Thank you for covering this. Sarah could have been my daughter... what happened to her makes absolutely no sense, except when you look at it through the lens of what's happening in the US. Virtually nothing in place is about protecting us, it is only about protecting the established system of greed, corruption and power.
Devastating. I refuse to allow so many horrible events happening so fast in succession to desensitize me to what the world could look like if corrupt and manipulative people were not in control.
The “zero units” is a euphemism for CIA hunter/killer teams (term is from Vietnam War) & Mr. Lakanwal began with them at the age of 15, when he was recruited. Heaven only knows what horrors he’s committed, starting at such a young age. There can be no doubt that he suffered from PTSD & probably TBI. We’ll find out what suffering he put his family through as well. The special forces troops located at Ft. Bragg have been acting out their collective trauma for some time already, killing wives & each other (they were also hunter/killer teams), as have so many former soldiers all over the country. This man was brought to the US & acted out his trauma in the most American way possible—by killing people with a gun. This is not an uncommon occurrence (there were many “friendly fire” incidents before we left Afghanistan)—the only difference is this killing was public on our streets. It has also occurred in the midst of profound anti-immigrant propaganda coming from the trump government. Until we stop sending (or recruiting) soldiers to fight our reckless, feckless wars, this will continue & these soldiers had no business being in DC. This killing belongs to all of us.
I didn’t vote for any of these governments, politicians or policies either & have spent my life protesting against them but all of us paying taxes are paying for them. We are providing the means to keep this going, so we have a collective responsibility whether you want to admit it or not.
We may have some sort of collective responsibility to do 'something' but we are not responsible for everything the government does. If the answer is for everyone to stop paying taxes then we are in an impossible hostage situation.
Thank you for exposing this. The fact that the administration is signaling that their response will be to send the National Guard into more cities (how exactly would that prevent attacks like this?) shows that they view the attack as an opportunity, not a problem to be fixed or prevented.
All the billions put into counterintelligence programs, domestic terrorism (whatever that even means these days), homeland security, etc… and the most policed city in the nation… and there’s one thing that isn’t being accounted for by our government - the mental health epidemic today.
Ken . . . Thank you so much for writing this. I think we are all furious about the needless death of Sarah. I had no idea there were so many alleged "fail-safes" in place (or not) today. For all the good they do. This piece should be read by everyone who gives a damn. That, of course, excludes those who are still clinging to this administration. I have shared this with everyone I can, re-stacked it, and am thinking about forwarding it to my senators and reps, if that is allowed. I have a daughter named Sarah.
"In a weird coincidence, Google data shows that someone searched for Rahmanullah Lakanwal before he carried out the shooting of two National Guards in Washington DC on 26 November. The below data shows that on 25 November there was a spike in searches in the district of Columbia (where Washington DC is located). There were smaller numbers of searches the following day.
These figures do not show the number of searches performed but rather a popularity score assigned by Google from 0-100. The spike prior to the shooting.was given the maximum score of 100. Interestingly, there is a similar spike from Israel with a score just over 50 [graphic follows].
You might think this is perfectly normal search activity, but you would be wrong. Long-term searches show no data (scores of zero) for months or years at a time and then sudden spikes with scores of 100. For example, we found spikes in Israel and the UK around the same time in 2023 and 2024. Remember, these things can be planned way in advance…
If you’re still unconvinced, just look at the below. ***Yes, that is one of the victims—Sarah Beckstrom***—being searched in Tel Aviv prior to the shooting.
It turns out Rahmanullah Lakanwal is a veteran of the CIA-trained and funded Kandahar Strike Force - a Zero Unit (Afghan paramilitary force) that has been accused of human rights violations and the killing of civilians. He served alongside US forces for ten years and was granted asylum in the US in 2021. Given he is 29 years old, he must have been no more than 15 when he was recruited.
Despite working as an Amazon delivery driver, Lakanwal was living in a $2,000 a month apartment in Bellingham, Washington with his wife and five kids.
Lakanwal reportedly yelled “Allahu akbar” [my comment: BUT OF COURSE HE DID] while carrying out the DC shooting. It’s kind’a like the Tyler Robinson transgender girlfriend, Antifa bullets thing - it conveniently fits a narrative. And Americans are pushing that narrative hard.
Just look at this clip of Pete Hegseth: the victims were the “best of America” who “loved their fellow Americans” and the shooting “happened just steps away from the White House”. Hegseth talks of deploying “500 additional national guards” and of entering “other cities” and of “Christian values” and then he pivots to “counter-cartel effort” and “narco-terrorists” and “peace through strength”. It’s all about using fear and grief to justify fascism....."
And then they went about wiping the data, but users had already made screen grabs. Needless to say Laura Loomer and Elon Musk pile on. And so on.
