Posted on 04/19/2018 10:00:35 AM PDT by BBell
WACO — The fire rose above the Texas prairie like a portent, an inferno consuming David Koresh and more than 70 of his followers in the Branch Davidian compound.
Koresh's personal apocalypse was televised live worldwide just after noon on April 19, 1993. Questions about what went wrong began to mount before the ashes were cool. How could a 33-year-old ninth-grade dropout convince so many people that he was the Lamb and God had willed this terrible end - nurses and teachers, a postman and a Harvard-educated lawyer, Australians and Brits, New Zealanders and an Argentinian-born Israeli Jew? Above all, why didn't FBI commanders realize they were fulfilling Koresh's doomsday prophecies?
"It was a mess, and we played right into it -- into a prophetic, apocalyptic ministry that David Koresh had been preaching for 7 ½ years," said retired FBI agent and negotiator Byron Sage. "There were no good options. It was damned if you do, you're damned if you don't."
After the fire came the fault-finding; something had to account for so much death. Four agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and five sect members had died in a firefight that broke out as ATF raided the Davidians' compound. It burned fifty-one days later, as the FBI sprayed in tear gas to try to force the sect to surrender.
The federal government blamed Koresh. Justice and Treasury Department reviews, a federal wrongful death trial and a $17 million special counsel's investigation concluded that Koresh led followers in torching their building and immolating themselves.
But federal inquiries also conceded that official accounts of the tragedy were marred by omissions and lies.
First, ATF leaders misled the public about why their raid failed, denying they went in after learning Koresh knew they were coming.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
The FIB shot them as they tried to escape the flames.
The FLIR Project.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOW6UbAVs8A
The Declaration and the Constitution are based on suspicion of government. They were written somewhat further back than 25 years ago.
I wouldn’t say it sparked the suspicion. It was one in a long series of incidents. The most dramatic owing to the length of time and the fire and death toll. But you’ve got to include Ruby Ridge, and the Elian Gonzalez abduction, and I’m sure there’s a few more in there I’ve forgotten.
I was in a bar when it went down.
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You must have been a helluva drunk back then. The siege itself was from February 28 until April 19, 1993.
What a crock! David Koresh left the compound to go into town regularly and jogged daily. Why not pick him up then rather than assault the compound with flame throwers and tanks???
If you ever get sideways with govt forces they will have no issues with watching you burn to death or bleeding out.
This was simply an exercise by the Feds to see is they could
get away with murdering American citizens with impunity. And they did. We sat back and let it happen. We are one or two generations away from gun confiscation without a shot being fired.
You’ll get a letter in the mail showing the firearms you have registered. Turn them in by 30 days. If not, your bank account will be seized, you won’t be able to renew your drivers license, etc. etc.
I was....
Not to mention the fact that the people they tried for shooting the agents were acquitted—at which point a judge promptly overruled the jury and imposed draconian sentences on the exonerated defendants.
The whole thing was an incompetent BATF publicity stunt starring Janet Reno and the nascent Clinton administration.
The feds used army assets—violating the Posse Comitatus Act—as well as CS gas, which is supposedly illegal to use against civilians.
Over 70 dead, including numerous women and children—ho hum. The feds always get their man—frequently in the bloodiest, most heavy-handed manner possible...
There was most definitely a good option. The man was a creature of habit. He had patterns he followed in his day to day activities. So, prior to initiating the "stand-off", instead of trying to take Koresh out of what amounted to his fortress, they could have waited until he drove [alone] in to town to buy his morning paper and coffee and had a couple or three agents arrest him - most likely without incident.
None of my firearms are registered.
Tragedy? This was mass murder.
I watched it go down on the news. This article is quite a spin. It lacks important details beyond the gov’s story.
I’ve never seen any real evidence that they had full auto weapons , which is the reason given for the raid. The NRA offered to pay for an independent lab to test the remains of the rifles to see if any had been illegally converted. The govt said no and destroyed the evidence so it can never be tested.
Kind of like how they handled Levoy Finnicum
The ATF wanted a real life dog and pony show and they got one.
Kill all witnesses. Destroy the evidence. Drive the lies. Never forget!
The atf also lied about suspected illegal drug activity in order to get use of air national guard helicopters. Getting around posse comitatus . Also the first shots fired were the atf killing the davidians lab retriever and her puppies. Somewhere on the web they have the photo of the dead dogs lined up. It’s possible that the other agents heard the shots killing the puppies and thought they were being fired on and commenced firing.
Distrust of the fettgub monster started before Waco.
Waco just kinda made the fettgub threat impossible to ignore.
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