Capitol Police Officer Michael Byrd gives an interview outing himself as Ashli Babbitt’s killer

The New Neo Posted on by

Seems like it was only yesterday that we were being told that authorities could not reveal any details at all about the killing of Ashli Babbitt except that it was justified, and that the identity of the Capitol Police officer who shot her must remain secret in order to protect him from terrible death threats from the right.

Now they are pulling an Emily Litella:

The police officer who fatally shot Ashli Babbitt, who took part in the pro-Trump invasion of the U.S. Capitol, will reveal his identity for the first time in a televised interview set to air Thursday evening.

And that’s exactly what happened. His identity was revealed to be what everyone on the right has known it to be for many months: Capitol Police Officer Michael Byrd. And we already knew about this history regarding Byrd:

In 2019, Byrd left his Glock 22 pistol inside a bathroom at the Capitol Visitor’s Center and was later found during a routine security sweep of the premises. The Capitol police said an investigation would occur and “the appropriate actions will be taken in accordance with the Department’s official policies and procedures.” Byrd was back on the job a few days after the incident and allegedly told colleagues he would “be treated differently” because of his rank.

Why is it okay to tell us now? He was not charged criminally and he was exonerated by an internal investigation – although somehow we’re not allowed to see the report describing why – and yet Ashli’s family’s lawsuit against him is proceeding apace and his identity was to be revealed anyway. So it stands to reason that this was his way of trying to get ahead of the story. It also helps to get the left’s narrative out there, so for the MSM and the Democrats it’s very useful.

He not only feels he did nothing wrong, but he is very proud of his actions that day. I have no way to judge whether I agree with his exoneration unless I were to read a report detailing the reasoning behind it, and also see a variety of surveillance videos from many angles and hear an analysis. So I can’t say that I know either way. But I do know that if the races had been reversed in this incident (Byrd is actually black and Babbitt was white), the story told in the media of his shooting and killing of “an unarmed woman” would be very very different.

In the interview Byrd said:

“I know that day I saved countless lives,” Byrd said. “I know members of Congress, as well as my fellow officers and staff, were in jeopardy and in serious danger. And that’s my job.”

He would be within his rights saying he believes he saved “countless lives.” But he knows he “saved countless lives”? Is he aware there were no firearms in the Capitol except those carried by the police, and that the FBI has made it clear that there was no plan on the part of the rioters to kill people or to stage an insurrection?

Byrd can think or believe he saved countless lives, but he doesn’t “know” it. Nor do we. I’ve seen no actual evidence that indicates it is the case.

Byrd also said: “I think I showed the utmost courage on January 6, and it’s time to do that now.” Wow – the utmost courage. I have actually never heard a hero say something like that of himself or herself; it’s rather odd and uncharacteristic and unheroic. Heroes are almost always humble and downplaying their actions, saying they are being overpraised and either were just doing their jobs or just doing what anyone else would have done, even though that’s not necessarily true.

Looking at the transcript, I have these further observations:

Byrd begins (at least, the interview as edited and shown begins) by talking at length about the death threats he has received. He characterizes them as racist (which I’m sure some of them were). Clearly this first part of the interview is designed to feed into the “white supremacist” narrative about the “insurrectionists,” and also about how incredibly brave Byrd is to even give this interview.

Interviewer Lester Holt says to Byrd that there were “reports of shots fired” by the demonstrators that day, and Byrd says he had heard such reports. Of course, we know that there were no shots fired by demonstrators. But although it is almost certainly true that there were reports of such, that is another way the interviewer has of influencing the viewer to think there were shots fired, without actually lying and saying so.

Holt does mention that there were other officers there in the same circumstances (even at the same moment) who did not use their weapons. Byrd can’t explain that, and Holt doesn’t press him on it.

The transcript ends with this paragraph (written by NBC):

More than 570 people face criminal charges related to the attack, which resulted in at least five deaths and temporarily sent lawmakers into hiding as they sought to formalize Joe Biden’s presidential victory.

Typical MSM “facts” expressed in their typical manner. There’s nothing that is exactly a flat out boldfaced lie there, but the sentence is very misleading. NBC is almost undoubtedly aware that the criminal charges the demonstrators face almost entirely consist of variations on the “trespassing” theme, and that a significant number of those may be tossed in court because there is video evidence that many demonstrators were let in by the Capitol Police. But CBS doesn’t point that out and it is virtually certain that they are counting on the reader to assume something more in line with the narrative they’re pushing, that the riot was extremely violent and dangerous.

