What’s he deal with the Branch Davidian raid in 1993?
I hope this doesn’t devolve into a debate; I’m posting it here in the hope that somebody’s got a good enough command of the situation to explain it all.
When it first hit the news, I didn’t really have any kind of opinion about the government’s handling of the situation. A person with whom I was doing business at the time had a son who was one of the BATF agents killed in the first day shootout, so my initial feelings were mainly ones of sympathy for him.
While I’m not in the business of enforcing gun laws (IIRC that’s how it all got started), information that’s appeared in the media since the incident sure seem to indicate that the government, at the least, handled it pretty poorly. Recently the use of incendiary tear gas grenades and the presence of US military have caused Janet Reno to proclaim the search is on for an appropriate outside investigator. From what I understand the use of the incendiary devices as acknowledged by the FBI had no bearing on the fire that consumed the Branch Davidian conflict. I guess the big deal there is that they denied using incendiaries for a long time.
I don’t know who owned the armored vehicles and helicopters, but the presence of members of the military’s Delta Force has made the news of late. The one statement I’ve seen from the government (Drudge Report ~3 days ago) was to the effect that involvement of the military was justified on the basis of the suspicion that the Branch Davidians were running a methamphetamine lab. Maybe so, but somewhere along the line I missed when drug enforcement became part of the military’s jurisdiction. Anyway, I don’t recall any speed lab turning up in the debris.
So I guess there are some political energies contributing to the fanning of the flames. The ever present VRWC is, of course, going to seize any opportunity to fry some Clintonistas and is getting a bit of oomph from their occasional allies, those who fear the New World Order. And the Justice Department is apparently going to at least partially oblige the seekers of government conspiracy and wrongdoing by obfuscating, etc.
It’s hard for me to really imagine some vast government conspiracy centering around 100 religious zealots on a ranch in central Texas, but it’s becoming equally hard to believe that the various voices of government have much of an interest in seeing that we get the facts. What’s really going on here?
I suspect anyone who says they REALLY knows what’s going on has their own agenda in this matter. There’s the Pro-gun side that wants to defend the citizen’s right to own full auto weaponry. There’s the Religious Right, who sees this as another step toward that slippery slope where the gumment makes their religion illegal. There’s the Anti-Clinton crowd, who mostly seems to want to impeach somebody for something or other. And the general conspiracy fans, who seem to feel that if any Federal agency is involved in any way, there’s a conspiracy.
And on the other side, there’s the BATF who really screwed the pooch, from not picking up Koresh when he was in town, to the tragic performance of the BATF swat team. It seems that everyone wants to have a swat team. And the FBI sitting on the report that “Yes, military style tear gas grenades were in fact used. I thought we told you that 6 years ago.”
Most of the physical evidence was destroyed in the fire. Nobody believes anyone’s version of what ‘really’ happened. Personally, I feel that Reno just wants to know what happened herownself. And I don’t think that incendiary style gas projectiles could cause an inferno to start 6 hours after they were fired in there. 6 minutes? Sure, but 6 hours?
Someone once said words to the effect of “Never attribute to maliciousness what can be explained by stupidity”.
Never is this more true then when dealing with the government in general, and law enforcement in particular.
What happened in Waco is basicly what always happens when the government hears that a group of people are armed and intend to defy the government’s authority by force- the government goes berserk.
I think the really funny part of all this (if you can find a funny part to a situation where a number of people died) is the partisan nature of the outcry. The right wing is playing up how a government conspiracy headed by a Democratic administration was abusing its powers to enforce gun control by making unfounded claims about child abuse. But you know that if the Waco compound had been assaulted during when Bush was President, you’d have the left wing playing up how a government conspiracy headed by a Republican administration was abusing its power against a unpopular religious group by making unfounded claims about drug manufacturing.
Frontline, on PBS, did a special on Waco. Their take on it was that the tension between the negotiators (who felt that, with enough time, they could talk everyone out) and the tactical troops (who wanted to storm the place, and when they couldn’t, took to provocative acts like driving APCs around outside and over parked cars) prevented any sort of intelligent handling of the situation.
The negotiators where speaking to people inside right up until the end. But every advance they made was undercut by the “cowboys” on the swat team, who not only wanted to storm the place, but apparently actively prevented a negotiated settlement by not abiding by the negotiators terms when people were released and when top people inside the compound came out to meet the negotiators.
If you can find it, it’ll mesh perfectly with the stupidity hypothesis.
[[I think the really funny part of all this (if you can find a funny part to a situation where a number of people died) is the partisan nature of the outcry. The right wing is playing up how a government conspiracy headed by a Democratic administration was abusing its powers to enforce gun control by making unfounded claims about child abuse. But you know that if the Waco compound had been assaulted during when Bush was President, you’d have the left wing playing up how a government conspiracy headed by a Republican administration was abusing its power against a unpopular religious group by making unfounded claims about drug manufacturing.]] Mike King
You mean like with Randy Weaver?
Anyway, as for BATF picking Koresh up in town versus at the compound – weren’t they executing a search warrant for the place as well as (or instead of) an arrest warrant?
Although this question ostensibly deals with facts, the “facts” of this matter are widely disputed and subject to relentless subjective interpretation.
It is for this reason I send thee to Great Debates to continue under the auspices of my esteemed colleague, David B.
