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The Waco
Massacre Revisited
As we look
back on this horrific event, there are many lessons Christians
can learn about the massacre performed as a military operation
upon civilians by the United States government against a small
cult. One has to ask, could this happen to the church
under a liberal or even conservative President in the
future?
A Brief
Background
The Waco massacre which
happened in 1993, involving David Koresh, the Branch
Davidians, the Bureau Of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is one of the most
disturbing chapters in the whole of American history and
Christians should take note of this.
David Koresh was a cult
leader, and not a Christian by any means. Normally in our
society cult leaders are often times referred to as another
"Jim Jones"...The hatred for cult leaders which are generally
small in size, is very much hyped up by the media and the
government. In this case, David Koresh was blamed for
the fire and the deaths of those who followed him...Even
so-called conservative Pat Robertson jumped on the bandwagon
as to blaming David Koresh for the whole thing. So did
many of the so-called Christian media outlets. But as we
shall see, this wasn't the case at all.
Leading up to
the Waco Massacre
Rumors Fly
Around about the Cult's Activities
The Davidians were
running a very profitable gun business. They were
working with a gun deal named Henry McMahon, who held a Class
III dealer's license allowing him to legally own, sell, and
buy, any type of weapon. In April of 1993, McMahon told the
Pensacola television show "Lawline" that Koresh had purchased
a large number of legal military-style semi-automatics as an
investment, assuming that their value would increase if the
government somehow restricted their manufacture or sales in
the future. Considering that this had happened with other guns
in the past, this was a reasonable business investment.
McMahon said most of these guns were kept boxed and never
fired, to enhance resale value. Now long after the interview
accusations began to surface such as a stockpile full of
explosives and weapons, some of which were reported to be
illegally converted to rapid-fire automatic.
Also while the rumors were
floating around about illegal weapons, the local media was
printing a series of stories about Koresh entitled; "The
Sinful Messiah." which detailed accusations of child abuse and
polygamy. As a result of the media coverage and hearsay
evidence, the suspicions by the government
contained nothing more than merely conjecture. A plan was
formulated many months in advance to carry out the warrant
once the government agency received it. The plan was to
attack the compound where the cult lived. But first they
decided to do a little scouting and make an attempt to place
spies and listening devices on the inside of the cult.
In February 25th, BATF
agent Davy Aguilera, with the assistance of U.S. Attorneys
Bill Johnston and John Phinizy, produced a "Probable Cause
Affidavit in Support of Search Warrant." On the basis of that
affidavit, Magistrate Judge Dennis S. Green signed a search
warrant for illegal weapons and explosives for Mount Carmel
and the "Mag Bag" garage and an arrest warrant for David
Koresh for possession of an unregistered destructive device.
[65] However, Treasury Department officials nixed the raid
plan when they discovered its existence Friday, February 26th.
BATF Director Higgins convinced officials that because of the
Waco Herald-Tribune series on the Branch Davidians, February
28th might be the last opportunity to, as one put it, "catch
the cult members unprepared and away from their stockpile of
heavy weaponry."
The Raids and
Standoff in the Waco Massacre
It's not my intent to go over every
single detail, but just give you a brief overview of what
happened during the attack. It was close to 10 o'clock,
as three teams formed to enter the building, an agent went to
the compound's front door and knocked. "The first entry team
was to be inside the front door within seven seconds after the
convoy pulled up to the compound," says Linedecker. "All the
assault teams would be deployed within thirteen seconds."
They'd been preparing for this for eight months, and each team
had an assignment—protect the children, neutralize the
military force, and seize the arms. Notice how the government
is treating the cult not as civilians, but as a "military
force."
David Koresh looks from behind a steel
door to see agents there with a warrant. He quickly closes the
door in their face. Then a gun battle erupted.
Both sides shooting at each other with a Blackhawk helicopter
shooting from above. Although the government denied
there was gunfire coming from the Blackhawk, survivors of the
skirmish and the subsequent standoff claimed that bullets came
in through the ceiling, which meant that agents in the
helicopter were firing into the compound. Women from inside
who survived claimed they'd placed their bodies over the
children to protect them from the rain of bullets.
There was screaming going on inside the
compound while others were yelling. ATF bullets pierced the
front door, behind which Koresh had been standing. Several
people had been hit, including cultists firing from the tower,
and four were wounded while five were dead. Finally after two
hours of shooting, a truce was reached and the agents were
able to gather their wounded which was 16 agents and their
dead which was 4 agents. This started the 51 day
standoff. A standoff that included such psyhco-war tactics
such as sleep deprivation of the inhabitants in the small
cult's community by means of all-night broadcasts of
recordings of the screams of rabbits being
slaughtered.