Worst of all is the statement that the attack “resulted in at least five deaths.” That may or may not be technically true, although since four of those five deaths were of completely natural causes we don’t know whether they would have occurred anyway. But the statement is carefully framed to nevertheless suggest to readers the truth of the previous false story the MSM has been pushing right from the start – that the rioters caused the deaths in a more direct manner. And what on earth does “at least” mean? I believe they are implying that the Capitol Police suicides that occurred in the weeks and months since the riots were also caused by the attacks. But we have no idea whether there is any connection, and we haven’t heard much if anything about the lives of these people and what may have actually motivated their suicides.

At this late date, what we now do know (and what the right suspected much earlier) is that four of the non-suicide deaths were all from natural causes and unrelated to any direct actions of the rioters themselves. We also know that the only death that was not of natural causes that day was that of Ashli Babbitt, who was killed by none other than Officer Byrd. And yet she is included by NBC in that five-count.

For a long time NBC and the rest of the MSM lied outright and blatantly – not with subtlety – about one of those naturally-caused deaths, that of Officer Sicknick. They said the rioters had hit him on the head with a fire extinguisher and he died a few hours later of his injuries. None of that is true; not the fire extinguisher, not the injuries, not the cause of death, and not even the time of death. The MSM is well aware that he died of natural causes, and if they’re not aware they’re negligent. But they also know that many of their readers don’t know, so they can get away with repeating the implication that the rioters may indeed have killed five people, something the media knows is utterly untrue.

But as I said, this is typical of the MSM’s approach, and it’s a very useful one in terms of propaganda. I’d love to see a poll on how many Americans continue to think that the rioters killed Officer Sicknick. I bet the numbers would still be high.

Our new partners for peace, the Taliban

The New Neo Posted on by

What is wrong with these people?:

U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that’s prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials.

The move, detailed to POLITICO by three U.S. and congressional officials, was designed to expedite the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan as chaos erupted in Afghanistan’s capital city last week after the Taliban seized control of the country. It also came as the Biden administration has been relying on the Taliban for security outside the airport.

You may think my question that began this post was a rhetorical one. No; I actually meant it, as in: (1) Are they abysmally stupid and mindbogglingly, criminally ignorant? (2) Are the American officials in charge there – and perhaps elsewhere or even everywhere – moles? Not just one mole, but mole after mole after mole? In other words, is it moles and spies and traitors all the way down? (3) Were they acting on their own or did they get orders from the higher-ups to do this? And if so, who were those higher-ups?

More:

“Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” said one defense official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “It’s just appalling and shocking and makes you feel unclean.”

In other words, they are asking to remain anonymous in order to protect themselves from retaliation. Can’t say I blame them – although actually, I do. I wish people were more courageous, but I can’t say that I would be any more courageous if I were in their shoes; I just don’t know. At least they’re speaking to the press and getting the word out – unfortunately, way too late (it’s not clear when they themselves learned about the policy).

More [emphasis mine]:

…In the earliest days of the evacuation, the joint U.S. military and diplomatic coordination team at the airport provided the Taliban with a list of people the U.S. aimed to evacuate. Those names included Afghans who served alongside the U.S. during the 20-year war and sought special immigrant visas to America. U.S. citizens, dual nationals and lawful permanent residents were also listed.

“They had to do that because of the security situation the White House created by allowing the Taliban to control everything outside the airport,” one U.S. official said.

Yes, you were between a rock and a hard place – and it was entirely of the US’s own making. The Biden administration put us in the position of relying on the Taliban to protect the very people the Taliban would like to torture and kill. That’s unconscionable. Did no one not think of that as the Taliban made their way unimpeded through city after city in Afghanistan?

Or perhaps they did think of it and considered it a feature rather than a bug, because learning that we did this would discourage anyone, in any country that was experiencing anything similar, from ever cooperating with the US again. Who would risk it?

Here are some of the perpetrators – and I don’t mean the Taliban:

In written and verbal communications, Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, and Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, head of U.S. forces on the ground in Afghanistan, have referred to the Taliban as “our Afghan partners,” according to two defense officials.

The Biden administration has been coordinating the evacuation effort and airport security with the Taliban, which is running the checkpoints outside the airport’s outer perimeter. Officials have been “in daily communication” with Taliban commanders about who to let in, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters this week.

I wrote the title of this post before I had read that part of the linked article. I had no idea that the people in charge had actually called the Taliban our “partners.” I was being sarcastic; they were not.

And then there’s this:

After the attacks, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) appeared to criticize the Biden administration’s strategy of coordinating with the Taliban, writing in a statement: “As we wait for more details to come in, one thing is clear: We can’t trust the Taliban with Americans’ security.”

Is it clear now, Bob? Was it clear before, Bob? And if not, why not? Because it’s been clear to the rest of us for more than twenty years – crystal clear. What’s becoming more and more clear is that we can’t trust our own government with Americans’ security.

