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Even as our nation longs to put the trauma of the January insurrection behind, and to move on and deal with the pressing issues of a pandemic, there can be no moving on until the full story is told and all the attacks instigators and accomplices are held accountable.

And that cant happen until participants and witnesses are questioned under oath by an independent commission a group beholden to no one and to no political party.

If there is a way to unite a deeply divided nation around a set of truths, it is to delve into what happened on Jan. 6 and the days and months leading up to it to uncover all the facts, expose the guilty, and assure, to the extent possible, that the seat of government will never again be threatened.

Over last weekend, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a letter to her Democratic members, introduced the idea of a 9/11-style commission to protect our security.

Referencing the interim report prepared by retired Army Lieutenant General Russel Honor, assigned by Pelosi to assess Capitol security after the attack, the speaker wrote, It is clear from his findings and from the impeachment trial that we must get to the truth of how this happened.

Its an idea this editorial board proposed back on Jan. 8 as a sort of after action report on the events leading up to the attack, how it might have been prevented, and who was complicit in inciting the riot aimed at overturning a lawful election and the peaceful transition of power.

In the intervening days days in which more than 230 arrests have been made, new video released documenting the moments of horror and the full extent of the threat, and timelines drawn and redrawn even more questions have emerged.

Some of those might have been answered in the course of the Senate impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump had it not been short-circuited by the decision of House impeachment managers not to call witnesses.

And while their decision might have made no difference to the outcome, the nation should have heard from Republican Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler about her conversation with House minority leader Kevin McCarthy or better yet, from McCarthy himself. When telephoned in the middle of the riot by McCarthy, did Trump really say, Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are thus proving Trump refused to do anything to stop the riot?

There must still be an accounting for delays in deploying the National Guard and for the failure of the Capitol Police to prepare for what turned into a bloody onslaught.

There is still no definitive answer to whether any members of Congress led possible surveillance tours of the Capitol ahead of the insurrection for those later involved.

Yes, the list of people an independent inquiry can and should put under oath is a long one.

The 9/11 Commission took a long-overdue look at the roots of international terrorism and the ways in which the intelligence community was hampered by both laws and its own tradition of stovepiping intelligence that should have been shared. So, too, a Jan. 6 commission must take an equally hard look at domestic terrorism and the ways in which white supremacists and militia groups have been allowed to grow and prosper.

The words of the 9/11 Commission ring as true today as they did then: We did not grasp the magnitude of a threat that had been gathering over time.

The 9/11 Commission, created by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush, took nearly 21 months to complete its work, which included more than three dozen recommendations for policies and legislation aimed at preventing the next attack. Pelosi is absolutely right that a Jan. 6 commissions membership will be key bipartisan, above reproach, and small in number (the 9/11 Commission had only 10 members), with an abundance of staff.

Most Americans want answers answers they didnt get from a truncated impeachment process. The right-wing extremists who inspired and carried out the attack are still here, and Congress should not assume that the outrage of Jan. 6 cant happen again.

Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us on Twitter at @GlobeOpinion.

Continued here:
An assault on this democracy demands answers - The Boston Globe

Spain will on Tuesday mark the 40th anniversary of an attempted right-wing coup which for hours left the country in a state of political chaos.

This is how the coup that threatened Spain's fragile democracy unfolded, less than six years after dictator general Francisco Franco died in 1975:

The assaultOn the evening of February 23, 1981 about 200 Civil Guard officers stormed the lower house of parliament, firing assault rifles in the air as MPs debated the investiture of a new centrist government.

The group was led by lieutenant-colonel Antonio Tejero, who ordered everyone to lie on the floor.

Only three people did not dive for cover, outgoing prime minister Adolfo Suarez, his deputy general Gutierrez Mellado and the leader of the newly legalised Communist party, Santiago Carrillo.

In Madrid, rebels took over the studios of Spain's public TV and radio for about 90 minutes before they were dispersed by riot police.

Inhabitants of the Spanish capital locked themselves at home and some packed their bags, preparing to flee.

King's counterstrikeKing Juan Carlos immediately sought to shut down the coup. From the Zarzuela Palace near Madrid he called generals across the country and ordered them to respect the new government.

In 1978, Spain had adopted a constitution that was overwhelmingly supported in a referendum and which established a parliamentary monarchy.

During the night that followed the coup attempt, the monarch took action against its political leader Alfonso Armada, a general who had been the king's military instructor and later his secretary.

Juan Carlos barred Armada from the Zarzuela Palace and rejected his proposal to form a new government.

Just after 1:00 am, the king went on television in his uniform as Captain General of the Armed Forces to say he had ordered all measures be taken to maintain the constitutional order.

"The Crown, ... will not tolerate, in any degree whatsoever, the actions or behaviour of anyone attempting, through use of force, to interrupt the democratic process of the Constitution," he said.

The rebels who stormed parliament surrendered at noon on February 24, less than a day after launching their attempted coup.

