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Date Posted: 08:25:32 11/26/01 Mon
Author: Shar
Subject: Waco Lies Revisited
In reply to: Disgusted Shar 's message, "Dave Kopel's HIT piece on Davidians" on 10:14:57 11/16/01 Fri


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Waco Tragedy News

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Waco Lies Revisited
by Cletus Nelson

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/nelson3.html

"I do not think the United States government is
responsible because a bunch of religious fanatics
decided to kill themselves…"
~ Bill Clinton, April 20, 1993

"It all goes back to Waco" has become a frequent
rejoinder in Libertarian circles and there is much
merit to this profound sentiment. To many, the 1993
FBI-Delta Force assault on Mt. Carmel has come to
symbolize the malign potential of the lawless state.
Further, the February BATF raid and its deadly
aftermath graphically articulated the worst fears of
those who oppose the lethal convergence of police
and military. Yet in a recent National Review
On-Line (NRO) essay penned by Libertarian scholars
Paul H. Blackman and David Kopel, the historical
significance of this tragic event is inexplicably
discarded.

Entitled "Waco Lessons for War," the November 6th
editorial ostensibly urges Pentagon strategists to
taken into account the strident Islamic beliefs
which characterize Muslim terror groups. However, in
the process of dispensing this advice, the two
authors inadvertently rely on some of the more
spurious government claims about the Branch Davidian
religious sect.

While the discriminating researcher would be
hard-pressed to equate a largely pacifistic
spiritual community with Afghanistan’s ruthless
Taliban fighters, Blackman and Kopel make little
distinction between the two. Indeed, the essay draws
a parallel between the battle-hardened Afghan rebels
and the Davidians who are described as yet another
group "sincerely devoted to do evil." With this
sweeping generalization, a diverse congregation
which included musicians, Biblical scholars, Harvard
graduates, religious seekers, mothers, children, and
senior citizens is transformed into a malevolent
band of religious warriors.

In fact, readers are informed that the February 28
BATF raid on Mt. Carmel was repulsed because the
Branch Davidians allegedly "fought with the zeal of
martyrs" causing the most "humiliating defeat" in
the agency’s history.

Not only does this grossly mischaracterize the
nature of the February raid, but the use of the term
"defeat" is highly disingenuous. This wasn’t a
confrontation between two equal military forces, but
an agency of the federal government seeking to
search a private residence and arrest one
individual: David Koresh. Nevertheless, Blackman and
Kopel portray the religious group as a unique
military entity with its own faith-based esprit de
corps.

The fact that Koresh and his followers were tipped
off to the impending the raid and failed to give
themselves up is submitted as further evidence that
the allegedly "evil" Davidians "fully expected to be
massacred at the hands of ‘Babylon’ (the American
government)." Kopel and Blackman substantiate this
by citing the testimony of "apostate Branch
Davidians" and ATF agents.

However, the vindictive opinions of disaffected
church members and self-serving ATF agents cannot be
considered credible sources of information and it’s
surprising that Blackman and Kopel would even
entertain such a notion – especially in light of
their extensive knowledge of this particular topic.

A cursory examination of the evidence indicates that
if anyone was preparing for a violent confrontation
it was ATF. In the weeks leading up to the blundered
raid, agency officials were openly soliciting the
assistance of military officials and the use of the
Army Urban Terrain facility at Ft. Hood, TX. It is
now known that these tactical preparations directly
contradicted the express wishes of then US Attorney
William Johnston who, according to the Treasury
Department report "informed ATF early in the
investigation that he would not authorize a search
warrant" for the Davidian property "if it was to be
executed through a siege-style operation."

Without debating the question of whether or nor the
arrest of Koresh was warranted, it is certainly not
difficult to surmise that his apprehension by
federal law enforcement needn’t have cost any lives.
Texas firearms dealer Henry McMahon has repeatedly
testified that the sectarian leader was well aware
he was under investigation for violating federal
firearms statutes and willingly offered to cooperate
with ATF agents. Moreover, federal officials have
yet to make a good faith explanation as to why
Koresh wasn’t taken into custody during his daily
jogging sessions or frequent trips into town.

His conciliatory relationship with local law
enforcement provides further proof that the
dynamic-entry raid was largely unwarranted. Indeed,
even as helicopters buzzed the sky in the
tension-filled moments before the ATF arrived,
Davidian Survivor Clive Doyle has testified that
Koresh remained committed to resolving the matter
peacefully. "He wanted everybody to remain calm, go
back to their rooms, just stay cool" as "he would go
down to the front door and talk" Doyle recalls. 911
transcripts of deceased Davdian Wayne Martin’s
repeated requests for government agents to cease
hostilities certainly undermine Kopel and Blackman’s
assertion that the "Davidians intended to become
martyrs and enter heaven":

Wayne Martin (WM): "Yeah there’s 75 men around our
building and they’re shootin’ at us at Mt. Carmel!

911 Operator: Mt. Carmel?

WM: Yeah, tell em’ there’re women and children here
and to call ‘em off!

911 Operator: I hear gunfire who is this?

WM: It’s Wayne!

911 Operator: Wayne…tell me what’s happening Wayne.

WM: We got women and children in danger.

911 Operator: Wayne?

WM: I’m under fire…tell ‘em to call if off!

