In article <APM.93Apr20090558@hpopdlau.pwd.hp.com>, apm@hpopdlau.pwd.hp.com (Andrew Merritt) writes: |>Path: dscomsa!dxcern!mcsun!uknet!pipex!uunet!think.com!sdd.hp.com!hpscit.sc.hp.com!apm |>From: apm@hpopdlau.pwd.hp.com (Andrew Merritt)  |>In article <1993Apr19.170353.1@vms.ocom.okstate.edu> chorley@vms.ocom.okstate.edu writes: |>   I note with insufficient emotion that amongst the five survivors of the  |>   Waco debacle, there were two Brits and an Aussie. The Anglo-Saxon persona  |>   really doesn't lend itself to martyrdom for a spurious messiah. |> |>I don't see how you draw that conclusion.  Around 20 of the 80 inside the |>buildings were British (one quarter).  Two out of the eight (latest count I |>heard) survivors were British (one quarter).  Anyhow, British doesn't equate |>to  Anglo-Saxon. |> |>What exactly are you trying to say?  And why were there no fire-engines within |>a mile of the compound?  Because the Gun loonies were firing on vehicles with 50mm amunition that has a range of 3000 meters.  Next question.   The problem is of course the laws that allow a bunch of raving nutters to collect a huge stack of arms in the first place.  The sequence of events meant that there really was no option but to attempt some sort of breakthrough via an intervention. If the FBI had had the stomach for it they could have mounted a commando type raid and attempted to save the children by shooting all the adults. It really was a no win situation. Koresh had plenty of opportunity  to give up and stand trial for the murder of the 4 ATF officers. Instead he ordered the murder of the children.   In order to reject the word of the FBI and BATF it is neccessary to beleive the words of a man who has just murdered 17 children and ordered the  suicide/murder of his other 80 followers. According to the account given the BATF attempted to serve a warrant upon Koresh at the ranch and were met by gunfire in a deliberate attempt to murder them. The Koresh/gun supporter claim that the BATF started shooting simply does not stand up. If the  AFT had gone there to start shooting they would have gone with heavier grade weaponry than standard issue handguns. For all practical purposes they were unarmed, the B-D followers had automatic weapons.   The B-D seige could not be allowed to go on indefinitely. The B-D were quite capable of commiting mass suicide and murdering the children at any time. A commando assault was the only other likely action that could have achieved that objective, that would have been very risky, orders of  magintude harder than Antebbe or the Iranian Embassy Seige. Airplanes and Embassies are not designed for defense against attack ranch  apocalypse was. 6 terrorists are far easier to disloge without casualties than 80.  Allowing the siege to go on was not an option either, besides the serious risk that Koresh would proclaim armageddon at any moment there was the  question of the difficulties of keeping the emmergency team on standby over a prolonged period. The longer the siege went on the more mentally prepared Koresh and his followers would be for a prolonged siege. Rather than go in prematurely the mistake was probably to go in too soon.   Can you think of a better way of getting the children out?  A 100% certain way?   The people who do not want gun control must obviously discount the entire government story. This is simply rationalisation. It is not enough for  them to simply dismiss the government as incompetent. That would require them to come up with a solution themselves. Instead they have to come up with a government conspiracy theory whereby the government decided to set out to murder 80 people just to set up some sort of scare to alow them to get gun control legislation through.  This conspiracy theory assumes that the BATF deliberately got 4 of its agents killed and that the FBI etc actually enjoy sitting out in the middle of Texas being shot at by religious nutters.  Still the conspiracy theory is comforting, it allows them to pretend that WACO proves nothing except about how incompetent the government is in  resolving a hostage crisis. No govt in the world has ever faced a  comparable situation, quite probably there was no manner in which it could be peacefully resolved. The blame does not rest on the FBI, it rests on the fact that Koresh was allowed to get so far, in particular the person who tipped the B-D off in advance has the murder of 4 ATF agents and 17 children on his or her conscience.   There are a large number of people in the US who predict the end of society preach salvation through armed security. The fact is that these are the very people who pose the threat to society in the first place. The next WACO may not be religious nutters but a political movement. A splinter group of the Klu Klux Klan taking over a schoolhouse in a black area for example and holding several hundred children hostage.  The only possible solution to such situations that can work is to prevent them arising. No other government in the world has faced such a situation.  this is because no other government has so carelessly allowed high power weaponry to become avaliable to any little Hitler or would be Messiah to set themselves up as dictator in their own little empire.