"Some of us predicted there would be false flags to push the fascist agenda, but you didn’t have to be Nostradamus to see this coming because they kept telling us attacks were imminent, like they had a crystal ball…
And they really must have had a crystal ball because not only did their Google searches show prior knowledge of the DC shooting, but also the Charlie Kirk shooting.
In the days before Charlie Kirk was killed, there were all kinds of weird searches related to the alleged shooter and the hospitals and doctors in the area. To be clear, we’re talking about sudden spikes on terms which previously had no search data. Most of those spikes came from, you guessed it… Washington and Tel Aviv.
Supporters of Trump and Netanyahu need to understand these men have no loyalties and will hurt or kill literally anyone to further their fascist agenda, including their own soldiers and influencers…"
The false flag angle is the only one that makes sense right now to me. What is the last thing in the world that a man who loves his family would do to them? Get them deported back to the country they fled, the country that will execute them by committing a very public, highly political murder in broad daylight in the presence of active law enforcement. NFW this tragic event wasn’t initiated by bad faith third party actors.
MK Ultra type patsy? Or just a very mentally damaged (through participation in CIA death squad activities from a young age) and vulnerable individual groomed and cultivated over many years? It is impossible to know right now, maybe a bit of both. That said, it's amazing how quickly the media and government have stopped talking about the would-be Trump assassin (Crooks - who we were initially told had zero digital footprint; see: Tucker Carlson's video on that) and the alleged Charlie Kirk shooter (Robinson). I would bet money that the same thing 'happens' with this recent DC shooter.
The National guard is composed of our children, and it behooves this felonious government to be careful about how they *use* them. And I really mean *use*. These young men and women have lives that are disrupted by this deployment. The felon declared that there was a crime wave in DC (and any other blue place his capricious and erratic mind declared.)
But did DC ask for the deployment? No.
There ought to be a law that a Governor cannot lend his National Guard to the 'president' to police another state: In this, we are a hair's breath away from a Civil War as I cannot think of a closer comparison to what happened during the Civil War: Men were sent out of their own states to force a Federal policy on other States. It was for a good cause( to end slavery) but it was done over the wishes of those who would be thus policed.
We should have been more parsimonious in our use of these young people from here on!
The District government sued to challenge a federal deployment of out-of-state National Guard troops, which it argued was an unlawful use of military force for domestic policing and an infringement on the city's authority. Hello, Posse Comitatus, anyone?
So this young man was mentally imbalanced it appears, and it could have happened any where, anytime. Yes. I get it. Yet had the Governor of West Virginia said NO to this wrongful order, these young folks would not have been there, so IMHO, the Governor of West Virginia has blood on his hands, even if it is several degrees of guilt away... and the order was still illegal.
Marvelous, we've crossed the line to $1+ TRILLION per year in "defense" spending and probably half that again on an untold number of agencies recording all our movements and communications while occasionally doing something useful like picking up trash, and we do things like kick people off Medicaid and hold up SNAP funding to pay for all this, but just in part? Isn't such lunacy a characteristic of a failing state?
It's nice having a big fat, ever growing, budget to prevent terrorism. It is better if the activities and outcomes are 'secret' and beyond oversight. As you said Ken, the knee jerk is to top the budgets off.
Am so sorry for the loss of Sarah's life.
Beyond the inability to prevent her death using all the things you mentioned Ken, our noise making executive branch is intentionally creating static and tension between citizens and the military and DHS. Hell bound...
Thanks for this Ken. The truth of the matter is that no amount of vetting and screening can magically predict those with mental health crises who are about to snap and turn violent. Absolutely crazy that Trump’s reaction was to send 500 more National Guard into the streets of D.C. Hope they have fun picking up trash. Here’s a piece I wrote on this a few days back on this: https://avddemocracy.substack.com/p/trumps-domestic-military-deployments
Thank you for covering this. Sarah could have been my daughter... what happened to her makes absolutely no sense, except when you look at it through the lens of what's happening in the US. Virtually nothing in place is about protecting us, it is only about protecting the established system of greed, corruption and power.
Gutting for this to happen right before thanksgiving too. Couldn't stop thinking of it.
Devastating. I refuse to allow so many horrible events happening so fast in succession to desensitize me to what the world could look like if corrupt and manipulative people were not in control.
"it is only about protecting the established system of greed, corruption and power. "
And the people at the top of it. Everyone and everything else is collateral damage to them.
So very true.
they took a 15 year old boy made him into a killer and traumatized him even if it didn't show up until now.
