Pols, guns and androgyny

James Ravenscroft objects to other matters in my analysis of Waco:

You describe the use of tanks at David Koresh's compound as an outrageous example of government totalitarianism. Now, believe me, I'm familiar with the excesses of the federal government from Japanese internment in World War II to the use of soldiers as guinea pigs for radiation and biological testing.

The use of armored vehicles at Waco, though dramatic, was no more offensive to a free society than the use of helicopters or armed federal agents. People who have never worked for the government often presume a huge monolithic entity of limitless power and faceless, nameless automatons. The fact is that the federal government is composed of men and women who want to do their job and go home safely.

Four ATF agents were killed serving a lawful warrant, raising the stakes at Waco. Koresh and his followers were equipped with long rifles capable of penetrating body armor, helmets, car doors, aircraft fuselage and practically anything available to law enforcement. You can bet that nobody wanted to be that fifth victim, and yet FBI agents cannot simply go home. There is a job to do. Only tanks could move close to the compound safely. The tanks did not use the considerable firepower available to them. They knocked down the structure to allow everyone to escape had they wished to. And they did take gunfire in the process.

Law enforcement has taken on a more paramilitary look in the past few years. The scene of SWAT teams who are indistinguishable from soldiers with military equipment has been prompted by the increased firepower and organization of domestic criminal groups. I would remind people that if it were you going into a drug lab or cult compound or hostage barricade, you would want all the protection you could get.

My background is that I am an Army Reserve tank officer and Border Patrol agent. I have friends in every federal law enforcement agency. Two weeks ago, I sat in a Border Patrol expedition with steel mesh covering all of the glass to allow Mexicans to throw rocks at me. Last night, I sat in a Border Patrol expedition with bulletproof glass, prompted by a friend of mine being shot in the head while he sat in the same position I did on the U.S.-Mexico border. Yet I am still not allowed to carry a long rifle due to the risk of innocent casualties in Mexico. I think you would agree that I do my job out of patriotism, but I do not wish to die for my country. The body armor and handgun I'm supplied with can do only so much, and I can't walk away from a dangerous situation that I'm expected to deal with. Your points about guns being inanimate objects incapable of committing their own evil is true of helicopters and tanks as well.

Thank you for your superb and inspiring letter, Mr. Ravenscroft. However, it is not the heroic men on the ground whom I blame for the grotesque 51-day siege and disastrous attack on the Koresh compound, which resulted in the fiery death of more than 70 adults and children, but those in charge, from the clumsy, egotistical regional coordinators all the way up to the Department of Justice, attorney general and White House. (The latter's command structure at the time remains murky but may have included the first lady and her confidant, the suicidal Vincent Foster.)

David Koresh was a fruitcake, but his remote encampment, however heavily armed, offered little immediate danger to the community or nation. The needless and sometimes manic escalation of that confrontation into a full-scale military assault, where tanks were used against American citizens, was one of the most shocking uses of arbitrary government power in the history of modern democracies.

Those four dead ATF agents were martyrs to administrative stupidity and incompetence, but their lives were not redeemed by the barbaric slaughter of Koresh followers that followed. And the liberal media's failure to hold the new Clinton administration accountable led directly to the death of 168 innocent citizens in Timothy McVeigh's moronic revenge bombing two years later at the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Two readers write to protest the assertion about Kimberly Bergalis in a letter from a Salon reader in my last column. Ward Chanley declares, "There's no conclusive evidence that Bergalis contracted HIV from her dentist." He goes on to cite a Web summary of a 1996 report in the Annals of Internal Medicine:

Centers for Disease Control scientists say that they may never be able to explain how and if Florida dentist David Acer transmitted HIV to six patients, including Kimberly Bergalis. "The science doesn't provide us with a conclusive answer [on Acer], but it does reiterate the overall safety for both healthcare provider and patients," says Dr. Donald Marianos, a CDC researcher.

A reader in Hawaii who asks not to be identified recalls admittedly obscure follow-up reportage containing the revelation that Bergalis suffered from a different strain of HIV than did her dentist, that she was not a virgin as she claimed, and that she had been a drug-user: "She scammed the nation, including in her congressional testimony."

Next Page: Pouring choking oceans of p.c. mush into the public school system

• View blog reactions