Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns,talk.politics.misc
From: "Paul Hager" <[h--ge--p] at [cs.indiana.edu]>
Subject: Re: What REALLY Happened in Waco Texas? (Was:Re: California Senate President To Meet Today With Jim and Sarah Brady)
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1993 10:57:21 -0500

Regarding the "slant" of the Libernet post ...

Certainly, it has a particular agenda.  Having said that, legitimate
questions still remain about the BATF conduct of this operation.  For
the record, I should note that I'm a member of the ACLU.

The initial reports of the operation, about which there is no dispute,
have aproximately 100 heavily armed federal agents descending upon
the compound.  The BATF's own spin doctors (gyre meisters is my
preferred term) "justified" this massive use of force by first
saying that they expected the BD folks to commit mass suicide unless
the compound was taken.  This is so close to the Vietnam classic --
"we had to destroy the village in order to save it" -- that it is
chilling.  This "justification" didn't seem to fly very well so we
were next treated to the spector of raging BDs launching an attack
on the surrounding community necessitating the raid.  And, of course,
all along we have received a constant drum beat about the sexually 
perverse nature of the BDs practices (e.g., Koresh's polygamy).  Never
mind that marriage laws and "violations" thereof are not within
federal jurisdiction.

I have no fondness for heavily armed religious crackpots.  But, there
are things about this operation that don't stand up to even the most
cursory examination.  I have a strong suspicion that, even if the BD
folks have violated federal firearms laws, their constitutionally
protected procedural rights have been violated.


-- 
paul hager		[h--ge--p] at [moose.cs.indiana.edu]

"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason."
			-- Thomas Paine, _The Age of Reason_