The “zero units” is a euphemism for CIA hunter/killer teams (term is from Vietnam War) & Mr. Lakanwal began with them at the age of 15, when he was recruited. Heaven only knows what horrors he’s committed, starting at such a young age. There can be no doubt that he suffered from PTSD & probably TBI. We’ll find out what suffering he put his family through as well. The special forces troops located at Ft. Bragg have been acting out their collective trauma for some time already, killing wives & each other (they were also hunter/killer teams), as have so many former soldiers all over the country. This man was brought to the US & acted out his trauma in the most American way possible—by killing people with a gun. This is not an uncommon occurrence (there were many “friendly fire” incidents before we left Afghanistan)—the only difference is this killing was public on our streets. It has also occurred in the midst of profound anti-immigrant propaganda coming from the trump government. Until we stop sending (or recruiting) soldiers to fight our reckless, feckless wars, this will continue & these soldiers had no business being in DC. This killing belongs to all of us.
"This killing belongs to all of us."
I disagree. We did not make these decisions....
"our reckless, feckless wars,"
See, they are not "ours." "We" don't call the shots. You refer to ruling class decisions and ruling class atrocities.
I didn’t vote for any of these governments, politicians or policies either & have spent my life protesting against them but all of us paying taxes are paying for them. We are providing the means to keep this going, so we have a collective responsibility whether you want to admit it or not.
We may have some sort of collective responsibility to do 'something' but we are not responsible for everything the government does. If the answer is for everyone to stop paying taxes then we are in an impossible hostage situation.
You, first
CIA linked death squad members don't fit the narrative, so this one will just get swept under the rug
Thank you for exposing this. The fact that the administration is signaling that their response will be to send the National Guard into more cities (how exactly would that prevent attacks like this?) shows that they view the attack as an opportunity, not a problem to be fixed or prevented.
All the billions put into counterintelligence programs, domestic terrorism (whatever that even means these days), homeland security, etc… and the most policed city in the nation… and there’s one thing that isn’t being accounted for by our government - the mental health epidemic today.
Ken . . . Thank you so much for writing this. I think we are all furious about the needless death of Sarah. I had no idea there were so many alleged "fail-safes" in place (or not) today. For all the good they do. This piece should be read by everyone who gives a damn. That, of course, excludes those who are still clinging to this administration. I have shared this with everyone I can, re-stacked it, and am thinking about forwarding it to my senators and reps, if that is allowed. I have a daughter named Sarah.
Glad you find the article insightful, Jan, and for sharing it! Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. Ken
Great article. Not much to add. Other than the 'false flag' angle, that is.
https://www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/google-trends-for-washington-dc-and
"In a weird coincidence, Google data shows that someone searched for Rahmanullah Lakanwal before he carried out the shooting of two National Guards in Washington DC on 26 November. The below data shows that on 25 November there was a spike in searches in the district of Columbia (where Washington DC is located). There were smaller numbers of searches the following day.
These figures do not show the number of searches performed but rather a popularity score assigned by Google from 0-100. The spike prior to the shooting.was given the maximum score of 100. Interestingly, there is a similar spike from Israel with a score just over 50 [graphic follows].
You might think this is perfectly normal search activity, but you would be wrong. Long-term searches show no data (scores of zero) for months or years at a time and then sudden spikes with scores of 100. For example, we found spikes in Israel and the UK around the same time in 2023 and 2024. Remember, these things can be planned way in advance…
If you’re still unconvinced, just look at the below. ***Yes, that is one of the victims—Sarah Beckstrom***—being searched in Tel Aviv prior to the shooting.
https://x.com/5149jamesli/status/1993911547417252278 ....
It turns out Rahmanullah Lakanwal is a veteran of the CIA-trained and funded Kandahar Strike Force - a Zero Unit (Afghan paramilitary force) that has been accused of human rights violations and the killing of civilians. He served alongside US forces for ten years and was granted asylum in the US in 2021. Given he is 29 years old, he must have been no more than 15 when he was recruited.
Despite working as an Amazon delivery driver, Lakanwal was living in a $2,000 a month apartment in Bellingham, Washington with his wife and five kids.
Lakanwal reportedly yelled “Allahu akbar” [my comment: BUT OF COURSE HE DID] while carrying out the DC shooting. It’s kind’a like the Tyler Robinson transgender girlfriend, Antifa bullets thing - it conveniently fits a narrative. And Americans are pushing that narrative hard.
Just look at this clip of Pete Hegseth: the victims were the “best of America” who “loved their fellow Americans” and the shooting “happened just steps away from the White House”. Hegseth talks of deploying “500 additional national guards” and of entering “other cities” and of “Christian values” and then he pivots to “counter-cartel effort” and “narco-terrorists” and “peace through strength”. It’s all about using fear and grief to justify fascism....."
