Army Sec Ryan McCarthy: we weren't ready as "[we] had no wildest imagination that you could end up breaching the Capitol Grounds."
As both a nat sec specialist and an expect in imagining, let me call 100% BS on this.
As both a nat sec specialist and an expect in imagining, let me call 100% BS on this.
-The threat of violence at the event was repeatedly warned about that very week,
-The intel chatter of the Capitol in specific was out in the open all the way down to them talking about specific access points,
-The intel chatter of the Capitol in specific was out in the open all the way down to them talking about specific access points,
-The scenario had happened at multiple other national parliaments and several state legislatures in the US,
And, if you want to play "imagining," the scenario itself of an attack on the Capitol building features in countless books/movies. But, most importantly, is a key scene in a bible of right wing extremist literature ("Turner Diaries," the book which also motivated Timothy McVeigh)
Maybe what he and others just couldn't do is put the pieces together to imagine it happening to him or, even more so, it being done by his political "tribe."
This was no 9-11 style "failure of imagination" and do not let anyone get away with that crap.
From the specific event itself to the overall forces that enabled it, this was a failure of leadership and morals.
From the specific event itself to the overall forces that enabled it, this was a failure of leadership and morals.