The contextThe coup attempt came amid widespread disenchantment with Suarez, who had been appointed prime minister by Juan Carlos in 1976.

By February 1981, the king had fallen out with Suarez, a centrist who faced fierce opposition from the Socialists and pressure from military officials angered by the Communist Party's legalisation.

The military was also upset by the government's failure to end the Basque separatist group ETA's long-running campaign of violence.

Suarez presented his surprise resignation on January 29, 1981 following a meeting with military leaders at the Zarzuela Palace.

Armada immediately tried to take advantage of his influence over the king to be appointed as Suarez's replacement.

When that failed, Armada pushed ahead with preparations for the coup with Tejero and Milans del Bosch.

A military court sentenced all three men to 30 years in jail.

Armada received a pardon in 1988 while Milans del Bosch was released in 1990 and Tejero in 1996.

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The attempted coup that put Spain's democracy on tenterhooks - Economic Times

Certainly, it was an irregular voting year. In some states, the pandemic prompted more Americans to vote by mail than the total number who voted at all in 2016. But election officials in every single state have said repeatedly that, despite the many challenges 2020 brought, they saw no evidence of fraud that could have altered the outcome of the election.

And after votes were cast, when Congress attempted to use its best tool of self-defense, they let Trump go unpunished for his attempted power grab.

Americans ought to remember the names of those Republicans who objected to the outcome of a free and fair election, the representatives who stuck by Trump in the impeachment vote, and the senators who acquitted him after his trial.

Cruz was the first senator to raise an objection during the joint session of Congress on January 6. He has repeatedly fueled Trumps lies about widespread irregularities and fraud in the election, telling Fox Newss Sean Hannity the night before the Capitol riot that if members of Congress voted to certify the election, what an awful lot of voters are going to hear from that is you dont think voter fraud is real. Cruz repeated Trumps baseless claims of fraud in the Senate, lending legitimacy to the lie that Joe Biden wasnt duly elected. He also objected to Pennsylvanias votes after the violence, and still maintains that he did the right thing.

Hawley was the first senator to publicly state that he would object to the election results, saying he wanted to highlight the failure of some states, including notably Pennsylvania, to follow their own election laws (he is notably not an elected official in Pennsylvania)and was pictured raising a fist in a seeming sign of solidarity with protesters before they breached the Capitol on January 6. He still objected to the count after Congress reconvened, but provided no evidence of fraud in either Arizona or Pennsylvania. Like Cruz, he says he has no regrets, insisting that his constituents concerns deserve to be heard.

Hyde-Smith twice objected to certifying the election results, blaming her constituents for her vote: The people I represent do not believe the presidential election was constitutional and cannot accept the Electoral College decision, she said. She then claimed to be alarmed with the erosion of integrity of the electoral processerosion she contributed to by perpetuating claims of fraud.

Originally posted here:
Remember the Republicans Who Betrayed Democracy - The Atlantic

Since the AfD entered Parliament, it has frequently tested this defensive democracy, pushing and often crossing the boundaries of acceptable public discourse. Its politicians have suggested that migrants could be shot at the border or gassed. They have dabbled in conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement, which imagines a coordinated campaign to replace Europes white population with non-European people. They have even sought to downplay the horrors of the Nazi past: An AfD leader named Alexander Gauland notoriously described the Nazi era as a mere speck of bird poop in German history.

All this comes as political violence here is on the rise. In the past two years, right-wing extremists have murdered the politician Walter Lbcke (he had argued that Germans who did not support taking in refugees could leave the country themselves); killed two people after attempting to storm a synagogue on Yom Kippur in Halle; and shot and killed nine people in two hookah bars in Hanau. Although none of the perpetrators were directly linked to the AfD, its rhetoric has helped foster anti-refugee, anti-immigrant sentiments in Germany.

That does not mean that using constitutional tools to push back against an extremist political party is easy. More than five million Germans voted for the AfD in 2017, and while its support has dropped during the pandemic, it remains a significant force in the German Parliament. Whenever government agencies or other parties penalize the AfD, its leaders claim that the party is being persecuted which only bolsters the conviction among its supporters that more mainstream political parties are indifferent to their concerns.

In addition, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has sometimes contributed to the problem it now seeks to solve. It has been rightly criticized, for instance, for having a historical blind spot when it comes to the far right. One of its chiefs, Hans-Georg Maassen, lost his job in 2018 after downplaying far-right violence in Chemnitz.

Still, Germany has an arsenal of constitutional tools to protect against extremist forces, even if using them generates controversy and accusations of persecution. Defensive democracy is working, at least in the sense that the domestic intelligence service has recognized a threat and is taking steps to eliminate it. At a time when disinformation, political polarization and far-right forces are combining to endanger democracies across the West, other countries should take note.

Emily Schultheis is a freelance journalist and a fellow with the Institute of Current World Affairs.

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Opinion | Germany Is Treating a Major Party as a Threat to Its Democracy - The New York Times

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