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The
Waco Massacre Revisited
As we look back on this event, there are many lessons Christians can learn
about the massacre performed as a military operation upon civilians by the
United States government against a small cult. One has to ask, could this
happen to the church under a liberal or even conservative President in the
future?
A Brief Background
The Waco massacre which happened in 1993, involving David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, the Bureau Of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is one of the most disturbing chapters in
the whole of American history and Christians should take note of this.
David Koresh was a cult leader, and not a Christian by any
means. Normally in our society cult leaders are often times referred to as
another "Jim Jones"...The hatred for cult leaders which are generally small in
size, is very much hyped up by the media and the government. In this case, David Koresh was blamed for the fire and the deaths of those who
followed him...Even so-called conservative Pat Robertson jumped on the bandwagon
as to blaming David Koresh for the whole thing. So did many of the
so-called Christian media outlets. But as we shall see, this wasn't the
case at all.
Leading up to the Waco Massacre
Rumors Fly Around about the Cult's Activities
The Davidians were running a very profitable gun
business. They were working with a gun deal named Henry McMahon, who held
a Class III dealer's license allowing him to legally own, sell, and buy, any
type of weapon. In April of 1993, McMahon told the Pensacola television show "Lawline"
that Koresh had purchased a large number of legal military-style semi-automatics
as an investment, assuming that their value would increase if the government
somehow restricted their manufacture or sales in the future. Considering that
this had happened with other guns in the past, this was a reasonable business
investment. McMahon said most of these guns were kept boxed and never fired, to
enhance resale value. Now long after the interview accusations began to surface
such as a stockpile full of
explosives and weapons, some of which were reported to be illegally converted to
rapid-fire automatic.
Also while the rumors were floating around about illegal
weapons, the local media was printing a series of stories about Koresh entitled;
"The Sinful Messiah." which detailed accusations of child abuse and polygamy.
As a result of the media coverage and hearsay evidence, the
suspicions by the government contained nothing more than merely conjecture.
A plan was formulated many months in advance to carry out the warrant
once the government agency received it. The plan was to attack the compound where the cult lived. But first they decided to do a
little scouting and make an attempt to place spies and listening devices on the inside of the cult.
In February 25th, BATF agent Davy Aguilera, with the
assistance of U.S. Attorneys Bill Johnston and John Phinizy, produced a
"Probable Cause Affidavit in Support of Search Warrant." On the basis of that
affidavit, Magistrate Judge Dennis S. Green signed a search warrant for illegal
weapons and explosives for Mount Carmel and the "Mag Bag" garage and an arrest
warrant for David Koresh for possession of an unregistered destructive device.
[65] However, Treasury Department officials nixed the raid plan when they
discovered its existence Friday, February 26th. BATF Director Higgins convinced
officials that because of the Waco Herald-Tribune series on the Branch Davidians,
February 28th might be the last opportunity to, as one put it, "catch the cult
members unprepared and away from their stockpile of heavy weaponry."
The Raids and Standoff in the Waco Massacre
It's not my intent to go over every single detail, but
just give you a brief overview of what happened during the attack. It was
close to 10 o'clock, as three teams formed to enter the building, an agent went
to the compound's front door and knocked. "The first entry team was to be inside
the front door within seven seconds after the convoy pulled up to the compound,"
says Linedecker. "All the assault teams would be deployed within thirteen
seconds." They'd been preparing for this for eight months, and each team had an
assignment—protect the children, neutralize the military force, and seize the
arms. Notice how the government is treating the cult not as civilians, but as a
"military force."
David Koresh looks from behind a steel door to see agents
there with a warrant. He quickly closes the door in their face. Then a gun
battle erupted. Both sides shooting at each other with a Blackhawk
helicopter shooting from above. Although the government denied there was
gunfire coming from the Blackhawk, survivors of the skirmish and the subsequent
standoff claimed that bullets came in through the ceiling, which meant that
agents in the helicopter were firing into the compound. Women from inside who
survived claimed they'd placed their bodies over the children to protect them
from the rain of bullets.
There was screaming going on inside the compound while
others were yelling. ATF bullets pierced the front door, behind which Koresh had
been standing. Several people had been hit, including cultists firing from the
tower, and four were wounded while five were dead. Finally after two hours of
shooting, a truce was reached and the agents were able to gather their wounded
which was 16 agents and their dead which was 4 agents. This started the 51
day standoff...A standoff that included such psyhco-war tactics such as sleep deprivation of the
inhabitants in the small cult's community by means of all-night broadcasts of recordings of
the screams of rabbits being slaughtered.
