Last Stand at U.S. Institute of Peace (Includes a Gun Safe and the Car Left Behind)

Changes of power often entail the use of a bit of force to shake up the bitter-enders among the losing side. The USIP seems an unlikely place for that, nevertheless that's what happened here in the nation's capitol last week. 

According to a law suit and multiple news reports, the USIP leadership and a few loyalists barricaded themselves in the USIP's large and impressive headquarters building, even to the point of removing outer lock keyways from its entrance doors, trying to disable them. Reportedly they also disabled elevators, electronic access controls, and phone systems. 

According to a lawsuit filed last week the dastardly DOGE invaders finally gained entrance by enlisting former security guards employed by a private security agency that USIP recently ended its contract with. The agency did not return USIP's master key when the contract ended. 

Reportedly, DOGE was able to gain the agency's assistance by threatening to cut off all its federal contracts. (Here I am reminded of Machiavelli's warning that mercenaries cannot be trusted.)

Once the lower battlements had thus been breached, USIP’s leadership barricaded themselves on the building’s top floor. A sound tactical move, that, since the top floor usually makes the best place for a last refuge during a siege, whether in an embassy's safe haven or a castle's Keep.   

The siege was soon over, but DOGE offered merciful terms of surrender and the defeated survivors were permitted to leave unharmed, although without their personal property or even the car belonging to the vanquished former President of USIP. 

One big surprise, to me at least, came in a court declaration filed Wednesday by USIP's outside counsel George Foote where he stated that after the former security agency's employees heard his protest that they were trespassing “they ignored this and proceeded to walk toward USIP’s gun safe.”  

WHAT? The institute of peace felt it necessary to have firearms on the premises? Evidently our professional peacekeepers think there are limits to the practical value of conflict resolution techniques. Like, if they feel personally threatened they want the option of bustin' a cap in some troublemaker's ass. 

Not that I disagree, but, well, I now feel disillusioned. How were those guys going to end conflicts and  create peace in the whole world if they don't trust themselves to cool down a few former contract employees?