Bush was nearly killed in Tbilisi, Georgia, because he insisted on attending an event where the outer perimeter had been breached. A would-be assassin smuggled a grenade into the crowd and threw it at the platform Bush was on. It landed close enough to potentially kill the president, but it did not detonate.
Trust between Biden and the agents protecting him should be easy to come by. His detail leaders are familiar to him, according to a report in The Washington Post, and the new special agent in charge, David Cho, is highly regarded in the Secret Service. Former agents believe that the current director, James Murray, will retire once the transfer of power is complete. The leading candidate to replace him is Leonza “Leon” Newsome III, who was Biden’s detail chief during the Obama administration.
During “National Special Security Events” such as inaugurations and State of the Union addresses, the Secret Service sets up a multi-agency command center in downtown Washington. I visited the MACC during an international nuclear-security summit when Obama was president. In a room I could not access, detailees from the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA processed intelligence streams in real time. I visited the tactical-operations center and looked at a map showing the location of dozens of armed tactical teams staged around the city. The smallest incident—such as when a lapel pin identifying a security agent goes missing — is cause for alarm and analysis.
During peacetime, there are numerous command centers in Washington—for the Secret Service, the FBI, the Capitol Police, and the Metropolitan Police Department. But the federal law-enforcement forces are largely siloed. Commanders and senior officers from different agencies can talk with one another, but the flow of intelligence and situational awareness is not constant. Erevia suggests that a single command center, operating 24/7, with a mission of preventing and responding to events across the region, might solve some of the communication problems that hampered the response to the Capitol siege. “The only way you’re able to really manage this stuff is if everybody’s on the same sheet of music,” he told me, “and that really only happens when everyone is in the same place.”
The MACC offers a blueprint for how this could work. However, it is temporary, and once an event is over, it becomes a regular conference room again. After the inauguration ceremony tomorrow, federal law enforcement will return to its traditional posture: Individual agencies will vet information they receive and then determine whether it should be distributed, and to whom. “There are dozens of law-enforcement agencies in and around the immediate vicinity of the capital region. We have to be sure they all have the same intelligence and standing agreements of mutual support that can be activated with a single phone call,” Erevia said.
The White House complex has been fortified considerably since the 9/11 attacks. An integrated air-defense system tracks airborne threats, and the Secret Service’s Special Operations Division is experimenting with a variety of anti-drone lasers. As of 2019, multiple batteries were set up around the area, one of which was armed with Stinger missiles. During Obama’s presidency, the General Services Administration began work on a new shelter-in-place facility close to the West Wing. Its existence is a barely concealed secret, but at a cost of more than $350 million, it is designed to withstand a lengthy siege and accommodate the president, his family, other protectees, and numerous senior White House officials. Counterassault teams carry a variety of weapons, including a device that can shoot multiple electrified darts at would-be attackers simultaneously. If a mob tried to vault over the improved White House fence— a response to intrusions in 2014—it would be met by numerous tactical units, vicious Belgian Malinois K9s, snipers with permission to kill, and, within a short while, SWAT teams from the FBI and other police agencies. The service completed a costly radio upgrade, allowing agents and officers to be in instant and secure communication with other agencies in the region. Motorcade vehicles have been up-armored, and the electronic countermeasure trucks that trail the presidential limousine are soon to be upgraded with technology that creates a virtual fence around presidential trip sites.
The agents I spoke with insist with pride, and some history to back them up, that if the Secret Service had been in charge at the Capitol on January 6, the insurrection would have been stopped much more quickly. The verification of the Electoral College vote should have been a National Special Security Event, Marino told me.
After the inauguration, the fortress of Washington will open up again, and the National Guard troops who have descended on the city will return to their home states. Biden has not yet said when or where he will travel next.MARC AMBINDER is a senior fellow at the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy.
تبخرت كل فرصة لبيئة أمنية عادية للرئيس المنتخب بعد حصار الكابيتول ووجود تهديدات من داخل أجهزة الأمن.
كتب مارك أمبيندر مقالة في مجلة “ذي أتلانتيك” الأميركية تناول فيها التهديدات الأمنية للرئيس الأميركي جو بايدن ونائبته وأعضاء الكونغرس بعد هجوم المتطرفين اليمينيين على مبنى الكونغرس في 6 كانون الثاني / يناير الجاري.
