
CIA veterans who monitored crackdowns see parallels - wolfgke
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/cia-veterans-who-monitored-crackdowns-abroad-see-troubling-parallels-in-trump-handling-of-protests/2020/06/02/7ab210b8-a4f6-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html
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pjc50
Having invaded, destabilised, and collapsed most of South America and other
parts of the world, all that is left is for America to destabilise itself. Of
course the CIA know what this looks like.

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jialutu
Let's also not forget if this was in any other country, the US would be
sanctioning them already, making a bad situation even worse! I am personally
very glad to see this potentially being the end of the US hegemony.

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ofcrookedtimber
The issue of "What comes after US hegemony?" should trouble you even more.

I can envision a lot of scenarios that are worse than now.

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thatguy0900
Time to start learning Chinese?

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bobmcbobface
How do you say 'how do I keep my internal organs AND my religion' in mandarin?

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shirak_untel
If even the CIA is worried you’re going too far, that says a lot.

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082349872349872
If we're coup-watching, the military has sided with the people:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23412986](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23412986)

That's usually a good sign. Is there any song in the US currently equivalent
to "We Shall Overcome" or "Winds of Change" or "Перемен"?

~~~
pstuart
It's good to have some hope, but to date there's been a consistent refutation
of that.

I'm among those that believe that the coup is already complete and it's now a
matter of them holding on to it.

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wolfgke
Archive.is: [http://archive.is/CAvh4](http://archive.is/CAvh4)

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hughmungus
So we're just going to pretend that cities aren't going up in flames,
businesses aren't being destroyed and innocent protestors, rioters and police
aren't being killed?

There is an extremely blurry line between peaceful and violent protests.
Unfortunately all of the chaos of recent days that the WaPo and others (Obama,
etc.) seem all too eager to sweep under the rug has ruined things for
everyone.

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badrabbit
I hope there is as at least as much of that pretending and sweeping under the
rug as there us when phrases like "most cops are good" ,"it's only a few bad
apples" are used and when cops are not charged with a crime after being filmed
in broad daylight commiting heinous crimes that would cause any civilian to
rot in prison, or after being charged they don't even make it to trial because
a grand jury preemptively aquitted them. I think all that counts as sweeping
under the rug. But it seems you care more about property than human life being
swept under the rug?

As someone said, maybe the right perspective is "it's too bad all this
property is needlessly destroyed, but how can we let so many innocent people
die, protestors get assaulted for no reason, journalists losing their eyes and
being beaten and detained on american soil for doing their job?" Priorities my
friend, says a lot about you. I am sure a country that can afford multi
trillion dollar wars and bailouts can handle a few insured propertied burning
down. Heck, some people might even profit with the right insurance.

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hexagone
Democratic mechanisms to address these issues already exist, and they are in
the hands of each State's legislature.

If you hold the Federal Government responsible, then you want to put this
power in the hands of Federal Legislature. Are you ready to forsake the
federal structure of US Government?

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mindslight
That is exactly what these protests are - part of the democratic process. To
show the majority, who are not affected by police criminality through a
combination of race and chance, the severity of the grievances by the minority
who are.

As for the decentralization argument - I really don't want to be on this side
of the states' rights debate, but that ship sailed a long time ago with
regards to civil rights. It's not terribly unreasonable that individual rights
are protected by state governments _ior_ the federal government when an
individual state is unwilling. Although we are currently witnessing a direct
failure mode of this centralization, with the federal government having gone
AWOL with regards to enforcing the law and even inciting lawlessness.

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hughmungus
"inciting lawlessness"

Do we live in separate universes? It is the media on the Left that is inciting
violence by justifying and even glorifying violent riots. The federal
government has done the opposite of invite lawlessness both now and in the
past.

As we are now beginning to realize, the entire narrative of "rampant police
brutality and killing of minorities" is simply a lie. Not backed up by the
data.

Black communities need the police now more than ever. In Chicago over memorial
day weekend over 50 people were shot. 11 killed. A 5 year old girl was shot!
Where are the protests? Where is the rioting and the sanctimonious yapping
from celebrities and companies?

There is none, because it's not politically advantageous for certain factions
to address the real problems in the black community. Shameful and sickening.

~~~
badrabbit
Yeah, see, when black people call cops they themselves get beat up by cops who
show up after a few hours and arrest anyone they see for bothering them. So,
more cops would hardly help. But if you can have civil cops that live in the
community they protect,maybe that might help.

Regardless, I doubt you will ever get it. I think the rioters are holding back
too much if you ask me. If I was in fear of my life from cops and I have
exhaused the political process for decades like this people, I would be more
strategic about the destruction, target gas stations, 18 wheelers,
transformers,etc... Cripple the city's critical infrastructure. When they try
to demonstrate peacefully ypu complain, when they democractically elect
someone you fight undemocractically and in bad faith to prevent their success.
People armed with automatic weapons stormed city halls just a few weeks ago
with no consequence. Did you not see cops doing a drive by shooting? Cops
marching and breakint car windows for no reason? Cops tear gasing a peacefup
protest? Getting caught framing protesters so they can beat them up?

My friend, the rioting is for people like you so you can hear their screaming,
I think they need to scream louder since you're still dismissing their plight
as if they haven't been peacefully protesting and voting since the 1950's and
the current president vowed to unleash vicious dogs on them, something JFK
fought against in the late 50's and early 60's. So I think they need to scream
louder this way so you can hear them.

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bobmcbobface
This article makes sense in the absence of proper national reporting on the
level of looting and rioting. For those that have seen it first hand, the
national guard on the streets is a relief.

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mtnGoat
speak for yourself, I've seen it first hand and the national guard is NOT a
relief. I don't need militarized police in my streets, thank you.

~~~
bobmcbobface
You prefer a bit of the good old ultraviolence?

[https://youtu.be/HJeu3GEsOq8](https://youtu.be/HJeu3GEsOq8)

~~~
mtnGoat
i can show lots of cherry picked examples of national guard making bad
decisions too, what is your point?

also the man in the linked video wasn't very smart, he took a bat to a
fight(with an angry mob) severely outnumbered... thats poor tactical decision
making. Sometimes the best answer is to sit back and watch it all go down, and
make the insurance claim.

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egberts1
Reminds me of the CIA and their bemoaning the decline of its US manufacturing
base (also on WaPo) — while true, it’s not encompassing enough to show the
resilience of global market (even during COVID-19 crises).

This article is also based on scant socio-political vector data so it needs
more parallels to reach that causation level. For now, it’s a bare correlation
and merely coincidence.

