Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns From: [l v c] at [cbnews.cb.att.com] (Larry Cipriani) Subject: Washington Times op-ed 6/1/93 Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 13:40:59 GMT Paul Craig Roberts [From The Washington Times, Tuesday, June 1, 1993. p. E3] The American public, enmeshed in its diet of violent entertainment, is fascinated with Attorney General Janet Reno, the woman who killed more people than Billy the Kid. Ad unbelievable as it may seem, the death toll from her fateful decision in Waco, Texas, was more than half as large as the total U.S. battle deaths in the Persian Gulf war. That's some woman. The Los Angeles Times declared Miss Reno to be a "folk hero". Not to be outdone, the New York Times called her a "prized asset". The Washington Post accorded her "superstar status". Miss Reno told the House Judiciary Committee that she made the decision that ended in a holocaust because "I was convinced that the passage of time only increased the likelihood of incidents and possible attendant injuries and harm". In making that decision, Miss Reno acted contrary to the operational instructions set out in the FBI's Hostage Negotiation Training Manual. Pages from the manual were sent to me by an FBI-trained hostage negotiator. The manual unambiguously states: "Time is always in our favor". The hostage negotiator who wrote to me insists: "We are nowhere trained to make an assault because we feel tired. Time is always on our side. Always. Statistically, the longer a hostage situation lasts, the safer the hostages are". Janet Reno's "action can only be called negligence. She shouldn't be fired. She should be tried". The government promptly bulldozed the Waco site so no one can find out what happened, but evidence is coming to light that shows a fantastic abuse of power by the Treasury's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The Houston Chronicle obtained tapes of the telephone conversations between David Koresh and BATF negotiator Jim Cavanaugh. Shortly after BATF's failed initial assault that caused the fatal encounter, Mr. Koresh told NR. Cavanaugh: "It would have been better if you just called me up or talked to me. Then you could have come in and done your work". Instead, BATF initiated an action that the FBI manual warns against. By assaulting the compound, BATF provoked a "startle reaction" that caused the Branch Davidians to fire instinctively. The most puzzling aspect of the story has been the presence of TV crews when heavily armed Treasury agents stormed the compound on Feb. 28. It now appears that the raid on the compound was intended to further the cause of gun control by televising into every home alarming scenes of a vast stockpile of weapons in the hands of fanatic cultists. BATF is a bureaucracy that has outlived its mission. Prohibition ended a half-century ago. Eliot Ness is no longer needed to chase down gangsters and their untaxed profits from bootlegging. Today no one smuggles tobacco. Treasury agents no longer have anything to do but harass innocent gun owners. -- At this task the BATF excels. A report by the Senate Judiciary Committee in February 1982 showed BATF to be essentially a Gestapo operation engaged almost entirely in framing-up innocent citizens. The report says that illegal BATF actions, such as entrapment and secret lawmaking via unpublished administrative interpretations of gun laws, "amply documented in hearings before this subcommittee, leave little doubt that the Bureau has disregarded rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States". The committee report says, "Expert evidence was submitted establishing that approximately 75 percent of BATF gun prosecutions were aimed at ordinary citizens who had neither criminal intent or knowledge, but were enticed by agents into unknowing technical violations". The committee concluded that BATF was a rogue operation that trampled all over the Second, Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Following the congressional hearings, the Treasury Department was so embarassed by the documented abuses that it drew up plans to abolish the agency. However, it was unable to do so because neither the Customs Bureau nor the Secret Service would accept the transfer of the discredited BATF agents into their organizations. Today, BATF's constituency consists entirely of Sarah Brady of Handgun Control and the anti-gun folks at The Washington Post. It was BATF's effort to create a gun scare in order to broaden this narrow constituency that led to the death of 100 people in Waco.