Waco, BATF showing off?

[James K]

I have now heard from several sources, including Federal LE sources, that the real reason for Waco was simply to impress the (then) new, anti-gun, administration with the ability of BATF to enforce gun laws. They wanted "tables full of guns" for the TV cameras. There was supposedly talk of a bigger budget, more personnel, and promotions all around from the Clinton administration; these depended in part on a successful "show".

Was the real reason for Waco that BATF wanted more GS-15s? Did 83 people, including four BATF agents, die because the director wanted more money and power? Was the raid law-enforcement or self-promotion for the agency?

Until these questions are addressed and answers obtained, there can be no final resolution to the suspicions surrounding Waco.

Jim

 

[Elker_43]

What you have heard is a very distinct possibility...The game is $$$$ and Power.

They (in Washington) do not care about the Contitution/Bill of Rights nor individual rights in this country. Nothing suprises me anymore. The leaders of this country (I'm not sure why I call them leaders) have forgotten Daniel Webster's warning: "Miracles do not cluster. Hold on to the Constitution of the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands-- what has happened once in six thousand years may never happen again. Hold on to your Constitution, for if the American Constitution shall fail there will be
anarchy throughout the world."

The sad fact is that we law abidding and Patriotic Americans may have to resign ourselves to the prospect of having to maintain our principles and our liberty in the face of becoming a disenfranchised minority within our own country.


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To own firearms is to affirm that freedom and liberty are not gifts from the state.

 

[Jim V]

Jim: That was exactly why the Waco Raid was made. Remember the name was OPERATION SHOWTIME. The BATF was in danger of having more of the budget cut and there was a possibility of the agency being disbanded with the agents being absorbed into other agencies. (As if any of the other agencies wanted BATF agents but that is a discussion for another time.) So it was like the old movie musicals where to save something a show was put on. This time the actors forgot their lines and the words to the songs with the result that people died when they did not have to.

If the BATF had arrested Koresh out side the compound there would have been no big photo op for the agency to "look good" in front of the television cameras and Congress.

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Ne Conjuge Nobiscum
"If there be treachery, let there be jehad!"

 

[Jason Demond]

I believe it! They never found anything illegal. The only thing they found was guns, even them were not illegal to own. I remember before it happened there was all this talk about machine gun and child molestation. They never found the machine guns and never proved the children were being harmed.

I think the lies were a smoke screen so they could blow down the door take their guns and treat them like criminals. To send a message to other groups or militia's that the Fed Government can do anything that they want and there was nothing that we can to about it.


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ACCEPT NOTHING LESS THAN FULL VICTORY!"

General Dwight D. Eisenhower-- June 6,1944
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http://www.homestead.com/gunrights/Guns_and_Gunrights.html

ICQ no. 46780559

 

[rw2astan]

No fully automatic illigal firearms were found at Waco. All these people(even if most of us do not agree with their "religion"), died so that BATF could get a budget increase.

Guess what the Clinton Admin. is pushing for in the latest round of "gun safety" for the BATF?

I think it's around $25,000,000 budget increase to hire many more of these wonderful agents who after all are only trying to make this country safer for "our children."

By the way, why, after the jury found the Waco defendents inocent except on a few minor charges did the federal judge throw them in jail and "toss away the key"?
Why are they still in federal prisons while true lifetime criminals are walking the streets? (I.E. IFLA bombers?)

Coudn't be corrupt federal judges apointed by the left wingers could it?

Why did the woman jury foreperson cry at the amazingly long sentences that the judge imposed when she felt confident that they would all be released for time allready served?
Now is the time. If we do not speak up, we will be next.

RKBA!
"When a government fears it's citizens, there is freedom, When citizens fear their government, there is tyrany".

 

[pete80]

I guess the ATF had the tiger by the tail on that one!

 

[Byron Quick]

It has been obvious from the beginning that the BATF was showboating but then most of the dynamic entries in the US are showboating.

 

[Jeff OTMG]

Actually Jim, I think that the U.S. DA in Waco was bucking to get a federal judge appointment. He was the one who put the entire case together, he was the one to get the Federal judge in Waco to issue the warrant, he was the Davidians prosecutor at the trial in San Antonio. ATF may have been up for some additional funding but the chance of becoming a federal judge is a tremendous inducement also.

As far as not finding anything illegal, I do not believe that was true. There were, I believe, 23 firearms that had been illegally converted to full auto fire.

The allegations of child molestation is a moot point except when taken in the context of being included to justify the issuance of the warrant. It never should have been allowed and the person that did it should be fired, child molesting is not a federal crime and if it was it would not be under the jurisdiction of BATF.

They way they were able to deploy the way they did and acquire the use of military hardware was by lying on the warrant claiming that there was a drug lab on the premises. That way the military could be used for free otherwise BATF would be billed $1 million for the operation. The problem arises with the fact that tactical assaults of the type seen in Waco are NEVER done on drug labs because of the volitile chemicals and the risk of contamination and explosion. ATF knew there was no lab, they had testimony that the one drug user in the place was booted out years earlier. They lied on purpose to be able to use the equipment.

Strickly speaking, Koresch screwed up. First he decided to fight, with the force he was up against the jury found the Davidians not guilty of murder, in Texas you may use lethal force against a LEO in certain instances and this was one of them as far as the jury was concerned. Second, he allowed the agents to come in and rescue the wounded. He should have opened up on the recuers and killed them as well as the wounded. I attribute that to the fact that he thought he was going to get out of there sometime. Had he known that they were all going to die he would have had nothing to lose.

