{"id":176472,"date":"2020-06-08T18:32:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-08T23:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/06\/08\/this-is-both-heartening-and-worrying\/"},"modified":"2020-06-08T18:32:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-08T23:32:00","slug":"this-is-both-heartening-and-worrying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/06\/08\/this-is-both-heartening-and-worrying\/","title":{"rendered":"This is Both Heartening and Worrying"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The US Army has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.military.com\/daily-news\/2020\/06\/05\/helicopter-crew-grounded-probe-low-dc-flyovers-continues.html\">grounded the helicopter flight crew involved in &#8220;buzzing&#8221; protesters on June 1 pending an investigation<\/a>.<\/div>\n<p>This is significant because the maneuvers were ordered either by,&nbsp; &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/06\/02\/us\/politics\/military-national-guard-trump-protests.html\">The highest echelons of the District of Columbia National Guard<\/a>,&#8221; (<i>NY Times<\/i>) or <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/e4b7abdbf3e59eb3668e4e9e51def340\">directly ordered by Donald Trump<\/a>. (<i>AP<\/i>)<\/p>\n<p>So, the military has ordered an investigation, and the implication is that the crew, and people above them in the chain of command, may be facing jeopardy as a result of following orders.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly, this is a push-back against Donald Trump and Evil Minions<sup>\u2122<\/sup>, which can be taken two ways:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is reassuring because it means that the military has remained largely unaffected by the politicization of the government under Trump.<\/li>\n<li>It is concerning because it indicates a level of push-back to civilian authority that might presage a coup.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Actually, both could be correct:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.military.com\/national-guard\">National Guard<\/a> helicopter crew that flew low over protesters in the nation&#8217;s capital this week has been grounded, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.military.com\/army\">Army<\/a> secretary told reporters Friday. <\/p>\n<p>The Army initiated an administrative investigation, called a 15-6, after a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.military.com\/equipment\/uh-72a-lakota\">UH-72 Lakota<\/a> was seen making low maneuvers in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said. The crew was grounded immediately after the investigation began, he added.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Videos showed Lakota and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.military.com\/equipment\/uh-60a-l-black-hawk\">UH-60 Black Hawk<\/a> helicopters kicking up debris as officials tried to force demonstrators who&#8217;d broken the city&#8217;s 7 p.m. curfew off the streets. The Black Hawks were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/the-war-zone\/33802\/military-helicopters-descend-on-washington-in-bizarre-very-low-altitude-show-of-force\">reportedly operated by the FBI<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>McCarthy declined to say who ordered the helicopter crews to fly low over the protesters in Washington, citing concerns that he&#8217;s in the chain of command and the investigation remains ongoing.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US Army has grounded the helicopter flight crew involved in &#8220;buzzing&#8221; protesters on June 1 pending an investigation. This is significant because the maneuvers were ordered either by,&nbsp; &#8220;The highest echelons of the District of Columbia National Guard,&#8221; (NY Times) or directly ordered by Donald Trump. (AP) So, the military has ordered an investigation, &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[384,379,374,590],"class_list":["post-176472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-aviation","tag-military","tag-politics","tag-protests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176472"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}