Wednesday, Aug 20, 2008
Taking sides on Waco; Salon is as consumerist as the New York Times; how can I see the "Yellow Submarine"?
Sep 16, 1999 | The truth about Waco
BY DAVID THIBODEAU
(09/09/99)
I grieve for the dead of Waco, and especially the children. But no matter how the fire started, the fact cannot be ignored that David Koresh chose to stay inside Mount Carmel for 51 days while the forces aligned against him rested and plotted. If he cared a whit for the lives of his followers and their babies, he should have led them to surrender -- and finished writing his interpretation of scripture from jail. Those people depended on him, and he failed them as much as the government.
-- Joe Hart
Lansdowne, Penn.
The survivor's account of the government siege and resultant attack was harrowing in its clarity. Thibodeau really made the terror, confusion and sense of impending disaster palpable. He also did a good job of differentiating Koresh's community from those of the far right.
I marvel at the FBI's belief that these facts would never come out, in this day an age of inevitable exposure. Still, there's just one thing that puzzles me: Why is it that Thibodeau apparently never considered leaving the compound after the initial ATF assault? It's understandable that he fervently disagrees with the government's drastic actions. However, after the ATF agents were killed in the initial assault, he must have known that this type of response was almost certain to happen.
-- Andrew Ricks
Houston
David Thibodeau tells a nice story about how his fellow Branch Davidians were simply selling guns and not breaking the law. The one thing he leaves out is the fact that people inside the Waco compound shot ATF agents.
No matter what the charges, no matter whether they were true or false, you can't shoot cops. If David Koresh wanted to fight the charges, he could have simply surrendered and fought the charges in court.
Anyone else shoots cops in this country, the cops' families are accorded sympathy and the shooters reviled. But Thibodeau and the former residents of the compound have somehow escaped this ignominy. Instead, congressmen use them to pander to the hard right.
American history proves we need to be vigilant of government power. But to act as if the tragedy at Waco was a government conspiracy and not something that Koresh and the adults in the compound could have ended at any time by surrendering to legal authority is obscene and an insult to the dead and injured ATF agents, who were acting under the concert of law.
-- Stephen Gilliard
It has been an absolutely nauseating experience listening to the press spin alibis (for the past six years!) for the conduct of the FBI and the ATF at Waco in 1993. One of these agencies, the FBI, had a role in the MOVE firebombing in Philadelphia and during the siege at Wounded Knee; in both cases, the press was actively prevented from covering the story -- and corporate media sources twisted that story as soon as they were allowed to tell it. There are even indications that the FBI may have abetted the person(s) responsible for bombing Earth First-er Judi Bari's car.
In the past three decades, we have learned that the FBI lab is actually very poorly run and unreliable; that COINTELPRO-type operations not only did exist, but are in all likelihood ongoing; that the FBI both actively and passively assisted organized crime, going so far as to interfere in the operations of local and state police forces; and that the power and authority of the FBI were largely established by J. Edgar Hoover's blackmailing of congressmembers and others.
It is long past time that the FBI be dissolved, and their investigative function devolved to state and local authorities. The United States does not need a national police force; no KGB or Gestapo is required to coordinate the efforts of smaller-scale law enforcement agencies. A national databank of fingerprints, criminal records, etc. already exists; most states have agencies capable of rigorous investigation, and those that don't can borrow personnel under existing laws. The mystique of the Feds was largely created by Walter Winchell and by Hoover's manipulated statistics; today, knowing all that we do, we need not delude ourselves further. The FBI must go.
(Name withheld at writer's request)
Great balls of fire
BY SEAN ELDER
(09/09/99)
Sean Elder downplays some of the strong points of "Rules of Engagement" and does not focus on whether the main claims of "Rules" are correct. The only discussion of the truthfulness of the claims in the film is of the alleged infrared evidence of gunfire during the last day of the seige, which is the most easily disputable part of the film. This sort of photographic evidence is notoriously weak.
The general narrative of the film is that ATF agents had chosen to stage a raid on the residence of an admitedly strange religious group. Like a lot of people in Texas, they owned guns and liked to make some money by selling them. The ATF had called local reporters in order to get some free publicity (the staff at the ATF is shown preparing press releases before the raid). A reporter tipped off the Davidians and the Davidians made a bad situation worse by shooting at law enforcement agents. One bad decision compounded by an even worse decision lead to the deaths of four men and the maiming of many others. As is often the case, instead of admitting an error and trying to resolve the stand-off through some sort negotiation, the ATF and later the FBI decided to get revenge rather than save the lives of the children and the Davidians who had no part in gun dealing or in the shootings of the four ATF agents. "Take no prisoners" resulted in more bloodshed.
Instead of assessing all the evidence that points to this story and seeing if it is true, Elder focuses on how bad we all feel because the Davidians were not proper victims.
-- Fabio Rojas
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