You forgot about yesterday's anniversary of the Beruit bombing that had the US run and hide as opposed to retaliate!!!
On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 9:50 AM, MJ <[email protected]> wrote: > > *Waco and 20 Years of State Terror > *by Anthony Gregory<http://libertarianstandard.com/author/anthony-gregory/>on > April 18, 2013 > > There is something about April. From Columbine to Virginia Tech, from > Oklahoma City to Boston, mid-to-late April occasions some of the most > infamous massacres on U.S. soil. At least, these are the ones we are told > to focus on. The killers are called terrorists. Unless they wear uniforms, > as they did on April 19, 1993, just outside Waco, Texas. That time, as we > are urged to believe, the terrorists were the ones who died. In all these > massacres, regardless of specifics, the government portrays itself as all > that keeps chaos at bay. > > The state claims to stand against terrorism, but killing people is its > stock in trade. Slaughters come in various forms, almost all of which feed > the health of the state. The state conducts much killing outright. The > state officially poses against other killing, while nevertheless > encouraging it through its own violence. Even the killing that the state > has no hand in serves as a pretext for the state to grow. > > In Boston this Monday, someone left bombs that murdered three people, > including an eight-year-old boy, and injured 176 others. President Obama > called the crime an “act of terrorism.” The establishment definition of > “terrorism” was always flawed, in that it categorically absolved the > government, but at least it specified the targeting of civilians for > political goals. Yet these days, even before the motive is known, such as > at Boston, or when the targets are not civilians, such as American soldiers > abroad, the U.S. government calls any dramatic acts of violence of which it > disapproves “terrorism.” > > This February, they called ex-cop Chris Dorner a terrorist. Then the > police surrounded him in a cabin to burn him alive, asking the media to > cover its eyes like at Waco. Everyone who knew how the state operates had > no reason to expect he would get due process. They were going to hunt him > down and kill him no matter what. The media dropped the formality of > calling him an “alleged” murderer. The LAPD tried and convicted and > executed him all on the same day and no one batted an eye. Meanwhile, > liberals say all talk of American tyranny is irresponsible and > conservatives continue to worship law enforcement > > Today, violent resistance to the state is called terrorism. Many of the > “terrorists” rounded up and imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay were at most > guilty of defending their country against an invading army. Some of these > people continue to languish in that dungeon, seeing their desperate hunger > strike in protest of declining conditions go unanswered, except by an > administration willing to cut off their water. > > From February 28 to April 19, 1993, the Branch Davidians resisted. On the > morning of February 28, about one hundred ATF agents, concealed in > livestock trailers, descended upon their property. The agents had planned > and trained for eight months, having practiced their histrionic assault on > model buildings. There was no reason for all this other than publicity. The > agents could have easily arrested Koresh, whom they had befriended. The > agents had conducted an investigation of weapons violations and found > nothing. Koresh had cooperated with them. *60 Minutes *had recently > focused on an ATF sexual harassment scandal, and the agency was accused of > racial discrimination during a House subcommittee meeting. The bureau > wanted to improve its public image. Officials reached out to the press to > make sure reporters could witness their heroics on the last February > morning of 1993. > > Unlike the vast majority of the hundreds of daily domestic militarized > raids in America, the ATF’s surprise raid “Operation Showtime” faced > resistance. When the agents ran out of ammo, the Davidians ceased fire. > There were casualties on both sides, although one anonymous agent told the > *Dallas Morning News *that he suspected some agents had fallen from > friendly fire. Once the raid became a clear disaster, the ATF forced the > press away. > > Then came the standoff. The FBI took over and turned it into a full-blown > military operation on American soil. Psychological warfare came down hard > on Koresh’s followers. The FBI blared loud, obnoxious music, and sounds of > animal slaughter, while shining blinding lights through the night. Agents > gratuitously drove a vehicle to defile a Davidian grave. The government cut > off this group’s access to family, media, and lawyers. It destroyed their > water supply. > > The media demonized the Davidians as a heavily armed cult that abused its > children. Journalists tended to report government claims as fact. But they > became increasingly critical of the ATF and FBI as well. After weeks of > looking like fools in the mainstream press, particularly after a critical > exposé in the *New York Times* on March 28 revealed the initial raid’s > bad planning and recklessness, government officials became increasingly > hostile to the media. On April 11, ATF intelligence chief David Troy > stopped holding his regular press conferences altogether. > > Attorney General Janet Reno, who took office in the middle of the > standoff, finally decided to put an end to it. At about 6AM on April 19, > the FBI began pumping flammable and poisonous CS gas, banned in > international warfare, into the Davidian home. Officials knew that women > and children were holed up in the section of the home exposed to this gas. > The government continued to deploy gas for almost six hours. > > Chemistry professor George F. Uhlig estimated in congressional hearings > that there was a sixty percent chance that the gassing alone killed some > children. “Turning loose excessive quantities of CS definitely was not in > the best interests of the children,” Uhlig said. “Gas masks do not fit > children very well, if at all.” He intoned that the gassing could have > transformed their surroundings “into an area similar to one of the gas > chambers used by the Nazis at Auschwitz.” > > The FBI brought out an Abrams tank, the Army’s heaviest armored vehicle, > to replace its Bradley fighting vehicles. Agents drove the tank, which > Attorney General Janet Reno later obscenely compared to “a good > rent-a-car,” into the building. FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi, who had shot and > killed Vicki Weaver in August 1992 at Ruby Ridge as she held her infant in > her arms, was at the scene. FBI agents launched incendiary tear gas > canisters. Justice Department spokesman Myron Marlin later declared, “We > know of no evidence to support that any incendiary device was fired into > the compound on April 19, 1993.” The FBI finally admitted six years later > it had indeed used such projectiles at Waco. > > The Davidian home went up in flames in the early afternoon. More than > seventy people died, all of them civilian targets, many of them Americans, > others hailing from other countries, more than twenty of them children and > close to half of them people of color, although somehow the Davidians are > often smeared, along with the so-called militia movement, as white > supremacists. As the fire raged, the FBI turned back the local fire > department. Special agent Jeffrey Jamar claimed that he feared for > firefighters’ safetypresumably, the Davidians might shoot at the very > people trying to stop the fire that was burning them to death. When it was > all over, the ATF hoisted its flag atop the conquered ruins. > > The trial of the survivors was a sham. Confused jurors intended to convict > survivors of weapons offenses but not murder charges. The judge sided with > the prosecution and defied the jurors’ intentions. By 1999, polling > indicated that a strong majority of Americans blamed the FBI for setting > the fire. Special counsel John Danforth, a Republican, released a report > the next year whitewashing the Clinton administration of all guilt in this > atrocity. > > After Sandy Hook, liberals regurgitated every tired gun control argument, > but one of the most interesting is that an armed populace fails as a break > on tyranny because the government has the military hardware to win any > confrontation. And indeed it’s true: most who resist government are swatted > down like bugs. Some resist violently, like the Lakota Indians at Wounded > Knee in December 1890, and are slaughtered. Others are shot for daring to > resist even by throwing rocks at armed troops, like the four students > murdered and the nine wounded at Kent State in May 1970. Others are > targeted after a few years of relative calm, like the Philadelphia MOVE > radicals in May 1985. Liberals are correct that the government has the > means and the willingness to crush Americans who dare to resist. This fact > never seems to convince liberals that the state is way too powerful and > menacing to begin with, and maybe the last thing we should want is to give > it more law enforcement powers, such as the monopolization of firearms > through a war on guns. > > About once a day police kill an American, but it’s often a criminal and no > one cares, or at least a marginalized person like the homeless Kelly > Thomas, beaten in July 2011 by five officers in Southern California, dying > of complications five days later. Or they are veterans like Jose Guerena, > at whom Tuscon police fired 71 rounds in the middle of the night in May > 2011 – innocent of any crime, just in his own house at the wrong time. The > state saves most of its killing for abroad, where killing is its very > policy. And now, thanks to the war on terror, Obama calls America his > battlefield and the world his jurisdiction. He has made it official > doctrine that the president can order anyone’s death unilaterally. > > Twenty years ago, Waco showed Americans the truth about law enforcement, > the U.S. government, and the state itself. It revealed what reality was > like for foreigners overseas. Yet most Americans seem totally indifferent > to the mass murder the U.S. government has perpetrated and unleashed in the > Middle East. On the day three were murdered in Boston, seventy-five died in > Iraq. Violence