 

[Brett Bellmore]

Jeff: Regarding the "automatic weapons", it IS true that the FBI produced some heavilly damaged (By the fire) rifles which they CLAIMED had been converted to full auto. They provided no evidence that this conversion had taken place, and have since flatly refused to let the rifles be X-rayed by an independent lab, the only way to confirm or refute the claim that they'd been converted, in as much as they were somewhat melted.

To say I'm dubious is to understate the case. First, there's the refusal to permit an independent examination, which the Congressional committe investigating Waco was going to have the lab that investigated the Challenger explosion do. I can see no rationale for this refusal except that the FBI feared that it would be proven that the rifles HADN'T been converted.

As it probably would have, regardless of the Davidians' guilt or innocence on this score, as they had PLENTY of time to reverse any conversion, and destroy the auto sears, if they were in fact guilty.

Furthermore, I'm doubtful that the Davidians had automatic weapons for another reason: Only 4 BATF agents died. I mean, arriving in unarmored cattle cars, attacking across open ground against a foe with cover, and with no element of suprise? If the Davidians had had machine guns, they could have killed the BATF agents to the last man. Even armed as they were, they could have killed a lot more of them, if that had been their intention!

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Sic semper tyranus!

 

[Dennis]

In some previous thread on the subject, I believe a TFLer posted that (at least) one of the Dividians had a Class III license.

Anyone remember the true facts?

 

[BigG]

Jim Keenan, in answer to your original query, "Yup!"

 

[Larry P.]

Dennis, I don't think ANYBODY has all the true facts, and I believe our best chance of getting them lies with the Texas Rangers, not Danforth. However, I believe I was the one who mentioned that one of the Davidians not present during the attack had a Class III license, and I believe that to be true, but someone else posted that the license had not been renewed, ie, he hadn't paid the licensing fee when it expired. I have no information to refute that fact either. That poster's point was that 80 people died in the attempt to enforce a $500 license fee or whatever.

Brings up a good point which occurred to me yesterday, tho. We're hearing all kinds of noise (finally) about finding out just what transpired after the initial assault, but when is somebody going to address the actual evidence precipitating that assault, so that the public can see for itself whether any arrest AT ALL was warranted?

I mean, all we heard at the time was how Koresh molested little girls, which stank to high heaven as soon as I saw the "ATF" jackets on the JBTs. It took days before there was the SLIGHTEST reference to somebody "hearing guns firing very fast", a 3-second sound bite followed by more hours of references to Koresh molesting little girls.

Anybody and everybody knows the ATF has no authority to murder people because someone is molesting little girls, even if it was true. So where is the evidence of anything which caused a warrant for Koresh's arrest? Why can't I see it?

 

[Mike Spight]

Jim:

Just a personal point here. As I recall, the Director of BATF (can't remember his name, but remember him from the hearings as a wimpy, career bureaucrat type) did take a BOHICA round and was fired/resigned following the original Waco hearings.

My Dad was a career BATF agent, retiring in 1978 during my last year of college at Southern Mississippi. He had served with the agency back in NC in the late 1950s and through the mid-1960s doing what the agency was most famous for in better days, busting up illegal liquor stills and chasing bootleggers on country roads in high speed chases. He later received EOD training at Ft. Rucker, and also began doing arson and bombing investigations in the last ten years of his career in Jackson, MS. He would have absolutely hated the direction that BATF has taken since his retirement. He passed away in 1992, and I'm glad he did not live to see what BATF has become.

My Dad apparently knew the Director (at least by reputation) who was later canned post Waco...as he had been Director for a few years prior to the tragedy. At the time this guy was named as Director (during the Bush administration), I recall my Dad remarking to me something like this: "That little SOB never made over six felony cases in his entire career!" In other words, an administrator with no real understanding or appreciation of what the agency was about. Basically a politician with only one thing in mind: Serve the interests of his masters...all else is forfeit. That pretty well fits in with the publicity stunt in search of more budget $ theory.

Mike

 

[Jeff OTMG]

This is a link to the jury instructions for the Davidians trial.

http://www.constitution.org/waco/juryinst.htm

Read in the last paragraph of page 20 and last paragraph of page 21. I also have the link to the trial transcripts if you need that, but the Davidians had an FFL available but not a Title II manufacturers license. We all know what the deal is with having a semi-auto rifle and the full auto conversion parts together.

I do not agree that the instructions to the jury were correct. At the beginning of the instructions the judge makes certain statements that I do not believe to be true.
You have no right to disregard or give special attention to any one instruction, or to question the wisdom or correctness of any rule I may state to you. You must not substitute or follow your own notion or
opinion as to what the law is or ought to be. It is your duty to apply the law as I explain it to you, regardless of the consequences.

This Court recognizes that each of you is a reasonable person, capable of making appropriate decisions based simply on your collective common sense and experiences. However, our society is, and must be, ruled
by law and not by men. Thus it would violate the very linchpin of our judicial system if you were to render a decision not based on the law as I am now explaining it.

 

[Ivan8883]

I heard some talk on the radio recently that the Waco "operation" was planned BEFORE Big Comrade came into power. i didnt get the real gist of the topic,but will try to get more info on it. Bush and Clinton were sure no strangers to each othere in the eighties i assure you.