So I’m concerned that people don’t realize just how messed up the situation at Standing Rock really is. The United States signed treaties acknowledging and agreeing that there are certain areas of land that were never ceded to them. These areas do not belong to the United States. They belong to a sovereign nation governed by indigenous people. The land that the Dakota Access Pipeline runs through is not part of the US. It is part of the Lakota nation. That means it is essentially a separate country.
Please imagine if the US wanted to build a pipeline from Washington to Alaska and they went through part of Canada to get there. Canadians protested, saying they have no right to be there and they’re destroying their water, and in response the USA sent militarized police to attack, harass, and harass these protesters, then arrested them for trespassing… on their own land.
That is what’s happening. This is an invasion, and the police are interfering on behalf of a foreign oil company.