in Iraq nine years ago was called terrorism, unless it was > committed by U.S. troops. Today, violence in Iraq hardly makes the news. > The state decides whose lives are worth caring about, and when. > > Some critics of state violence dislike the very word “terrorism,” calling > it meaningless, but I disagree. The state perverts most words it uses, but > these words can still hold value. Terrorism refers to violence > intentionally inflicted on the innocent to instill fear and advance > political goals. American officials commit terrorism all the time. In the > twenty years since Waco, state terrorism has escalated, from the > anti-civilian sanctions on Iraq to the double-tap drone attacks on foreign > first responders, all the way down to the constant domestic police raids. > Even the more pedestrian police measures such as the systematic groping of > New York City residents known as “stop and frisk” are there to “instill > fear,” as police commissioner Raymond Kelly boasted was the intention, > according to former NYPD captain Eric Adams’s testimony. From top to > bottom, at home and abroad, the post-Waco American state seems intent on > instilling fear in all of us. > > Every April since 2003, I’ve written a piece about Waco. I think Americans > should never forget what happened. LewRockwell.com published most of these > articles. They each have a little bit of something different and discuss > contemporary events. I also wrote my undergraduate thesis on Waco and the > relationship between the media and the police state. Here are my archives > for those interested: > > - 20 Years Ago Today: Operation > Showtime<http://blog.independent.org/2013/02/28/20-years-ago-today-operation-showtime/>(Independent > Institute, February 2013) > - We're All Branch Davidians > Now<http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory246.html>(LRC, April 2012) > - From Waco to Libya: Eighteen Years of Humanitarian Mass > Murder<http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory210.html>(LRC, April 2011). > - Waco and the New Brown > Scare<http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory198.html>(LRC, April 2010). > - The Waco Butchers Are > Back<http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory186.html>(LRC, April 2009). > - Why Waco Still > Matters<http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory157.html>(LRC, April 2008). > - Waco, Oklahoma City, Columbine, Virginia > Tech<http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory135.html>(LRC, April 2007). > - Waco and the Bipartisan Police > State<http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory117.html>(LRC, April 2006). > - Waco, Oklahoma City, and the Post-9/11 Left-Right > Dynamic<http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory71.html>(LRC, April 2005). > - Eleven Years Since Waco and Very Little Has > Changed<http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/gregory5.html>(LRC, April 2004). > - An Anniversary We Must Never > Forget<http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1135>(Independent > Institute, April 2003). > - "God Help Us, We Want the Press": The 1993 Waco Disaster and > Media/Government Relations" > <http://www.anthonygregory.com/GodHelpUs.html>(UC Berkeley > Undergraduate thesis, 2003). > > * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ARYqQensPo&feature=player_embedded > > *I might take a break from revisiting Waco next April, not because I’ve > forgotten the victims – I never will – but simply because I feel like I’ve > done enough writing about this particular atrocity for a little while, > given that the state has raged on in so many directions, making Branch > Davidians out of so many foreigners and Americans caught on the wrong side > of the U.S. government’s never-ending siege of the world. Many Davidians > died and others suffered injustice at trial, but tragically these victims > are not so unusual. There are also the many thousands slaughtered abroad in > the last 20 years. There are the thousands shot by law enforcement since > then. There is Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the sixteen-year-old from Denver whom > Obama snuffed out with a drone, whose death was justified on the grounds > that he had a bad father. Before the rapid rise of the surveillance state > and the post-9/11 terror war, Waco was the best opportunity to turn things > around. Instead, most Americans turned their backs and now our country is > becoming one big playground for the police state. > > We might call the situation David Koresh’s revenge. > > http://libertarianstandard.com/2013/04/18/waco-and-20-years-of-state-terror/ > > -- > -- > Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. > For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum > > * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ > * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. > * Read the latest breaking news, and more. > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "PoliticalForum" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > -- brine http://brineb.blogspot.com/ -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PoliticalForum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