Who will control Afghanistan now, and why should we care?

The New Neo Posted on by

When we started our post-9/11 military operations in Afghanistan I think most Americans knew why we did it despite the obvious pitfalls and drawbacks. The aim was to dismantle the terrorist training camps and pursue the leaders of al Qaeda to capture or kill them, and to serve notice to other terrorists who would harm the US that their fate would be the same.

That part was the simple part, and even executing it was relatively simple (although it took many years to get Bin Laden himself). But what to do after those initial stages was hard, very hard. At first we tried to transform the country in order to stabilize it, but it became clear early on – absolutely clear after a couple of years, but at least somewhat clear even before that – that this was doomed to failure. However, I always thought we’d need to maintain some presence there for many decades – perhaps many many many decades, but it seemed as though it could be done without a huge presence, once the first couple of years had passed.

But many people wanted us totally out. Most were on the left, but some were on the right. One of those on the right was Trump. My personal opinion is that he was always going to have to keep some residual forces there, and that he was seeing that fact more and would continue to see it more and more as time passed. Whatever he would have done, he would have made every effort to protect all Americans and to give the terrorists notice that they would meet with swift and violent retaliation if they went back to attacking America or its allies. I am virtually certain he never would have come to the sort of backwards and completely counterproductive decisions the Biden administration has continually made.

But Trump was voted (or pushed) out of office before we got to see what would happen if Trump had been in charge of whatever happened in Afghanistan over time. And Trump’s successor Biden and company made sure that the withdrawal has occurred in the worst possible way.

So that’s where we stand today. We are worse off than before 9/11 or even immediately afterwards, because despite our internal divisions and disagreements back then, we were not as bitterly divided and demoralized as now. We had a government that was at least inclined to protect us, allies who might not have adored us but who at least basically trusted us, and we were willing to back up our threats with action so those threats were not seen as idle.

Now all that is gone. Every bit of it. And it was done in the same way a person is said to go bankrupt: first gradually, then suddenly. It took the present administration to effect the “suddenly” part.

Which leads us to the question in the title of this post: who will control Afghanistan now, and why should we care? My answer is that Afghanistan is now already a fertile refuge and training ground for international terrorists of the Islamic variety. It also has just become a huge symbol of American defeat, and that acts as extra motivation for those terrorists who want to be part of the glory.

So Afghanistan is quite the prize for the winner of what I assume will be an internecine war for control there among all the groups vying for position. Whichever one wins – unless by some miracle some relative “good guys” regroup and manage to take control – you can be pretty sure the results will be something awful not only for human rights in Afghanistan, but for our own safety and stability and that of the entire western world or what’s left of it.

And that was why we were there all these years.

As Stephen Green asks in this piece: “Does this mean another Afghan Civil War, this time between two factions over which can be the most horrible?”

My answer is: I believe so.

[NOTE: Please read this piece by Austin Bay discussing our engagement with Afghanistan and whether it actually was a “20-year war” as so many said.]

Terrorist attacks in Kabul

The New Neo Posted on by

I say terrorist attacks rather than “attacks by the new leaders of Afghanistan” because I think this is not the work of the Taliban, nor is it in the Taliban’s present temporary interests. The Taliban want to put a good face on things and act at least somewhat reformed for just a little while.

But nature abhors a vacuum, and the Biden administration has sucked much of the air out of Afghanistan. In addition, with the freeing of many thousands of terrorists who were imprisoned at Bagram, there are plenty of seasoned and experienced – as well as motivated – volunteers for suicide missions or other terrorist endeavors. ISIS is there, and al Qaeda (or whatever that group calls its regrouped self these days), and probably other entities whose names I don’t know.

It’s like one of those detective mysteries where so many people hated the victim that there’s a myriad of suspects from which to choose. And at the moment we also have the fog of war.

I would not be surprised if attacks happen here, too. And I have no confidence whatsoever that our government has any intention of protecting us or any westerner or western sympathizer in Afghanistan right now.

It was clear to me and a lot of other people on 9/11 that the terrorists and those supporting them meant business, and that this war would continue into the lengthy and indefinite future, and that the west needed to be resolute in fighting it. It also became apparent fairly soon that, for the most part, that resolve was spotty or missing. The war in Afghanistan was undertaken in order to send a message of strength to the radical Islamic terrorist world, but by now the message we are sending is quite the opposite. And that failure acts as blood does on a school of sharks.

[NOTE: I plan to write more on these attacks as more details become known.]

