At the time of the incident, I was a student at Baylor University, which is located in Waco, so I got even more of a barrage of media coverage than folks in the rest of the country.
I’d have to go with 7. At every decision point, the feds took an option that made the situation worse.
Who appointed you God?
1
The very first day 4 federal agents were killed trying to execute arrest and search warrants. The law does not permit you to commit murder to prevent being arrested.
The seige went on for six or seven weeks. Can you imagine waiting this long if a bank robber had hostages?
The only mistake the government made was taking so long. It should have ended in six days or six hours, not six weeks. Imagine if every person being served would fire at police, followed by a month of negotiations.
Let’s see, government agents pumped a highly flamable gas into an occupied building. Were found to have used pyrotechnic devices that they denied using, and a fire ensued causing the deaths of eighty men, women and children. Why, only a conspiracy theorist of the most paranoid nature would come up with the idea that government agents could have had any responsibility for that holocaust.
It’s time that some of you face up to the cold hard truth.
The initial raid on the Branch Davidian compound was to be a lesson to all independent minded Americans as to what would happen lest anyone got the idea that they could defy the almighty Federal Government.
It is standard SpecOps (special operations) proceedure for a raid of the type launched against the Davidian compound to be conducted at night. The only reason that this operation was carried out in daylight hours was to facilitate the filming of the raid by a newscrew so that the power of the Federal Government could be demonstrated to the masses. One problem, things didn’t go as intended. These so-called “religious fanatics” had the audacity to defend themselves.
Did you happen to notice that after the initial raid, government agents would not allow any newscrew to get closer than a thousand meters to the compound.
Is it starting to sink in yet?
I heard there were mysterious black helicopters flying overhead at the time as well. Why hasn’t that ever been reported by the liberal media???:rolleyes:
Why don’t you try posting a response with at least a small amount of substance?
Or do you just not have any?
Um… Yeah. Cite? The only “gas” they “pumped in” to my knowledge was CS (Which is technically not a gas, but particulates… Semantics, though, it’s normally known as teargas), which is not “highly flamable.” Another nitpick, they were not pyrotechnic devices, but were hot-discharge CS canisters. Pyrotechnic devices would be grenades, incendiary weapons, etc.
Both untrue and irrelevant. These were not Special Operations Forces. These were law-enforcement agencies carrying out a high-risk warrant. First off, many SpecOps missions are carried out durring the day. And second, most high-risk warrants are as well, to my knowledge. Police forces and the FBI very frequently go in durring the day, as it is easier to coordinate opperations and ensure safety when all your people can see clearly. You might have a point if this was Delta or Rangers going in, but that would be a rather different scenario (And one with a bit more to complain about…).
Doubtfull, and unfounded. There are other reasons to carry out raids durring the day. In any case, the way I remember it (Granted, it’s been a while, so I could be wrong), the media wasn’t present for the initial entry attempt, but arrived in-force between the first and second attempt at entry.
Shooting at federal agents in uniform with BATF emblazoned across their chest in big, bright letters, is not “self defence” in any legal sense of the phrase. It is homicide.
cues X-Files music
…So? It’s kinda SOP to keep the media out of the way of LEOs at the scene. We aren’t quite to the point of embeding reporters in SWAT entry teams, just yet…
Now, as for Lekatt… Do I even dare ask for a cite about the propane tank being ignited by the tank? I remember seeing the tank on TV, too, but I must have missed that part…
I don’t know what you were watching but it certainly WAS NOT coverage of what happened at the Branch Dividian compound. You imply that one of the tanks had been out fitted with a flamethrower which is an outright lie. There was no fire shooting from a tank into any of the buildings in the compound. The first signs of smoke actually appeared in a window in one of the towers about 20 above and 30 feet to the right of where the tank had pushed the tear gas cannsiter in.
And I’d like a cite for this tank hitting a propane tank garbage.
6
Government admits to using possibly flammable devices.
“Invented in 1928, CS is called a “super tear gas” because it works instantaneously, causing burning eyes, coughing, breathing difficulty, stinging skin, and vomiting. CS – the common name for orthochlorbenzalmalononitrile – is a fine white powder, about the consistency of talcum powder, and it must be spread with some type of dispersing agent. But it has several nasty qualities, including its flammability. When burned, CS releases a deadly gas, hydrogen cyanide. And when methylene chloride – the dispersing agent of choice – is burned, it releases deadly hydrogen chloride and chlorine. Both chemicals, in turn, release large amounts of carbon monoxide. According to the Failure Analysis report, 44 of the 76 bodies recovered from Mount Carmel tested positive for cyanide. And according to the coroner’s report, a quarter of the deaths at Mount Carmel were caused by carbon monoxide asphyxiation, while another 27% died of smoke inhalation.”
From here
I view this in the same light as dealing with mentally ill people. Should Koresh and crew have surrendered immediately? Of course they should have. But, clearly, these people were not behaving in a normal fashion.
IMO, one of the goals of law enforcement should be to function with as little loss of life or property damage as possible (by loss of life, I mean to both the alleged criminal and to the officers as well). In this situation, the BATF failed, and I think in hindsight, it’s quite clear that they put themselves in a position in which they were physically and tactically vulnerable.
However, once the seige was under way, I really don’t see how many options the FBI/Reno had. Wait them out, use standard psychological techniques, and in the end, move in with as much firepower as you can and hope for the best.
So, I’ll put this at a 5.