وقال الكاتب: لأول مرة في التاريخ الأميركي الحديث، أصبحت إمكانية الانتقال السلمي للسلطة موضع شك، بعدما اجتاح المتطرفون مبنى الكونغرس الأميركي في 6 كانون الثاني / يناير، وكان البعض منهم على الأقل يعتزم تعقب وقتل المسؤولين المنتخبين. وخلال أعمال الشغب، تركوا بقع الدماء على منصات التنصيب.
الآن، في الساعات الأخيرة من ولاية الرئيس دونالد ترامب، حولت قوات الأمن واشنطن العاصمة إلى معسكر محصن في محاولة لمنع المزيد من العنف. إن تحول مبنى الكابيتول إلى منطقة خضراء، أي معزولة أمنياً، على غرار المنطقة الخضراء في بغداد لا يشبه أي شيء شهدته واشنطن منذ هجمات 11 أيلول / سبتمبر 2001. سيكون جو بايدن، المعزول جسدياً بالفعل بسبب وباء كورونا، بعيداً عن الشعب الأميركي، الذي احتشد تقليديًا بمئات الآلاف في النصب التذكاري ليشهدوا أداء اليمين الرئاسي.
تواجه الخدمة السرية تحدياً لم تشهده من قبل. فقد ثبتت إصابة أكثر من 130 موظفاً بـفيروس “كوفيد -19” بعد أن أُجبر العملاء على تفاصيل الحماية الخاصة به على حضور تجمعات ترامب ووضع أنفسهم في المقدمة لرئيس شديد العدوى. أثناء حصار الكابيتول، هرع ضباط الخدمة السرية لنائب الرئيس مايك بنس الذي كان هدفاً للقتلة المحتملين، وفقًا للمدعين – إلى مكتبه بالقرب من طابق مجلس الشيوخ، على بعد خطوات فقط من الغوغاء. الآن يجب أن تتكيف الخدمة مع عالم يُتوقع فيه عنف التفوق الأبيض، حيث يمكن للغوغاء فجأة اختراق المحيط، حيث تكون تكنولوجيا الطائرات بدون طيار رخيصة وبالتالي متاحة بسهولة، وحيث يشكل بعض أفراد الجيش وقوات إنفاذ القانون تهديدات محتملة من الداخل.
لقد تبخرت أي إمكانية لعودة الحياة الطبيعية خلال حصار الكابيتول. قال تشاك مارينو، العميل الخاص المشرف السابق في الخدمة السرية والذي تقاعد في عام 2015، “بناءً على بيئة التهديد الحالية، فإن التهديد الداخلي، والتطرف العنيف، وما رأيناه في [6 كانون الثاني / يناير] – في هذه الحالة، جهاز الخدمة السرية يتكيف”.
ويمكن للوكالة أن تفعل المزيد للتأكد من الكشف عن التطرف في صفوفها وتحييده، كما أخبر الكاتب ستة أعضاء سابقين في الحماية الرئاسية. (لم ترد الخدمة السرية على طلب للتعليق للمجلة).
أحد الأشياء التي تتكيف معها الخدمة السرية هي الحقيقة التي لم يكن من الممكن تصورها سابقاً وهي أن رئيس الولايات المتحدة هو الشخص الذي يحرّض على العنف السياسي. قال مارينو: “أنت بحاجة إلى أخذ الرئيس إلى بيئة التهديد. ليس من الطبيعي أن نحتاج إلى أخذ لغة القائد الأعلى في الاعتبار في تقييم التهديد. ولكن هنا تحتاج إلى ذلك”.
في اليوم الذي هاجم فيه المتمردون مبنى الكابيتول، كان دونالد جيه ميهالك، وهو عميل سابق في الخدمة السرية والمدير التنفيذي لجمعية ضباط إنفاذ القانون الفيدرالية، قلقاً بشأن شقيقه، دانيال، المكلف بحراسة أحد أبواب مجمع مبنى الكابيتول. بعد أن علم أن دانيال كان آمناً، كتب على موقع “لينكد إن” LinkedIn أنه “يجب أن يحساب [هؤلاء] المتطرفون”.
هذا موضوع حساس. تؤكد الخدمة السرية، التي تحرس رؤساء الولايات المتحدة، أن موقفها غير السياسي يمثل قيمة تأسيسية مطبقة بصرامة. وقال ستيفن ب. مونتيرو، أحد أعضاء حماية الرئيس السابق بيل كلينتون: “العنف هو عنف. هناك عنف على اليسار وعنف على اليمين. نحن لا نفرق بين أصول العنف”.