And then they went about wiping the data, but users had already made screen grabs. Needless to say Laura Loomer and Elon Musk pile on. And so on.
Also....this: https://countercurrents.org/2025/11/why-the-washington-dc-shooting-looks-like-a-false-flag/
Also from the Council Estate Substack (UK based):
"Some of us predicted there would be false flags to push the fascist agenda, but you didn’t have to be Nostradamus to see this coming because they kept telling us attacks were imminent, like they had a crystal ball…
And they really must have had a crystal ball because not only did their Google searches show prior knowledge of the DC shooting, but also the Charlie Kirk shooting.
In the days before Charlie Kirk was killed, there were all kinds of weird searches related to the alleged shooter and the hospitals and doctors in the area. To be clear, we’re talking about sudden spikes on terms which previously had no search data. Most of those spikes came from, you guessed it… Washington and Tel Aviv.
Supporters of Trump and Netanyahu need to understand these men have no loyalties and will hurt or kill literally anyone to further their fascist agenda, including their own soldiers and influencers…"
The false flag angle is the only one that makes sense right now to me. What is the last thing in the world that a man who loves his family would do to them? Get them deported back to the country they fled, the country that will execute them by committing a very public, highly political murder in broad daylight in the presence of active law enforcement. NFW this tragic event wasn’t initiated by bad faith third party actors.
MK Ultra type patsy? Or just a very mentally damaged (through participation in CIA death squad activities from a young age) and vulnerable individual groomed and cultivated over many years? It is impossible to know right now, maybe a bit of both. That said, it's amazing how quickly the media and government have stopped talking about the would-be Trump assassin (Crooks - who we were initially told had zero digital footprint; see: Tucker Carlson's video on that) and the alleged Charlie Kirk shooter (Robinson). I would bet money that the same thing 'happens' with this recent DC shooter.
More on the false flag possibilities: https://kevinbarrett.substack.com/p/false-flag-thanksgiving-eve-dc-shooting
Also, I am noticing a serious drop in Epstein affair coverage across all types of media.
The National guard is composed of our children, and it behooves this felonious government to be careful about how they *use* them. And I really mean *use*. These young men and women have lives that are disrupted by this deployment. The felon declared that there was a crime wave in DC (and any other blue place his capricious and erratic mind declared.)
But did DC ask for the deployment? No.
There ought to be a law that a Governor cannot lend his National Guard to the 'president' to police another state: In this, we are a hair's breath away from a Civil War as I cannot think of a closer comparison to what happened during the Civil War: Men were sent out of their own states to force a Federal policy on other States. It was for a good cause( to end slavery) but it was done over the wishes of those who would be thus policed.
We should have been more parsimonious in our use of these young people from here on!
The District government sued to challenge a federal deployment of out-of-state National Guard troops, which it argued was an unlawful use of military force for domestic policing and an infringement on the city's authority. Hello, Posse Comitatus, anyone?
So this young man was mentally imbalanced it appears, and it could have happened any where, anytime. Yes. I get it. Yet had the Governor of West Virginia said NO to this wrongful order, these young folks would not have been there, so IMHO, the Governor of West Virginia has blood on his hands, even if it is several degrees of guilt away... and the order was still illegal.
Does someone have a spreadsheet tallying up all those national security expenses? where is DOGE ????
Marvelous, we've crossed the line to $1+ TRILLION per year in "defense" spending and probably half that again on an untold number of agencies recording all our movements and communications while occasionally doing something useful like picking up trash, and we do things like kick people off Medicaid and hold up SNAP funding to pay for all this, but just in part? Isn't such lunacy a characteristic of a failing state?
"whataboutism" put to good purpose!
:)
Thanks for the piece.
Small point:
"x x x keeping an eye on the nation’s Capitol"
think you mean capital with lower case c and al ending (geographical designation rather the building)
fixed!
The poor kid should not have been deployed for a political show in DC. I blame our Orange Tweeter in Chief
It's nice having a big fat, ever growing, budget to prevent terrorism. It is better if the activities and outcomes are 'secret' and beyond oversight. As you said Ken, the knee jerk is to top the budgets off.
Am so sorry for the loss of Sarah's life.
Beyond the inability to prevent her death using all the things you mentioned Ken, our noise making executive branch is intentionally creating static and tension between citizens and the military and DHS. Hell bound...
Thanks for this Ken. The truth of the matter is that no amount of vetting and screening can magically predict those with mental health crises who are about to snap and turn violent. Absolutely crazy that Trump’s reaction was to send 500 more National Guard into the streets of D.C. Hope they have fun picking up trash. Here’s a piece I wrote on this a few days back on this: https://avddemocracy.substack.com/p/trumps-domestic-military-deployments