20th anniversary of Waco raid

Feb. 28, 2013

By John Seiler

If you think government “protects” you, remember what happened 20 years ago today: The federal government initiated its siege of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Tex. The siege lasted 50 days and ended on April 19, 1993 with the feds burning down the compound, killing 76 people, including about 17 children and 20 African-Americans.

The Davidians allegedly violated federal gun laws.

An at the time, Attorney General Janet Reno also justified the mass killings because of alleged “child abuse” by leader David Koresh. But child abuse is a state and local matter, not a federal matter. And the local sheriff said at that time that, if any level of government wanted to arrest Koresh, all they had to do was pick him up when he went jogging.

According to the 1998 book, “The Ashes of Waco,” by Dick J. Reavis, a more likely reason for the raid was publicity to boost the budget of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms:

“Much of this movement was being filmed because documentation of the event was as important to the ATF as the action itself. The agency faced congressional budget hearings on March 10, less than two weeks away. Televised film of the raid — a ‘dynamic entry,’ the ATF called it — would, at the very least, establish a counterpoint to the sprinkle of bad publicity that its director, Stephen Higgins, had received a few months before. Dramatic footage of the raid might even air in a documentary serial like Cops. A raid on cultists might make a titillating episode; the ATF’s routine work, such as enforcing the Contraband Cigarette Act, was far from that.”

A tepid congressional investigation didn’t look deeply into the massacre.

If the Constitution had been followed, both Reno and President Bill Clinton would have been impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” then removed form office by the U.S. Senate. (Clinton eventually was impeached, but not removed from office, over his lies in that preposterous Lewinsky business.)

And the ATF officers and officials in charge would have been removed from office, prosecuted, and if found guilty, jailed for the crime of mass murder of American citizens. Then the ATF itself should have been dissolved, our liberties restored.

The Clinton regime and the Mainstream Media in general branded the Branch Davidians a “cult.” That in itself was an assault on the First Amendment right to freedom of religion.

The government’s attitude really hasn’t changed. During the recent hunt for ex-cop Christopher Dorner, a large, tall man, berserk LAPD officers shot up a truck they though belonged to him. But it turned out to be two short Latina women delivering newspapers. Their attorney said later, “There was no warning. There were no orders. No commands. Just gunshots.”

The Waco Inferno remains as a reminder of the true, murderous nature of government in the once-free United States. Do what you’re told, or they’ll come around and burn out you and your family and exterminate your religion.