تميل بعض الحركات العنيفة إلى تمييز نفسها، لأن بعضها أكثر بروزاً من البعض الآخر: لا تواجه الولايات المتحدة الآن تهديداً، على سبيل المثال، من الفوضويين (متطرف يدعى ليون كولغوش قتل الرئيس ويليام ماكينلي في عام 1901) أو القوميين البورتوريكيين (هاجم العديد منهم الرئيس هاري ترومان عام 1950).
يتطلب الدخول في الخدمة السرية مقابلات مكثفة مع لجنة واختبار كشف الكذب. عادة، يتم إعادة فحص العملاء بحثاً عن أوجه قصور في الشخصية أو الانتماءات المشبوهة مرة كل خمس إلى سبع سنوات. لكن التطرف، وخاصة عبر الإنترنت، يمكن أن يحدث بسرعة أكبر من ذلك بكثير.
قال جيه جيه هينسلي، الذي عمل في قسم الأفراد والتجنيد والاستخبارات الوقائية، إن “عملية التقييم المستمر” مطلوبة. وأوضح: “يمكن أن يحدث الكثير في غضون خمس سنوات”.
ونشرت منشورات على مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي بالفعل أظهرت ضابطاً واحداً على الأقل في الفرقة النظامية قيد التحقيق؛ وفقاً لصحيفة “واشنطن بوست”، إذ حض الضابط المشاغبين المتطرفين على الاستمرار في “الهجوم” على الكونغرس لضمان انتصار دونالد ترامب.
يجب تغيير الرحلات الوقائية المسبقة أيضاً. قال هينسلي إنه في الحياة الواقعية، يعد تحضير مدينة لزيارة أحد الرؤساء أمراً أكثر صعوبة وسيصبح أكثر صعوبة في المستقبل. “تذهب إلى هناك ربما أسبوع … قبل الرئيس أو نائب الرئيس. أنت الآن بصدد إلقاء نظرة على وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي ورؤية ما هو موجود على المصدر المفتوح. عليك الاعتماد على النظراء المحليين لأنه ربما يكون لديهم الكثير من المعلومات أكثر مما تفعله بمجرد نزولك من الطائرة، خاصة عند الخروج من واشنطن العاصمة، وهبطت في جوبلين، ميسوري – لن تعرف كل شيء عن ذلك”. وأضاف: “لا تزال لديهم التهديدات القديمة، والآن لديهم التهديدات الجديدة: نحن قلقون بشأن كل شيء من صاعق كهربائي إلى طائرة بدون طيار، والتي يمكن أن تحتوي على متفجرات”.
كان فيك إريفيا، العميل الخاص المسؤول عن حماية الرئيس باراك أوباما من عام 2011 حتى عام 2013. وقد أشرف على مئات الأشخاص المشاركين في العملية الأمنية للرئيس خلال حفل تنصيبه الثاني ورحلاته الخارجية إلى إندونيسيا وأفغانستان وميانمار و”إسرائيل”. كان إيريفيا كذلك مسؤولاً عن الحماية عندما تم إرسال أكثر من عشرة عملاء إلى بلادهم لأنهم كانوا يترددون على العاهرات في كارتاخينا، كولومبيا. لم يكن أي منهم عضواً في جهاز الحماية الرئاسي نفسه، ولم يتم المساس بأمن أوباما الشخصي أبداً، لكن ذلك كان بمثابة راحة صغيرة، وقد أحرجوا الرئيس بشدة.
وعن كيفية استجابة الوكالة لـلوباء وترامب والتمرد، قال إريفيا: “إن الثقافة هرمية بشكل صارم ولا ترحم، مع فحص كل جانب من جوانب أداء العميل من دون هامش للخطأ. بصراحة أشعر بالقلق … كيف أثّرت السنوات الأربع الماضية على تلك الثقافة. آمل أن هذا لم يتغير. تبدو هذه الفترة الحالية أكثر خطورة بشكل واضح من أي وقت خلال حياتي. أعتقد أن التحديات التي تطرحها ستستمر. سيجري اختبارات جديدة لمفرزة الحماية.. لا يمكنك إطلاق الحرس الوطني في كل مرة يذهب فيها الرئيس إلى مكان ما، وهذا سيؤدي إلى مطالب أكبر من الشركاء المحليين”.