During the 51 day standoff, the FBI, and US Army took
over. David Koresh made a pledge to surrender upon completion of his written
explanation of the meaning of the Seven Seals in the Bible. But the
government disregarded such a pledge and decided to attack the compound with
greater force and leaking out to the press that they were doing it for the
"children." who they said were being abused..
At dawn on April 19, 1993, and throughout the morning,
tanks rammed holes in the main building and pumped (in the FBI's words) "massive
amounts" of CS gas into the building, despite knowing that inside were more than
a dozen children. The tanks demolished parts of the compound and created tunnels
for the wind to blow through. The buildings at this point were saturated with
inflammable CS gas and spilled kerosene.
By midday, the US military started a fire in the compound
with pyrotechnic devices that were fired into the main building. Holes in
the building created by the military fueled the fire to spread massively and
quickly. For six years the US government denied using any pyrotechnic device.
During that six year of denial Congress held hearings concerning Waco in 1996.
This hearing concluded that, "On April 19th&multiple fires began in different
places inside the Branch Davidian residence and that they were deliberately set
by the Davidians themselves." Finally in 1999 admission by the government which said they indeed did use such
pyrotechnic devices. (http://www.cnn.com/US/9908/24/fbi.waco/).
However, they still denied starting the fire and treated
using the devices as non factors in what caused the compound to go up in flames.
The media even downplayed the devices as being "potentially flammable" not
just flammable. But one can
only conclude why deny using the devices for six years? The government
seems to indicate, they are not telling us the whole story.
After the compound had burned down the BATF flag was hoisted aloft to signify
'victory'.
When it was all said and done, about 76 men, women and children
died — including twelve children younger than five years of age.
Questionable Evidence About the Illegal Guns
BATF Agent Davy Aguilera was investigating the Cult's
practices of obtaining firearms. He attended two gun shows with
Vernon Howell, Mike Schroeder, Paul Fatta, and Henry McMahon who is a Federally
licensed firearms dealer and was working along side the Branch Davidians in the
gun business." Yet Aguilera was unable to conclude there was no illegal
activity going on and continued to look for evidence such as contained in his
affidavit where he interviewed a man named Breault and reported his activities
as "participated in firearmed shooting exercises conducted by Howell. He
stood guard armed with a loaded weapon." What agent Aguilera failed
to mention or perhaps on purpose failed to mention was the fact that Breault was
legally blind. He is a guy who is able to see enough to throw a ball down
an alley but not well enough to see which pins he knocked down. According to
Breault he used an air rifle for target practice and residents said he was never
a guard there nor was he ever trained at Mt Carmel.
The Cult had a pretty huge inventory of guns while
conducting it's business. The inventory consisted of; one hundred four (104) AR-15/M-16,
upper receiver groups with barrels; eight thousand, one hundred (8,100) rounds
of 9mm and .223 caliber ammunition for AR-15/M-16; twenty (20), one hundred
round capacity drum magazines for AK-47 rifles; two hundred sixty (260),
M-16/Ar-15, magazines; thirty (30) M-14 magazines; two (2) M-16 EZ kits; two (2)
M-16 Car Kits; one M-76 grenade launcher; two hundred (200) M-31 practice rifle
grenades; four (4) M-16 parts set Kits "A"; two (2) flare launchers; two cases
(approximately 50) inert practice hand grenades; 40-50 pounds of black gun
powder; thirty (30) pounds of Potassium Nitrate; five (5) pounds of Magnesium
metal powder; one pound of Igniter cord (A class C explosive); ninety-one (91)
AR/15 lower receiver units; twenty-six (26) various calibers and brands of hand
guns and long guns; 90 pounds of aluminum metal powder; 30-40 cardboard tubes.
The amount of expenditures for the above listed firearm paraphernalia, excluding
the (91) AR-15 lower receiver units and the (26) complete firearms, was in
excess of $44,300."
All these guns, gun parts, powders, inert grenades, and
other equipment were lawfully purchased and may be legally owned. None per se
established probable cause that Koresh had violated or was about to violate
federal law. As has been noted, the seemingly large amounts are not illegal
either according to the Firearms Owners' Protection Act of 1986 and the Supreme
Court decision United States vs. Anders, nor are they unusual for someone
dealing in weapons or holding them as an investment.
