In <C5sI9G.Hx@dscomsa.desy.de> hallam@dscomsa.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker) writes:   >In article <1993Apr20.030234.66491@cc.usu.edu>, slp9k@cc.usu.edu writes: >|>Xref: dscomsa alt.activism:6011 talk.politics.misc:22764 >|>Path: dscomsa!dxcern!mcsun!uunet!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!dog.ee.lbl.gov!hellgate.utah.edu!cc.usu.edu!slp9k >|>From: slp9k@cc.usu.edu >|>Newsgroups: alt.activism,talk.politics.misc >|>Subject: Re: Welcome to Police State USA >|>Message-ID: <1993Apr20.030234.66491@cc.usu.edu> >|>Date: 20 Apr 93 03:02:34 MDT >|>References: <1993Apr20.004224.66488@cc.usu.edu> <C5rusq.M6M@news.cso.uiuc.edu> >|>Organization: Utah State University >|>Lines: 34 >|> >|>In article <C5rusq.M6M@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, azoghlin@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Very Old Freshman (VOF)) writes: >|>> Critisism is too easy. What solutions do people have that  would have been >|>> better than what the FBI had been doing for the last few months? >|> >|>	Firstly, they could have backed off.  When you put a power freak, like >|>David Koresh, in that kind of situation he is going to explode.  (no pun >|>intended).  Koresh wanted to be a martyr and the government played right into >|>his hands. >|> >|>	If the government hadn't given him the attention he wanted nothing >|>would have ever happened. >|> >|>	Secondly, the Davidians were expecting everything the government did.  >|>They thought that they were facing the apocalypse, and that they were to perish >|>in fire.  They weren't scared of the FBI.  They are not the average hoods, they >|>are very devout followers of a religion.  PsyOps didn't work and the government >|>got frustrated so they murdered them.  >|> >|>	The BATF should have left at the beginning, they should have looked at >|>Koresh's personality.  Instead they thought, "They have guns.  We have bigger >|>guns.  Let's go get 'em!" >|> >|>	They botched it from day one.  They shouldn't have been there in the >|>first place.   >The above conveniently ignores the murder of four BATF agents by the >Branch Davidians in an unprovoked ambush.  >Any government that allows tinpot dictators to set up shop and declare >a private state has drifted into anarchy. There are laws to control >the ownership of guns and the BATF had good reason to beleive that >they were being violated. They set out to obtain a legal warrant and  >attempted to serve it only to be met with gunfire when they rang >the doorbell.  +>The paranoid assertion that the BATF fired first in an unprovoked +>assault assumes that the BATF were on a death wish. Had they +>expected the B-D to be anything other than peacefull citizens who +>would accept a search authorized by a court they would have turned up +>in a tank and broken the door down on day one.  	The search was a "no-knock" warrent.  Meaning that what those on the scene see is a bunch of men with guns storming  their compound and lobbing grenades at them.  The terms of the search warrent are secret and the BATF has yet to even reveal what they were.     +>The stupidity was the attempt to serve a warant on the place by +>ludicrously underarmed and unprotected police.   	They did not serve a warrent, they basically attacked the compound and expected a surrender.  They had semiautomatics and concussion grenades that we KNOW about.    	Look at the death and injury toll inflicted on both sides in the first battle and its difficult to believe that either side had any superiority in weapons.