Janet Reno had nothing to do with “establishing” the seige. The investigation and planning of the raid Waco was done under the Bush Sr. administration. The seige began on 2/28/93. Reno was not sworn in as AG until 3/8/93, a full week after the seige had begun. Reno listened to the FBI for advice and decided to fire some tear gas. At that point the Branch Davidians murdered themselves and their own children. David Koresh was a scumbag. The feds were doing their job. The Branch Davidians started the fires. The BD’s had been practicing suicide drills for months. The demonization of Janet Reno over Waco is one of the more despicable things done by the political right during the Clinton administration.
What’s the contradiction? The raid on waco was totally legal and justified. The invasion of Iraq was not.
May I remind you that the actions of the BATF at Waco were vigorously defended by George Bush Sr? Was he a liar? Was he a "jack-booted thug?
B.S. Reno, herself, said that the buck stopped with her.
Yeah, “justified” with claims of illegal weapons and child abuse. Claims that turned out to be highly exagerated and outright lies. You do remember Kerry Jewell, don’t you?
Sr. was a promoter of the “New World Order”. A “big-government Republican”.
Remember those “justifications” for Gulf War I? The Iraqis were throwing Kuwaiti babies out of their incubators and leaving them to die on hospital floors. Opps…, another LIE used as a “justification”, just like Colin Powell’s address to the United Nations Security Council. His “justification” for invading Iraq for violating a U.N. resolution concerning WMD was gleaned from a British Intelligence (an oxymoron if there ever was one) report that was plagarized from a California graduate student’s thesis.
The BATF was out-of-line, this was a job for local law enforcement.
So, perhaps you can explain what the media was doing there during the initial raid. Yes, they were there, where do you think the filming of the initial assault on the compound came from?
I can’t wait for this.
cues theme to COPS
“Bad boys, bad boys…”
I also say right at fifty-fifty. Both sides were at grevious fault, and both sides took actions, both accidental and intentional, that further worsened the situaton.
Regardless of how the original fire started, there was NO firefighting equipment on hand when the final assault was made. Even though it was known that Koresh had threatened to torch the place and was suspected of distributing stores of fuel. It took something like an hour to get the first firetrucks on the scene, and even then they weren’t allowed through police lines for some period afterward.
The ATF knew that Koresh was leading his followers with visions of “the apocalypse” which he characterized as being assaulted by government agents. One might think that the officials might want to play down the obvious “self fulfilling prophecy” part of that.
There’s considerably more- on both sides of the coin. The infamous “flame throwing tank” image was in fact a military demolition vehicle, and the “flame” was a piece of wallboard/gypsum that fell across the front. In a static phot, it looks plausible as flame, but to see the series in a video, it’s obvious it’s falling debris.
On the other hand we were told that ATF/FBI agents under no circumstances used anything that could have possibly caused the fire- no tracer ammo, no pyrotechnic grenades, no flashbangs. Except that the spent hulls of two “flashbang” grenades were found in the rubble- these use magnesium powders to make a bright flash and noise to disorient the bad guys.
We were also told that Koresh and his followers were illegally converting semiauto rifles into “machine guns”, except that, even though dozens of burned weapons were found, none were shown to have been converted.
The infamous missing door, the supposedly malfunctioning video cameras, Koresh’s idiot bible-quotes, the claims the FBI’s IR camera was unique and had been dismantled, the list is endless.
But ultimately both sides lied, both sides screwed up, both sides share the blame.
Yeah, but when a group such as the BDs lie, it doesn’t have that much of an effect on society as a whole.
Quite the opposite when the government lies. When the government lies, it is detrimental to society.
See, there was another aspect to Waco. It was somewhat of a trial balloon. The result… the government learned that it can get away with doing whatever it wants.
“Baaaaa”. go the sheeple.
Actually it turns out that both claims were totally justified. Koresh was raping ten year old girls, beating the crap out of all the children and stockpiling tons of illegal weapons.
Because the media is very good at going where there is a story? Actually, I thought the footage of the initial raid were from LEO sources. The FBI did set up some observation posts, which included video recording, IIRC. Do you have any cite about the media being invited to make it an “example?” Because I find it really hard to believe that Reno invited the media along to make an example when, as was mentioned earlier, she wasn’t even sworn in untill more than a week later.
Or if you care to comment on anything else I brought up…
BTW, it’s Kiri Jewell. She testified before congress that Koresh raped her when she was ten years old. We know for sure that he had “wives” who were as young as eleven and twelve. He was a sick piece of shit, why are you defending him? The parents were also scum for pimping out their children to a slimeball like Koresh.
Did you know that Koresh liked beating infants and toddlers with paddles and wooden spoons until they were covered with bruises? Did you know that he once beat an eight-month old girl for forty minutes with a paddle because she wouldn’t sit on his lap? Koresh deserved to die like a dog and so did those parents who let him rape and abuse their kids.
Define “illegal weapon”, D the (selective) C.
From everything I’ve read, they did indeed find several dozen rifles and handguns, but unless the owner was a felon or drug user, or the guns themselves had been stolen, or that they had been- as alleged and not yet proven even now- converted to full-automatic, then those guns were legal to own.
They were alleged to be converting semiautos into full-autos. Not only is this a pretty difficult process to perform- and I have my doubts anyone in Koresh’s crew could do it- but none of the weapons recovered from the aftermath, as far as I know, were shown to have been thus converted.
What made them “illegal”?
The FBI recovered 48 illegally converted machine guns along with such other illegal contraband as hand grenades and silencers.