I have been following to some degree the follow up of the breakdown in communication during the 6JAN Capitol riot. Which is something I think few people do - follow up on events. Some takeaways so far I think are critical.
1) There is significant lack of transparency with reporting and delays. And it is not subtle. Within the Capital Police chain of command we have on record, two people claiming two different narratives, with an hour gap difference. Like blatantly conflicting each other during testimony. This hour gap in effect, was the entire core of the event and two leaders disagree on who reported/requested what, and when.
2) Organizational blaming is rampant in this between Capitol Police, DOD and FBI and DHS, etc. Circular back and forth who sent what email when and how was it highlighted or not highlighted. That lack of clarity at the organizational level is merely an amplified version of the individual level noted above and further muddies the truth of what happened that day.
3) It is fascinating to see how America as a whole seems to shift blame around depending on the incident. After 9-11-01, there was ample blame placed on the USG - namely the Intel Community. It was so much so, that it seemed the actual attackers were not blamed but the victim was blamed. Ironically, following the 6JAN attack, we saw the opposite. The attackers were blamed but no one put any responsibility on those responsible for creating such a vulnerable target. This is more of a critique of America's Blame Culture, however. One where the purpose of analysis is not on truth or future prevention or even accountability, but scapegoating an easy target to make evil. Responsibility thus is not on anyone if you can find the enemy to blame. But real world dynamics do not operate like that. Blame is not a real thing, but in fact a complex combination of opportunity and intent.
4) As we can see with this article, DOD was highly hesitant to involve themselves with domestic issues, due to the blowback they got from the Summer 2020 unrest - mostly BLM and ANTIFA. So keep in mind, when you critique a response to one side, you are influencing the future response to the otherside. Instead of taking that responsibility, the folks who created that situation instead, used their own result as a further attack "why was there no crack down on 6JAN as there was on BLM?! Clearly this is racism!" No, this is the result of what you get when you put the respondent under public scrutiny:
"Robert G. Salesses, the Pentagon’s acting assistant secretary for homeland defense and global security, testified that defense officials’ tight control over the response to the Capitol — and reluctance to issue quick approvals — was shaped by controversy they faced in responding to civil unrest surrounding racial-justice protests last year.
“The memo was unusual in that . . . it required me to seek authorization from the secretary of the Army and the secretary of defense to essentially even protect my Guardsmen,” Walker said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/capitol-riot-hearing/2021/03/02/a4867a48-7b81-11eb-85cd-9b7fa90c8873_story.html
1) There is significant lack of transparency with reporting and delays. And it is not subtle. Within the Capital Police chain of command we have on record, two people claiming two different narratives, with an hour gap difference. Like blatantly conflicting each other during testimony. This hour gap in effect, was the entire core of the event and two leaders disagree on who reported/requested what, and when.
2) Organizational blaming is rampant in this between Capitol Police, DOD and FBI and DHS, etc. Circular back and forth who sent what email when and how was it highlighted or not highlighted. That lack of clarity at the organizational level is merely an amplified version of the individual level noted above and further muddies the truth of what happened that day.
3) It is fascinating to see how America as a whole seems to shift blame around depending on the incident. After 9-11-01, there was ample blame placed on the USG - namely the Intel Community. It was so much so, that it seemed the actual attackers were not blamed but the victim was blamed. Ironically, following the 6JAN attack, we saw the opposite. The attackers were blamed but no one put any responsibility on those responsible for creating such a vulnerable target. This is more of a critique of America's Blame Culture, however. One where the purpose of analysis is not on truth or future prevention or even accountability, but scapegoating an easy target to make evil. Responsibility thus is not on anyone if you can find the enemy to blame. But real world dynamics do not operate like that. Blame is not a real thing, but in fact a complex combination of opportunity and intent.
4) As we can see with this article, DOD was highly hesitant to involve themselves with domestic issues, due to the blowback they got from the Summer 2020 unrest - mostly BLM and ANTIFA. So keep in mind, when you critique a response to one side, you are influencing the future response to the otherside. Instead of taking that responsibility, the folks who created that situation instead, used their own result as a further attack "why was there no crack down on 6JAN as there was on BLM?! Clearly this is racism!" No, this is the result of what you get when you put the respondent under public scrutiny:
"Robert G. Salesses, the Pentagon’s acting assistant secretary for homeland defense and global security, testified that defense officials’ tight control over the response to the Capitol — and reluctance to issue quick approvals — was shaped by controversy they faced in responding to civil unrest surrounding racial-justice protests last year.
“The memo was unusual in that . . . it required me to seek authorization from the secretary of the Army and the secretary of defense to essentially even protect my Guardsmen,” Walker said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/capitol-riot-hearing/2021/03/02/a4867a48-7b81-11eb-85cd-9b7fa90c8873_story.html
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