During the 51 day standoff, the FBI, and
US Army took over. David Koresh made a pledge to surrender
upon completion of his written explanation of the meaning of
the Seven Seals in the Bible. But the government
disregarded such a pledge and decided to attack the compound
with greater force and leaking out to the press that they were
doing it for the "children." who they said were being abused.
At dawn on April 19, 1993, and throughout
the morning, tanks rammed holes in the main building and
pumped (in the FBI's words) "massive amounts" of CS gas into
the building, despite knowing that inside were more than a
dozen children. The tanks demolished parts of the compound and
created tunnels for the wind to blow through. The buildings at
this point were saturated with inflammable CS gas and spilled
kerosene.
By midday, the US military started a fire
in the compound with pyrotechnic devices that were fired into
the main building. Holes in the building created by the
military fueled the fire to spread massively and quickly. For
six years the US government denied using any pyrotechnic
device. During that six year of denial Congress held hearings
concerning Waco in 1996. This hearing concluded that, "On
April 19th&multiple fires began in different places inside
the Branch Davidian residence and that they were deliberately
set by the Davidians themselves." Finally in 1999
admission by the government which said they indeed did use
such pyrotechnic devices. (http://www.cnn.com/US/9908/24/fbi.waco/).
However, they still denied starting the
fire and treated using the devices as non factors in what
caused the compound to go up in flames. The media even
downplayed the devices as being "potentially flammable" not
just flammable. But one can only conclude why deny using the
devices for six years? The government seems to indicate,
they are not telling us the whole story. After the compound
had burned down the BATF flag was hoisted aloft to signify
'victory'. When it was all said and done, about 76 men, women
and children died — including twelve children younger than
five years of age.
Questionable
Evidence About the Illegal Guns
BATF Agent Davy Aguilera was
investigating the Cult's practices of obtaining
firearms. He attended two gun shows with Vernon
Howell, Mike Schroeder, Paul Fatta, and Henry McMahon who is a
Federally licensed firearms dealer and was working along side
the Branch Davidians in the gun business." Yet Aguilera was
unable to conclude there was no illegal activity going on and
continued to look for evidence such as contained in his
affidavit where he interviewed a man named Breault and
reported his activities as "participated in firearmed shooting
exercises conducted by Howell. He stood guard
armed with a loaded weapon." What agent Aguilera failed
to mention or perhaps on purpose failed to mention was the
fact that Breault was legally blind. He is a guy who is
able to see enough to throw a ball down an alley but not well
enough to see which pins he knocked down. According to Breault
he used an air rifle for target practice and residents said he
was never a guard there nor was he ever trained at Mt
Carmel.
The Cult had a pretty huge inventory of
guns while conducting it's business. The inventory consisted
of; one hundred four (104) AR-15/M-16, upper receiver groups
with barrels; eight thousand, one hundred (8,100) rounds of
9mm and .223 caliber ammunition for AR-15/M-16; twenty (20),
one hundred round capacity drum magazines for AK-47 rifles;
two hundred sixty (260), M-16/Ar-15, magazines; thirty (30)
M-14 magazines; two (2) M-16 EZ kits; two (2) M-16 Car Kits;
one M-76 grenade launcher; two hundred (200) M-31 practice
rifle grenades; four (4) M-16 parts set Kits "A"; two (2)
flare launchers; two cases (approximately 50) inert practice
hand grenades; 40-50 pounds of black gun powder; thirty (30)
pounds of Potassium Nitrate; five (5) pounds of Magnesium
metal powder; one pound of Igniter cord (A class C explosive);
ninety-one (91) AR/15 lower receiver units; twenty-six (26)
various calibers and brands of hand guns and long guns; 90
pounds of aluminum metal powder; 30-40 cardboard tubes. The
amount of expenditures for the above listed firearm
paraphernalia, excluding the (91) AR-15 lower receiver units
and the (26) complete firearms, was in excess of $44,300."
All these guns, gun parts, powders, inert
grenades, and other equipment were lawfully purchased and may
be legally owned. None per se established probable cause that
Koresh had violated or was about to violate federal law. As
has been noted, the seemingly large amounts are not illegal
either according to the Firearms Owners' Protection Act of
1986 and the Supreme Court decision United States vs. Anders,
nor are they unusual for someone dealing in weapons or holding
them as an investment.
