{"id":51821,"date":"2024-04-19T10:11:13","date_gmt":"2024-04-19T15:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=51821"},"modified":"2024-04-19T10:12:44","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T15:12:44","slug":"51821","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=51821","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Combine a small apocalyptic sect with one of its major prophecies being fulfilled, as they saw it, by a law enforcement agency who it is said were looking for headlines to bolster its reputation for an increased budget, and what you wind up with is this.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ammo.com\/articles\/waco-siege-branch-davidian-compound-standoff-atf-raid-us-federal-government\">The Waco Siege: What Happened When the Feds Laid Siege to the Branch Davidian Compound<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">\u201cThe record of the Waco incident documents mistakes. What the record from Waco does not evidence, however, is any improper motive or intent on the part of law enforcement.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<footer><strong>\u00a0<cite><a title=\"Joe Biden quote\" href=\"http:\/\/www.web-ak.com\/waco\/burial\/doc\/wre_scr4.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joseph Biden<\/a>, U.S. Senator, Delaware (D) and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which issued the\u00a0<a title=\"what is the waco investigation report\" href=\"https:\/\/www.c-span.org\/video\/?51085-1\/waco-investigation-report\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Waco Investigation Report<\/a><\/cite><\/strong><\/footer>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong><span class=\"dropcap\">T<\/span>he siege of the\u00a0Branch Davidian\u00a0compound in\u00a0Waco, Texas, is an important event in American history because it directly led to one of the biggest terrorist attacks on American soil \u2013 the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building.<\/strong> It\u2019s not necessary to defend this act of terrorism to understand why the entire freedom movement of the time was so incensed by it. Indeed, it stood as a symbol of federal overreach and the corruption of the Clinton Administration.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s important to separate fact from fiction when it comes to the siege of Waco, just as it is important to do so with the\u00a0<a title=\"what is the siege at ruby ridge\" href=\"https:\/\/ammo.com\/articles\/ruby-ridge-siege-forgotten-history-weaver-family-atf-standoff-militia\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">siege of Ruby Ridge<\/a> or the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. With every event, it is important to stick to the facts and what can be extrapolated from them to make the strongest argument about what went wrong and why, and what could be done differently in the future.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>The Raid of Waco<\/h3>\n<p>The actual events of the raid can be difficult to tease out. Each side disagrees as to what the sequence of events were.<\/p>\n<p>What we know is that, based on an affidavit filed by Davy Aguilera, the ATF obtained a search warrant. This was based on the testimony of a postal agent about what he considered to be suspicious deliveries to Mt. Carmel. However, none of the deliveries were in and of themselves illegal, and included items such as forty five AR-15 upper receivers, and five M-16 upper receivers.<\/p>\n<p>The search warrant was mostly based on the number of weapons possessed by the Davidians. But in the United States of America, we have\u00a0the right\u00a0to own as many weapons as we can afford. What\u2019s more, the notion that the Davidians were \u201cstockpiling\u201d weapons is a red herring: They were selling weapons (legally) in addition to buying them, so \u201cinventory\u201d might be the more accurate term for what they had at Mt. Carmel.<\/p>\n<p>According to Dick J. Reavis, author of\u00a0<a title=\"what is the ashes of waco\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Ashes-Waco-Investigation-Dick-Reavis\/dp\/0815605021\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>The Ashes of Waco<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">\u201cOne of the prophecies that has been around Mt. Carmel since 1934 called for an ultimate confrontation between God&#8217;s people, or those at Mr. Carmel, and the forces of an armed apostate power called Babylon . . . <\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Perhaps with that in mind, in 1991, the Davidians began studying armaments and buying and selling guns. He (Koresh) pretty quickly found out there is a lot of money to be made at gun shows and he and other people started going to gun shows. And they bought and sold. They bought items that weren&#8217;t guns, and they bought items that were guns. We now say, or the press now says, most people say, they stockpiled weapons. <\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">All gun dealers stockpile weapons. We call those stockpiles an inventory. There was an inventory of weapons at Mt. Carmel. A number of guys were involved in the gun shows, just as a number were involved in souping up and restoring cars, and just as a number were involved in playing in the band. There were circles or knots or subsets of people who had hobby interests that were only indirectly related to theology, and guns were one of those interests.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The ATF\u2019s raid, codenamed \u201cShowtime,\u201d was moved up one day in response to a local newspaper\u2019s article on the Davidians. The local sheriff was not aware of the raid, but the Davidians knew it was coming. The ATF chose to raid the property rather than pick up Koresh while he was in town. An ATF agent who had infiltrated the group reported that they knew of the raid and that his cover was blown. When asked what they were doing when he left the property on the day of the raid, he said that the Davidians were praying.