The Trump regime staged another military assault on Los Angeles yesterday, this time targeting historic MacArthur Park. Not coincidentally, the park lies in the Westlake District, which is home predominantly to immigrants from Central America.
The primary, but unstated, objective of the assault, billed as “Operation Excalibur” was to produce deceptive video content for the Fox propaganda channel and its immitators.
Journalist Ken Klippenstein, who covers national security on Substack, spoke with National Guard members off the record and obtained leaked documents about Operation Excalibur, the assault on a park in a US city by the US military and the Trump Department of Homeland Security:
The news media is describing the operation as an ominous crackdown, but National Guard sources tell me that it was a botched laughingstock. The military aspect of the operation, codenamed Operation Excalibur, has not been previously reported.
The documents reveal that the erstwhile justification for the operation was to try to shut down the distribution of fake IDs. The mission of the 1st Squadron, 18th Cavalry is described as protecting DHS [Department of Homeland Security] “security points and blocking positions” while they undertook their assault. The Squadron was ordered not to “restrict pedestrian movement” and not to “conduct law enforcement activities.”) …
Then all that planning went bust.
Because ICE and CBP apparently failed to communicate or coordinate effectively, the military showed up too late (and Los Angeles authorities weren’t notified until two hours prior.)
“We were on the objective for 24 minutes,” a National Guard member told me. “Many of the phase lines were not reported because they didn’t happen. So we parked and then left. Soldiers didn’t get out of trucks. [They] stayed in the back of the 5-tons [military trucks] sweating in the heat.”
This is just the latest operation that didn’t go off as planned, amplifying the sense amongst the California Guardsmen that the whole spectacle is idiotic and shameful.
Part of the reason for the confusion is the sheer number of government agencies involved. In this operation, according to the documents, nine different federal agencies (including the IRS) were given radio code names based on soda brands (Pepsi, Coke, 7-UP, etc.) —that is, except for ICE, which was codenamed “Inca,” which may or may not be the Peruvian cola of the same name.
Mayor Karen Bass, as if an interloper in her own city, rushed to MacArthur park in her own SUV motorcade and asked the feds to leave. Bass told the Los Angeles Times that the feds needed “to leave and they need to leave right now, they need to leave because this is unacceptable.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), in town to mark the six-month milestone since the devastating fires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, called the military assault on the park a “disgrace” and “theatre.”
“What a disgrace, what’s happening in MacArthur Park. What theater. On the six-month anniversary, after all, of these fires — that’s the message from the polluted heart of the President of the United States, the polluted heart of [White House Deputy Chief of Staff] Stephen Miller,” Newsom said.
Miller grew up in Santa Monica, and is a graduate of Santa Monica High School. Many in Los Angeles believe he is orchestrating the assaults on his hometown because of so few people there agree with his right-wing, authoritarian world view.
LA Mayor Karen Bass rushed to the park when she learned that it was under seige by Trump military forces. “This morning, I went to MacArthur Park where I saw federal agents, military vehicles and federalized troops,” Bass said, “another example of the administration ratcheting up the chaos by deploying what looked like a military operation in our American city. It is very important to me that the truth be told to the American people about what happened here: children were at summer camp when federal agents descended on the park. What I saw today looked like a city under siege and under occupation.
“To have armored vehicles deployed on the streets of our city, to federalize the National Guard, to have the U.S. Marines who are trained to kill abroad, deployed to our city – all of this is outrageous and it is un-American. It’s clear that this is all part of a political agenda to terrorize immigrants and signal that they need to stay at home when there are entire sectors of our economy that rely on immigrant workers.
“The White House is continuing its all out assault on our American city, and the administration continues to try to silence us with threats of arrest, lawsuits and funding cuts.”
She also told reporters that, “To me, this is another example of the administration ratcheting up chaos by deploying what looked like a military operation in an American city.”
I just read a book about the Little Bighorn and this is a classic cavalry move: Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer was to attack a Sioux village of “hostiles” and drive them against the blocking move by Maj. Marcus Reno’s column. There was a breakdown in coordination and communication — just like in Los Angeles — and we know how that ended: the “hostiles” won.