أخبر إريفيا وعدد من العملاء الآخرين الكاتب أن الشرطة المحلية كانت كافية في الماضي، لكنها قد لا تكون كذلك اليوم. وقال: “لم يكن لديك المحتوى العاطفي في البيئة كما هو الحال الآن. المسافة صديقك في الأمن”، مما يعني أنه من الأفضل الابتعاد عن التهديدات. وأضاف: “أحد الأشياء الأكثر إلحاحاً التي يمكنني تصور حدوثها هو أنني أرى أن سفر الرئيس من المحتمل أن يكون محدوداً أكثر مما رأيناه في الماضي”.
كان مونتيرو على علم بمفرزة حماية كلينتون في عام 1996، عندما دخل لو ميرليتي، العميل الخاص المسؤول آنذاك، في صراخ مع الرئيس حول تغيير مسار موكب في مانيلا بالفلبين، وفقاً للمؤلف لويس جورملي. التقطت أجهزة المراقبة التابعة لوكالة الأمن القومي في السفارة الأحاديث حول مؤامرة تفجير، لكن كلينتون لم يرغب في تغيير خططه. فاز ميرليتي بالجدل وعثرت الشرطة في وقت لاحق على متفجرات تحت جسر على طريق موكب السيارات الأصلي.
في عام 2005، كاد الرئيس جورج دبليو بوش أن يُقتل في تبليسي، جورجيا، لأنه أصر على حضور حدث تم فيه اختراق المحيط الخارجي. قام قاتل محتمل بتهريب قنبلة يدوية إلى الحشد وألقى بها على المنصة التي كان بوش عليها. لقد هبطت على مقربة كافية لقتل الرئيس، لكنها لم تنفجر.
يجب أن يكون من السهل الحصول على الثقة بين بايدن والعملاء الذين يقومون بحمايته. فقادة الحماية الخاصة به مألوفون له، وفقاً لتقرير نشر في صحيفة “واشنطن بوست”، ويحظى العميل الخاص الجديد المسؤول، ديفيد تشو، بتقدير كبير في الخدمة السرية.
ويعتقد العملاء السابقون أن المسؤول الأمني الحالي، جيمس موراي، سيتقاعد بمجرد اكتمال نقل السلطة، والمرشح الرئيسي ليحل محله هو ليونزا “ليون” نيوسوم الثالث، الذي كان رئيس حماية بايدن خلال إدارة أوباما.
وخلال “الأحداث الأمنية الوطنية الخاصة” مثل خطابات حالة الاتحاد، تنشئ الخدمة السرية مركز قيادة متعدد الوكالات في وسط مدينة واشنطن. وقد زار الكاتب مركز تنسيق مكافحة غسل الأموال خلال قمة دولية للأمن النووي عندما كان أوباما رئيساً. في غرفة خاصة، عالج أفراد من وكالة الاستخبارات المركزية ومكتب التحقيقات الفيدرالي ووكالة الأمن القومي تدفقات استخباراتية في الوقت الفعلي. كما زار الكاتب مركز العمليات التكتيكية وأطلع على خريطة توضح مواقع العشرات من الفرق التكتيكية المسلحة المنتشرة حول المدينة. فأصغر حادثة – على سبيل المثال عندما يختفي دبوس السترة الذي يحدد عميل الأمن – هي سبب للقلق والتحليل.
خلال أوقات السلم، هناك العديد من مراكز القيادة في واشنطن: الخدمة السرية، ومكتب التحقيقات الفيدرالي، وشرطة الكابيتول، وإدارة شرطة العاصمة. لكن قوات إنفاذ القانون الفيدرالية معزولة إلى حد كبير. يمكن للقادة وكبار الضباط من مختلف الأجهزة التحدث مع بعضهم البعض، لكن تدفق المعلومات الاستخبارية والوعي بالموقف ليس ثابتاً. يقترح إيريفيا أن إنشاء مركز قيادة واحد، يعمل على مدار الساعة طوال أيام الأسبوع، مع مهمة منع الأحداث والاستجابة لها في جميع أنحاء المنطقة، قد يحل بعض مشكلات الاتصال التي أعاقت الاستجابة لحصار الكابيتول. وقال للكاتب: “الطريقة الوحيدة التي يمكنك من خلالها إدارة هذه الأشياء حقاً هي إذا كان الجميع على نفس النوتة الموسيقية، وهذا يحدث حقاً فقط عندما يكون الجميع في نفس المكان”.
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