<\/p>\n<p>There was another factor influencing the ATF\u2019s decision to raid the Davidians when they did: Money.\u00a0<a title=\"who is henry ruth\" href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0120472\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">According to Henry Ruth<\/a>, one of three independent reviewers of the Treasury Department&#8217;s report on Waco:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: #000000;\"><strong>\u201cWith appropriations hearings a week away, a large successful raid for the ATF would&#8217;ve proposed major positive headlines for the agency. It would&#8217;ve helped counter the narrative of the ATF as a rogue agency. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: #000000;\"><strong>And it would&#8217;ve spread fear about radical fringe groups which would put pressure on Congress to increase its budget. Part of their motivation was to use the siege at Waco as a publicity stunt.\u201d&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;..<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3>The Final Siege of Mount Carmel<\/h3>\n<p>The newly minted U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno was unhappy with the progress being made at Waco, and invoked (what else) the abuse of children in her pitch for a resolution to the conflict. For his part, President Clinton, who had dealt with a similar situation as Governor of Arkansas in 1985 \u2013 with The Covenant, The Sword, and The Arm of the Lord \u2013 initially urged waiting out the group. Reno, however, cited antsy agents and budgetary concerns. Ultimately, Clinton told her to do whatever she thought was best.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI Hostage Rescue Team \u2013 derisively nicknamed the \u201cHostage Roasting Team\u201d and which denied any evidence of child abuse \u2013 came armed with 50 caliber rifles and punched holes in the walls of the building with explosives so they could pump CS gas into a building with small children and infants inside. The plan was to announce to the group that there was no plan to take the house by force while slowly pumping greater amounts of CS gas inside to increase pressure on them to leave.<\/p>\n<p>The fires began around noon on the final day of the standoff. The FBI maintains that they were started deliberately by the Davidians, with some survivors claiming that the FBI started the fires either intentionally or accidentally. Footage of the Davidians talking about gasoline seem to refer to them making Molotov cocktails to fight the FBI with.<\/p>\n<p>Nine people left the building during the fire. The remaining people inside all died either from the fire, smoke inhalation, were buried alive by rubble or were shot. Some showed signs of death by cyanide poisoning, which would likely have been a result of the burning CS gas. All told, there were 76 deaths.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"did the FBI fire weapons during waco standoff\" href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/5115201\/waco-siege-standoff-fbi-david-koresh\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FBI claims in the 51 days during the standoff they\u00a0<em>never<\/em>\u00a0fired a single shot.<\/a>\u00a0Then 27 of the people in the compound died of bullet wounds. Then those were self-inflicted or inflicted by other members inside the compound. Federal investigators considered suicide as a possible form of gunshot death for the Davidians. It did not consider forced execution to be a likely cause of death.<\/p>\n<p>An exchange between Sen. Chuck Schumer and Assistant Attorney General Edward Dennis in the Clinton Administration in the subsequent congressional investigation\u00a0<a title=\"what was the waco congressional investigation\" href=\"http:\/\/www.web-ak.com\/waco\/burial\/doc\/wre_scr4.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">summed it up best<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Charles E. Schumer, U.S. Congressman, New York (D)<\/em>:We&#8217;ve heard that in the 51 days the FBI was involved, they did not fire a single shot . . . First, That would mean quite certainly that 27 of the people who died in the compound, I think the autopsy report showed 27, I may be off by one or two, who died of bullet wounds, those were self-inflicted or inflicted by other members within the compound . . .<\/p>\n<p><em>Edward Dennis, Former Assistant Attorney General, Clinton Administration:<\/em>\u00a0I think that&#8217;s a key issue. The fact that Koresh was capable of setting the fire, of killing his own followers, that parents were capable of killing children, or adults were capable of killing children, really says more about the mentality of the individual that you were dealing with and the difficulty in trying to figure out the best way to talk he and his followers out of that compound.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3>After the Raid<\/h3>\n<p>Today the only building on the site is a small chapel erected years after the raid. The building itself was razed. The incoming head of the ATF, John Magaw, was critical of the raid and made the Treasury Department\u2019s Blue Book report on the matter required reading for incoming agents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Combine a small apocalyptic sect with one of its major prophecies being fulfilled, as they saw it, by a law enforcement agency who it is said were looking for headlines to bolster its reputation for an increased budget, and what you wind up with is this. The Waco Siege: What Happened When the Feds Laid &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=51821\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,28,53,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-goobermint","category-history","category-the-violence-inherent-in-the-left","category-they-made-a-movie-about-this"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51821"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101468,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51821\/revisions\/101468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}