WACO...

[PhillyKev 0]

Well then that's pretty F'd up. Reno should have been shit canned for that fiasco in addition to several others.

[happythoughts 0]

There is a lot of information on how D. Koresh could have been non-violently and quietly apprehended. He ate breakfast in town 2 or 3 times a week. At one point, 2 FBI agents sat next to him to overhear any conversations. He also frequented different stores in town. He could have been easily arrested at a point he was unarmed.

The ATF was all dressed up and no place to go. I dislike govt agencies that are a solution looking for a problem. Eventually, they run out of problems and create their own so that they can continue to exist.

Waco was a manufactured incident. Personally, I think the ATF is a terrorist organization.

[PhillyKev 0]

That's true about Koresh, but they still had a heavily armed, fortified compound to deal with. Again, they did it wrong, tanks should not be used against US citizens, they had many other options, and the ATF was completely over steppign their authority in this situation.

But, the ATF didn't manufacture the hoarding of military weaponry and other illegal activities taking place there. Koresh and his followers weren't a bundh of innocent recluse or protestors.

The entire incident seemed to parallel Mayor Goode in Philly fire bombing the MOVE house. Radical, militaristic group holds up in a fortified house, city drops incendiaries on roof and burns down half a city.

[happythoughts 0]

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But, the ATF didn't manufacture the hoarding of military weaponry and other illegal activities taking place there. Koresh and his followers weren't a bundh of innocent recluse or protestors.

Koresh totally needed to be arrested and not just for the weapons. However, his followers were just that, followers. Arrest Koresh peacefully at a restaurant, then call the farm and tell them to surrender. No siege necessary.

Remember when Iraqis were kept awake and it was deemed to be torture? At Waco, the "white noise" of sound blaring from loudspeakers was used to keep the people awake. One soundtrack featured the squeals of rabbits being slaughtered.

If sleep deprivation is wrong in Iraq, why was Reno allowed to use it on American citizens for a week?

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The entire incident seemed to parallel Mayor Goode in Philly fire bombing the MOVE house. Radical, militaristic group holds up in a fortified house, city drops incendiaries on roof and burns down half a city.

I remember. Another example. Firebombing the housing of Amercan citizents.

[tunaplanet 0]

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If sleep deprivation is wrong in Iraq, why was Reno allowed to use it on American citizens for a week?

Loud, repetitive, annoying music to deprive people of sleep and make them more suspect to surrender is a tactic used in many stand-offs. It is completely legal and a good resource.

At the very least it keeps them awake and groggy...an extremely useful state of mind for a tango to be in for the assault team when they initiate CQC.

Forty-two

[PhillyKev 0]

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If sleep deprivation is wrong in Iraq, why was Reno allowed to use it on American citizens for a week?

I don't have a problem with that tactic. Apples and oranges comparing prisoners to hold outs. I would have preferred them continuing that tactic than driving a tank throught the wall.

[billvon 3,111]

>Remember when Iraqis were kept awake and it was deemed to be torture?

I think the rapes, the beatings and the near-drownings are better called torture; keeping people awake pales in comparison. If that's the worst that had happened to Iraqis at the hands of US soldiers it never would have made the papers.

[newsstand 0]

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They WANTED to raid the compound, so they CREATED their "excuse."

Kind of like WMD's?

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[TypicalFish 0]

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They WANTED to raid the compound, so they CREATED their "excuse."

Kind of like WMD's?

Oh, NO; Flame Suit ON...

"I gargle no man's balls..." ussfpa on SOCNET

[billvon 3,111]

>What exactly DO you call it when you drive a tank through the wall of a
> building firing CS gas shells that explode in flames because they ignite
>what the sprayed particulate is suspended in?

A liberation? Elimination of a brutal thug? Freeing the people of Waco? Removing a clear threat to the people of Texas? It all depends on how you spin it. One thing is for sure - it could have been handled a LOT better.

[happythoughts 0]

Standoff? Why was there a standoff? I think that the only reason that they stormed the compound was to kill people, not to arrest anyone. Any idiot could have done a better job if the real goal was just an arrest.
From CNN

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Warrants in hand, the ATF decided to arrest Koresh at Mount Carmel with a major flourish. The reason, agents said, was that he was a recluse, rarely seen outside of the compound. But local newspapers and others reported that he had been seen at an auto repair shop, at two local bars, at a junkyard and jogging down the road.

A better way would have been to arrest him while jogging, unless you wanted to pick a fight.

"with a major flourish" - hence the presence of the press.

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Earlier that day, a KWTX-TV cameraman James Peeler encountered a postman and asked for directions to the Branch Davidians' place. Reportedly, Peeler told the mailman he'd "better get out of here because ... they're going to have a big shootout with the religious nuts."

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Nonetheless, field commander Charles Sarabyn pressed forward, and would insist later that he was not aware that the secret was blown.

"I do not know what went on in the man's mind when he made the decision" that was "in absolute violation of the instructions," Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen later said, after his department, which runs ATF, issued its report on the raid.

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(Nearly a year later, a jury would acquit 11 Branch Davidians of murder in the shootout, convicting five of voluntary manslaughter, instead. "The federal government was absolutely out of control there," forewoman Sarah Bain said. "We spoke in the jury room about the fact that the wrong people were on trial, that it should have been the ones who planned the raid and orchestrated it and insisted on carrying out the plan who should have been on trial.")

[kallend 2,146]

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I don't think the press was there when they first showed up, just after it turned into a siege.

They were there before it began. The media was notified days in advance that something big was going to happen. The entire incident was designed as a publicity stunt on the part of the ATF, to bolster their reputation just prior to a Congressional funding hearing. This is not speculation. The Congressional hearings on the Waco incident brought it to light.

FallRate

BATFE seems to be an out-of-control agency. AS far as I can tell it doesn't matter which administration is in power.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Guest]

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BATFE seems to be an out-of-control agency. AS far as I can tell it doesn't matter which administration is in power.

I agree with you, Kallend.

It's because they're Mandarins. The governmental fiefdoms held by certain members of the bureaucracy make J. Edgar Hoover's FBI look benevolent by comparison.

This is why I don't vote anymore - it's long past the point where it makes any difference at all who the prez is.

"America has reached that awkward stage where it's too late to work within the system for change, but too soon to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe, 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution

mh

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"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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Ya fuckin' fascist bitch!

So, is this part of the petty, juvenile name calling you go on and on about in a different thread?

Well, once I realized that the other side wouldn't observe a moratorium on such name-calling, I figured, "Why unilaterally leave my own expressive ability at a disadvantage?"

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[burbleflyer 0]

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>What exactly DO you call it when you drive a tank through the wall of a
> building firing CS gas shells that explode in flames because they ignite
>what the sprayed particulate is suspended in?

A liberation? Elimination of a brutal thug? Freeing the people of Waco? Removing a clear threat to the people of Texas? It all depends on how you spin it. One thing is for sure - it could have been handled a LOT better.

Personally. I call it government sponsored murder of Americans practicing their first amendment rights and being deprived of their fifth amendment rights to due process. You call it what you want.