Aguilera failed to investigate or on
purpose failed to investigate the one dealer who might
possibly have sold Koresh illegal arms. In the affidavit he
states his reason, "because of the sensitivity of the
investigation" so in effect he didn't bother contacting any of
the "vendors with questionable trade practices" who had sold
to Koresh, including one suspected of "unlawful possession of
machineguns, silencers, destructive devices, and machinegun
conversion kits." So what the evidence appears to be is that
Aguilera refused to check to see if Koresh had bought illegal
items from this source and instead inferred probable cause.
As of December, 1992, Aguilera's only
evidence that the Branch Davidians were doing one or more of
these things was that they had bought a number of legal
weapons and legal gun parts which, with the help of a few
parts they did not have, can be converted into machineguns.
Aguilera states that Firearms Enforcement Officer Curtis
Bartlett told him that the firearms parts which Howell had
received, and the method by which he had received them, was
consistent with findings in other BATF investigations which
resulted in the seizure of illegal machineguns. However,
BATF's suspicions remained pure conjecture.
The Evidence
Suggests Massacre the Cult and Destroy the Rest
One gets the feeling after reviewing the
gun investigation, the Cult in the government eyes was guilty,
and also the US government was trying very hard not to get to
the bottom of this issue, but withhold facts from the public
by telling the whole story in an attempt to try and make this
cult look so bad that military action was only option. The
evidence also suggests that the US government intended that no
person, man, woman or child continue to leave the compound
alive. For example, CS gas according to the government was
used in the final raid in order to flush out the cultists from
the compound. I'm sure you marines or ex-marines are
familiar with this type of gas because it's part of the
training to go through 40 seconds worth of it. CS gas is
normally used for outdoors to control riots, not indoors. The
gas renders the person who's exposed to it immobile.
When a marine is expose to this gas, after the training
session, normally he needs to be helped out of the building as
he can't do it on his own. And that's only being exposed to
for 40 seconds. Now some in the compound did have gas
masks, however none of the children did nor the women had gas
masks. One has to ask, why use this gas (which makes
people immobile not mobile) to flush people out of the
building? Also why use this gas on the very ones (the
children) who you claim to be trying to save from abuse in the
compound?
Child Abuse
Allegations
Speaking of the children, the accusation
of child abuse was the reason why the US government attacked
the second time and not wait for the cultists to
surrender. As it turns out, there was no abuse coming
from the cult on it's own kids. There was talk about
David Koresh beating babies but that all it was just talk, no
evidence to confirm such an allegation. Despite what the
government said there was overwhelming evidence of child
abuse, the likes of FBI Director William Sessions
acknowledged, there was "no contemporaneous evidence" of child
abuse; given the many FBI listening devices inside the Mount
Carmel Center, Sessions' conclusion appears accurate. As the
FBI well knew, Koresh, having been wounded so severely on
February 28 by a BATF sniper that he thought we was going to
die soon, was in no position to physically or sexually abuse
anyone in the subsequent weeks. A few months after the fire,
Reno said that she might have misunderstood the FBI comments,
and there was no evidence of ongoing child abuse in the
besieged home.
However, Reno changed two years later by
giving another explanation on why the compound was
attacked. In May 1995, Reno said. The "first and
foremost" reason was that "Individuals sympathetic to Koresh
were threatening to take matters into their own hands to end
the stalemate [and] were at various times reportedly on the
way." But while child abuse had disappeared as a
rationale, a child welfare issue remained: "They [the FBI]
told me that the conditions were deteriorating inside. I was
concerned about the safety of the people inside. The
behavioral experts were telling me that children--for a siege
that could last a year--it would have a lasting effect on
them."
In
Conclusion
Some say it was a total debacle
that is all. A debacle? For 8 months they trained
for the first raid and then conducted a military mission
against untrained civilians. Who had the better
resources and training? Who was really more
prepared? The government of course, not the cult,
it was the government who had the better training,
better weapons, and was way more prepared!
As we know, the US government also
covered up a number of things including such things as the
pyrotechnic devices for six years, kept out key parts of
information which made various people looked worse than they
actually were. We to this day most likely will never know what
all really happened during the Waco Massacre. But we know one
thing for sure, this should have never happened. And it is
scary that a country who claims to believe in
"freedom" carry out such a massacre on it's own
soil. Christians must pray for this government as well as
others in which they live in...For governments like this,
really and absolutely needs God.
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