Aguilera failed to investigate or on purpose failed to
investigate the one dealer who might
possibly have sold Koresh illegal arms. In the affidavit he states his reason,
"because of the sensitivity of the investigation" so in effect he didn't bother
contacting any of the "vendors with questionable trade practices" who had sold
to Koresh, including one suspected of "unlawful possession of machineguns,
silencers, destructive devices, and machinegun conversion kits." So what the
evidence appears to be is that Aguilera refused to check to see if Koresh had
bought illegal items from this source and instead inferred probable cause.
As of December, 1992, Aguilera's only evidence that the
Branch Davidians were doing one or more of these things was that they had bought
a number of legal weapons and legal gun parts which, with the help of a few
parts they did not have, can be converted into machineguns. Aguilera states that
Firearms Enforcement Officer Curtis Bartlett told him that the firearms parts
which Howell had received, and the method by which he had received them, was
consistent with findings in other BATF investigations which resulted in the
seizure of illegal machineguns. However, BATF's suspicions remained pure
conjecture.
The Evidence Suggests Massacre the Cult and
Destroy the Rest
One gets the feeling after reviewing the gun
investigation, the Cult in the government eyes was guilty, and also the
government was trying very hard not to get to the bottom of this issue, but
withhold facts and not tell the whole story in an attempt to try and make this
cult look bad enough for military action...The evidence also suggests that no
person, man, woman or child continue to leave the compound alive. For example, CS gas according to the government was used in
the final raid in order to flush out the cultists from the compound. I'm
sure you marines or ex-marines are familiar with this type of gas because it's
part of the training to go through 40 seconds worth of it. CS gas is
normally used for outdoors to control riots, not indoors. The gas renders the
person who's exposed to it immobile. When a marine is expose to this gas,
after the training session, normally he needs to be helped out of the building
as he can't do it on his own. And that's only being exposed to for 40 seconds.
Now some in the compound did have gas masks, however none of the children did
nor the women had gas masks. One has to ask, why use this gas (which makes
people immobile not mobile) to flush people out of the building? Also why use
this gas on the very ones (the children) who you claim to be trying to save from
abuse in the compound?
Child Abuse Allegations
Speaking of the children, the accusation of child abuse
was the reason why the US government attacked the second time and not wait for the cultists
to surrender. As it turns out, there was no abuse coming from the cult on
it's own kids. There was talk about David Koresh beating babies but that
all it was just talk, no evidence to confirm such an allegation. Despite
what the government said there was overwhelming evidence of child abuse, the
likes of FBI Director William Sessions acknowledged, there was "no
contemporaneous evidence" of child abuse; given the many FBI listening devices
inside the Mount Carmel Center, Sessions' conclusion appears accurate. As the
FBI well knew, Koresh, having been wounded so severely on February 28 by a BATF
sniper that he thought we was going to die soon, was in no position to
physically or sexually abuse anyone in the subsequent weeks. A few months after
the fire, Reno said that she might have misunderstood the FBI comments, and
there was no evidence of ongoing child abuse in the besieged home.
However, Reno changed two years later by giving another
explanation on why the compound was attacked. In May 1995, Reno
said. The "first and foremost" reason was that "Individuals sympathetic to
Koresh were threatening to take matters into their own hands to end the
stalemate [and] were at various times reportedly on the way." But while
child abuse had disappeared as a rationale, a child welfare issue remained:
"They [the FBI] told me that the conditions were deteriorating inside. I was
concerned about the safety of the people inside. The behavioral experts were
telling me that children--for a siege that could last a year--it would have a
lasting effect on them."
In Conclusion
Some say it was a total debacle that is all. A
debacle? For 8 months they trained for the first raid to conduct a
military mission against untrained civilians. Who had the better training? Who
was really more prepared? The government of course, not the cult, it
was the government who had the better training, better weapons, and was more prepared.
As we know, the
government also covered up a number of things including such things as the pyrotechnic devices for
six years, kept out key parts of information which made various people
looked worse than they actually were. We to this day most likely will never know what all really
happened during the Waco Massacre. But we know one thing for sure, this should have never happened. And
it is scary that a country who claims to believe in freedom carry out such a
massacre on it's own soil. Christians must pray for this government as well as others in which they live
in...For governments like this, really and absolutely needs God.
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