A serious threat continues; describe it as such
Brooklyn: I’m imploring the media to stop calling the storming of the Capitol a riot. It was not a riot. It was a coordinated, chaotic assault on a building that housed the democratically elected members of a government of 330 million citizens. That’s 4.25% of the population of the planet, more than the combined populations of the five biggest countries in Europe (Germany, the U.K., France, Italy and Spain). Had these seditionists located the vice president, there is a strong possibility that he would have been hanged by the neck. If the same thing happened in another country, would you call it a riot?
I’m from Ireland. I remember what it’s like to grow up hearing daily news reports of sectarian killings. I also survived the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11. I took my camera and walked all over lower Manhattan. The biggest terrorist attack known to mankind had occurred less than 24 hours earlier. I stood less than two meters from George Pataki, Rudy Giuliani, Bernard Kerik and (I believe) a senator from Florida. Thank God I had a camera and not a bomb or a gun. I could not comprehend that a country of such military might was still unaware of the danger that existed on its doorstep. Twenty years later, nothing has changed.
The danger exists in our midst. It existed in Russia, Germany, Vietnam, the Congo, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Turkey — and in Ireland. The danger exists in New York City, Washington, Miami, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Boston and every hamlet of this magnificent country. This was an assault on every man, woman and child’s sensibilities. This was not a riot.