After the DC National Guard Shooting Comes the Big Lie

Over the holiday weekend in Washington, D.C., two members of the West Virginia National Guard, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom and 24-year-old Andrew Wolf, were shot and killed a short subway ride from my home. Beckstrom died from her injuries, and Wolfe remains in critical condition as of this writing. News quickly spread that the shooter was a CIA-trained Afghan named Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who appeared to be psychologically drained by his experience in a death squad guaranteed by our tax dollars. The moment his national identity emerged on social media, the Trump regime did what it loves best: collectively punish brown immigrants. There will be no national assessment of the imperial response – just Stephen Miller and his gang in the White House turning up the level of xenophobic racism to 11.

There have been many Big Lies spread since the shooting, but I think we should start with the man whose hands are most stained with the blood of Beckstrom and Wolf: West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey.

Morrisey, the governor of one of the poorest states in the country, who devoted most of his time to attacks.”awakened mind virus,” is by clicking the next line in the media: “When bad guys step up, we must make sure we do everything in our power to fight them back. We must stand firm on core principles such as protecting our nation's capital, eliminating violence to reduce crime. These should not be controversial topics.”

Isn't it controversial? Let's leave aside the fact that, in his opinion, the villains do not include CIA agents training and arming torture squads in a 20-year war, the goals of which seem increasingly unclear. Put that aside, because we must confront the “big lie” being spread across the political spectrum: that the National Guard is protecting the citizens of Washington, DC. The idea that the Guard turned into trained local crime fighters as soon as West Virginians got off the bus at the D.C. Armory is a lie. Even the idea that reducing crime was the goal of this authoritarian occupation is a lie, and we cannot allow that lie to take hold.

First, and we cannot say this loudly enough, there is no violent crime crisis in Washington. In fact, crime was at a high level. 30 year low. (Note that this link goes to Trump's Justice Department webpage.) This was the first step in Trump's fulfillment of a promise to the MAGA base: During the campaign, he repeatedly vowed to occupy blue cities militarily and root out the “enemy within.” Forget it County lawwhich prohibits federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement. It was about taking advantage of Washington, D.C.'s lack of statehood and normalizing the use of military force against US citizens, as Trump said in his speech. instantly infamous emergency meeting US generals. Its ending spoke openly againshould take over our cities in time for the 2026 midterm elections.

We must not forget that the moment of the Reichstag fire, used as a pretext for the effective dissolution of the D.C. government, occurred when teenage children beat up a DOGE employee nicknamed Big Balls. It threatened the wounded masculinity of the entire administration: a black-run city took its big balls.

So the Trump team has come up with a non-existent crime crisis just in time for the fall. This was no coincidence. Crime in Washington is down every autumnbecause school has started again. The District of Columbia has cut summer youth employment programs, and the structure of the school day has led to a drop in street crime. You don't need to be a doctor of criminology to see this pattern.

There's also Morrisey's big lie that these troops were “defending the capital.” The National Guard was garbage collection, mulchingand essentially did all the work that teenagers could do in the summer if there were well-funded summer job opportunities. And it would be cheaper to hire children than to launch an unprecedented military occupation. The Guard also heard from countless people in DC, very politely and at great cost to their morale (including Bäckström's morale) that it would be so good if they just walked away and stopped firing heavy artillery into crime-infested places like the Washington Monument.

The National Guard did not protect anything. All it did was destroy the local economy and present a picture of what fascism would look like throughout the country. For months, residents had been warning that such shootings were imminent. Occupation breeds violence, and weapons breed more weapons. The Trump administration has ridiculed these calls. Now Beckstrom is dead because Governor Morrisey wanted to impress a great leader by being first in line to break the law. She is dead because the Trump regime wanted to occupy “democratic” cities. She's dead because Morrisey sent 300 National Guard troops to DC as a sop to Trump's attempts to throw an authoritarian costume ball.

The military occupation only led to more violence. Three more people were killed in Washington this week. Name them: Kevin Booker, Demetrius Alston and David Warren Childs. Police shot and killed Booker and Childs. Alston died in Metro Police custody. There were vigils for all three. They are mourned in part by the organization Harriet's Wildest Dreams. put this onbecause

Since the occupation, there has been an exponential increase in terror in our communities, neighbors have been kidnapped, residents have been dragged through the courts, and recently there has been an increase in violent confrontations with law enforcement… Local police continue to coordinate with federal law enforcement for the sole purpose of terrorizing and complying, but we will not comply. We will resist.

Morrisey's latest comment needs to be checked. Speaking for the first time about the need not to politicize the shootings, he said: “We are not going to allow the same ideology that led to the defunding of the police movement – we are not going to allow that to happen to the Guardsmen.”

The rationale for defunding the police and ICE was that untrained people with military-grade weapons do not make communities safer and are in fact a threat to the world. Beckstrom and Wolf were supposed to be home with their families for the holidays. This also applies to Booker, Alston and Childs. To ensure public safety, the National Guard occupying Washington should be sent home. The CIA's black operations—and the presidents who financed them—must be scrutinized for assassination training. And this regime, which offers only nihilism, collective punishment and extrajudicial killings, must be brought to criminal justice. But that's not all we need to see. Proposing a different vision of public safety is a matter of life and death, and the federal occupation of our cities should have no role in that vision.