How most Democrats view the Afghanistan pullout

The New Neo Posted on by

A comment from “physicsguy”:

[After] a bit of a break from the silence from my lib/D friends on FB…The new narrative is emerging: “They’ve got 60k people out in the last few days! They are doing a wonderful job!” (Somehow that the problem was of their making never comes up), Then the expected line: “Biden is cleaning up 2 messes left to him by Trump: Covid and Afghanistan”

These people, and the rest of half the country, are beyond redemption. Not even this CF is going to open their eyes.

In my opinion, during the silence they were waiting for their talking points to guide them as to what to think and relieve any cognitive dissonance they might feel about what’s happening. Therefore the pause.

Cognitive dissonance is generally a very uncomfortable and unpleasant feeling for most people. It arises when something is observed that’s incompatible, or potentially incompatible, with a previously held belief, particularly a deeply and long-held belief, and threatens to challenge it. Rather than change their minds, people often will seize with great relief on a way to escape their cognitive dissonance, and then they will reassure each other and reinforce it by repeating it to each other. They will rid themselves of any need for guilt or the need to examine what they have enabled, and in the case of Biden and Afghanistan they will fall back with relief on the old familiar and always-available “blame Trump and the GOP.”

The more interesting question is whether all of them will go that route, or whether some will have an awakening. And if the latter, what percentage? I have no doubt it would be low, but every bit counts.

It is a depressing thing to understand how sheepish even the supposedly intelligent (or otherwise-intelligent) can be and often are. But that’s been my observation over the years.

On the other hand, about a week ago a friend of mine who’s a liberal rather than a leftist referred to the present Afghanistan situation as an “effed-up mess” and then rhetorically asked why it was happening. I answered by giving one reason: “Because a senile old man who’s also stupid was elected” and she didn’t object, despite having been a Biden voter. She may have been refraining from starting an argument with me, I suppose. But I sensed she felt some discomfort with Biden at that point. We haven’t discussed it since, so I don’t know whether she’s fallen in line. But this particular friend has long been something of an independent thinker compared to many others, and one mark of that is that she’s willing to talk to me about politics without getting particularly incensed.

Some good news from Georgia

The New Neo Posted on by

We could all use some good news, right?

Here’s some:

Former Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker filed documents to run for the United States Senate in Georgia on Tuesday.

Federal Election Commission documents show that Walker, 59, is set to run as a Republican to unseat Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, in 2022.

Yes, I know; it’s Georgia. But if it’s not close, cheating becomes harder.

Hey, what’s $3.5 trillion among friends?

The New Neo Posted on by

Amidst everything else, this happened yesterday:

Striking a deal with moderates, House Democratic leaders have muscled President Joe Biden’s multitrillion-dollar budget blueprint over a key hurdle, ending a risky standoff and putting the party’s domestic infrastructure agenda back on track….

Not only are we building the physical infrastructure of America, we are building the human infrastructure of America,” Pelosi said on the House floor.

Yes, fundamental change.

It used to be that neither party would try to effect fundamental change with an extremely small, razor-thin majority. But that’s been the Democrats’ specialty in the 21st Century when they have any majority at all, no matter how small. Then, if they lose majority control of Congress in the next election cycle as a result, the enormous changes they’re pushed through already can be difficult if not impossible to reverse (with Obamacare, if you recall, one of the reasons was that they caused the old insurance system to be dismantled).

Pelosi likened the bill to some historical precedents:

Pelosi told her colleagues before the vote that the legislation would lead to a federal investment on par with the New Deal and the Great Society.

Two programs that may have done more harm than good; that question has been argued for decades. But at least both were passed when the Democrats held huge Congressional majorities rather than narrow ones (see this as well as this). And they had some bipartisan support, as well. Not so this time – not only is the majority very narrow and obviously imperiled for 2022, but in recent years it’s tended to be the opposition to these huge legislative initiatives that has been bipartisan.

More:

Republicans blasted Democrats for pursuing their priorities at a time when they said all focus should be on Afghanistan, as thousands of people including Americans are trying to flee the country as the U.S. withdraws its forces.

Good point – except the goal is to distract America from Afghanistan while at the same time that Afghanistan distracts America from this monster bill.

That familiar Senate Democrat duo, Manchin and Sinema, say they won’t vote for it. But it remains to be seen whether they mean that.

Open thread 8/25/21

The New Neo Posted on by

There are many reasons the ballet “Swan Lake” has lasted so long – nearly 150 years (the music; for the choreography, about 125). But I bet this video offers some reasons you hadn’t thought of before:

NOTE: I’m not familiar with the dancers in all the clips used in that video. But some are of Fonteyn and Nureyev, and some are of Maya Plisetskaya, perhaps the greatest Odette/Odile of all. Some are even older clips than that. I believe that in the quick cuts at the very end (not of “Swan Lake”), there is even one of Karsavina, for example, who was born in 1885.