911 Operator: What?

Wayne Martin: Tell em’ to pull back…I have the right
to defend myself. They started firing first!

~ Excerpted from Waco: The Rules of Engagement,
1997, COPS Productions

As the 911 tape suggests, bringing an end to the
shooting and protecting lives was a primary concern
among members of the controversial religious
community. This is reinforced by the testimony of
Ken Fawcett a video technician who obtained an
unedited feed of the one-sided gun battle which
reportedly captured images of an "unidentified
Davidian" who was seen "repeatedly calling for
peace" from a lower story doorway only to be met by
a "hail of gunfire." Fawcett also viewed footage
showing wounded agents "being assisted by Branch
Davidians in the stabilization and evacuation of
wounded officers" – behavior he finds "inconsistent
with persons having murderous intent." ("Why Waco?,"
Secret and Suppressed, Feral House, 1993).

Although Davidians fired back at ATF agents in
self-defense, they were hardly prepared to ambush
anyone much less engage in a sustained gun-battle
with trained federal agents. "People were running
around everywhere asking if anybody had any guns.
Nobody had any handy. Most of what we had was new,
still in the box" recounted a Davidian survivor to
James L. Pate. ("What the Feds Don’t Want you to
Know About Waco," Soldier of Fortune, October 1993).
In the 1994 murder trial of 11 surviving Davidians,
even the most compliant prosecution witnesses who
agreed to testify against their co-religionists
would not contradict defense arguments that the
inhabitants of Mt. Carmel "were terrified of the
raid and acted in self-defense."(Carol Moore, The
Davidian Massacre, Legacy, 1995).

As the standoff ensued and the remaining Davidians
were subjected to various methods of psychological
warfare in order to force them out of their
media-dubbed "compound," Kopel and Blackman glibly
assert that the close-knit group "grew all the more
convinced of the truth of Koresh’s prophecies."
While religion certainly played a role in the lives
of the desperate worshippers, this analysis fails to
take into account the duplicitous role of corrupt
FBI officials.

"Davidian’s were suspicious of the government’s
intentions" writes Moore who points out that FBI
promises to obtain medical assistance, allow the
Davidians to retrieve the bodies of their dead, and
send their children to relatives instead of Foster
homes were all subsequently broken. Others feared
that evidence of ATF malfeasance would be destroyed.
The disappearance of the front door which would
solve the controversy over who fired the first shot
shows there was a great deal of validity to these
concerns.

Addressing the final raid of April 19th, 1993, Kopel
and Blackman allege that Davidians "faced a choice:
a few final hours of suffering on earth, followed by
an eternity in Heaven – or an eternity in Hell, for
deserting their prophet in the moment of greatest
crisis." The implication of this statement is clear:
the Davidians had the means to escape but opted to
remain inside in order to fulfill the wishes of
their crazed spiritual leader. While the two authors
correctly note that the injection of a lethal
cocktail of CS gas and methylene chloride
inadvertently killed several Davidians, they fail to
mention other life-threatening hazards which may
have blocked others from fleeing the smoke-filled
building.

"The FBI’s use of tanks on April 19, 1993 evinced an
extreme indifference to human life" remarks CATO
Institute Legal Analyst Timothy Lynch. (No
Confidence: An Unofficial Account of the Waco
Incident, Cato Institute, April 9, 2001). It is now
believed that six children and three women perished
due to these ill-advised demolition efforts. The
trial testimony of Tarrant County Medical Examiner
Dr. Nizaam Peerwani reveals that the nine corpses
had no smoke in their lungs leading him to speculate
that at least five of the children suffocated prior
to the fire when a concrete ceiling caved in on
them. Obviously many more were likely injured or
possibly killed by these mountains of falling
debris. Moreover, the tank destruction eliminated
stairways, hallways, and ceilings in other rooms
sowing mass confusion, stranding many, and blocking
a number of once-viable exits with impenetrable
chunks of fallen rubble.

The few who possessed the ability to escape from the
deadly fire were further deterred by lethal FBI
"ferret" rounds which were fired at Davidians by the
hundreds. In fact, "newly released documents from
the FBI show that agents asked for permission to
shoot any unarmed Branch Davidians who left Mt.
Carmel and approached their armored vehicles" notes
Lynch. Although the request was denied no one can be
sure these actions did not occur as the documents
"outlined seven instances in which FBI agents threw
or launched ‘flash bang’ grenades at Davidians who
were exiting Mt. Carmel earlier in the standoff."

FBI Forward Looking Infra-Red (FLIR) footage also
provides documentary evidence that government forces
were spraying the building with automatic weapon
fire as the structure became engulfed in flames.
Although the Bureau have repeatedly denied that its
agents fired so much as a single shot during the
stand off and its culmination, several examinations
of the contested tape by no less than a half-dozen
highly-credible experts dispute this contention.

In light of this contradictory information, it seems
all the more unfathomable that two esteemed
Libertarian thinkers like Kopel and Blackman would
seek to resurrect the government’s indefensible
"mass suicide" theory much less ATF claims that they
were ambushed by trigger-happy religious fanatics.
Nevertheless, these views cannot be reconciled with
the facts as we know them. To the contrary, they
stand in denial of all that we’ve learned.

November 26, 2001

Cletus Nelson [send him mail] is a freelance
journalist in Los Angeles.

© 2001 LewRockwell.com

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