E-Paper
American capital turns into a fortress ahead of Biden’s inauguration
National Guard troops have secured the US capital, where Biden will be sworn in the 46th American president.
Four times more US troops than the combined deployment in Afghanistan and Iraq would be stationed in Washington, DC around the time of the inauguration of Joe Biden as US president on January 20.
The build-up to the big day has already started. National Guard troops have secured the US capital, where Biden will be sworn in the 46th American president. The US Capitol building was teeming with National Guard troops on Wednesday as the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time.
“I think you can expect to see somewhere, upwards beyond 20,000 members of the National Guard that will be here in the footprint of the District of Columbia,” DC Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee said.
The defence department has said there will actually be 21,000 of them, which is more than four times the number of troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Military Times has reported that 2,500 troops are scheduled to be left in Afghanistan and Iraq each by January 15 because of a drawdown, as announced by acting defence secretary Chris Miller last November.
Washington DC is on heightened security alert with warnings from the FBI and other security agencies of armed protests being planned at the Capitol and capitols in all 50 states in the days leading up to Biden’s inauguration.
Senior officials of the FBI and the US Secret Service briefed Biden and key members of his national security team on the security arrangement on Wednesday, said the transition team. They will be getting daily briefings on the “security and operational preparations”.
A mob incited by President Trump had stormed the US Capitol on January 6 to prevent a joint session of Congress from certifying Biden’s election victory. They had overrun the building complex, temporarily breaking up the session, forced Vice-President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the certification process, and lawmakers to be removed to secure locations. Five people, including a Capitol police officer, were killed in the riots that lasted hours.
President Trump, who was impeached on Wednesday for inciting that attack, issued an appeal for peace and calm in a video message and a statement. “In light of reports of more demonstrations, I urge that there must be NO violence, NO lawbreaking and NO vandalism of any kind. That is not what I stand for, and it is not what America stands for. I call on ALL Americans to help ease tensions and calm tempers,” he said in the written statement.
In the video message, the outgoing president went further, and delivered a more forceful denunciation of the January 6 attack — calling it a “calamity at the Capitol”.
Trump also went on to complain about the “unprecedented assault on free speech”, framing in general terms his accounts being shut down by social media platforms. “These are tense and difficult times. The efforts to censor, cancel and blacklist our fellow citizens are wrong, and they are dangerous. What is needed now is for us to listen to one another. Not to silence one another.”
Twitter, Facebook, Google, Instagram and a whole range of social media companies have shut down Trump’s accounts and those of some of his enablers and right-wing figures and entities in the days since the January 6 attack.
Jack Dorsey, the Twitter founder and CEO, explained himself in a string of tweets on Wednesday. “I do not celebrate or feel pride in our having to ban @realDonaldTrump from Twitter, or how we got here. After a clear warning we’d take this action, we made a decision with the best information we had based on threats to physical safety both on and off Twitter. Was this correct?”
He added that he believes it was the right decision for Twitter because it “faced an extraordinary and untenable circumstance, forcing us to focus all of our actions on public safety. Offline harm as a result of online speech is demonstrably real, and what drives our policy and enforcement above all”.
