In Perspective: Bombing Federal Property in Oklahoma City

By L. Reichard White
[email protected]

Exclusive to The Libertarian Enterprise

         This was a very difficult piece for me to write -- I can only hope that it will be at least half as difficult for you to read.
         A major pastime for politicians and bureaucrats is sending messages; they send messages to foreigners, they send messages to citizens -- and they're especially concerned with messages to kids.

"So we're concerned that these two initiatives ... not communicate the wrong message to American youngsters." -Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, Medical Marijuana Policy news conference, CNN, 30 Dec 1996, ~11:20 AM EST.

I'm here to send a message to America's school children. -Bill Clinton at Voluntarism Conference, CNN HLN, 04-27-1997

         We routinely ignore most of these messages, particularly because they're routinely confusing and contradictory, and quite often, hypocritical.
         To start with though, we really must give the Law and Order Industry the benefit of the doubt in the case of their raid on the Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas.
         Maybe there really was a legally signed warrant allowing BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) operatives to search the Davidian premises -- and somehow it just got mislaid. Perhaps BATF planners just failed to review the record and overlooked that the Davidians had peacefully endured similar arms inspections in the past. Maybe as a result of this failure to review, the planners really believed they needed helicopters and a platoon of shock troops. Maybe they couldn't spare two or three men to arrest David Koresh on one of his numerous trips into town or while on his daily jog outside the compound and so staged the massive raid instead. Maybe the bullet holes in the right-hand metal Davidian front door, DON'T prove the ski-masked government agents fired first. Maybe this door, taken by government agents as evidence and now missing, was just inadvertantly misplaced somehow. Maybe the BATF operatives really didn't fire first.
         In the Ruby Ridge hearings, a reluctant FBI honcho admitted that it has become common practice for law enforcement personnel to lie about drug involvement so they can fraudulently use the drug loophole in the Posse Comitatus Statutes to get military aid and equipment. For example, they lied about Randy Weaver and his family growing marijuana at Ruby Ridge. There was an equivalent claim that the Davidians were running a methamphetamine lab. This meth-lab rumor was completely false and "Justice" Department officials now claim they couldn't even discover who originally made the allegation. None the less, this lie enabled FBI operatives to get the Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) they used to inject C-S gas into the Davidian compound -- and ultimately to flatten it. But maybe this was all just another honest mistake.
         Maybe the FEDS didn't know Texas Child Services had given the Davidians a clean bill of health -- and that the Feds lacked jurisdiction over child welfare, except possibly in federal enclaves, anyway.
         Maybe the Law and Order Industry personnel LIKED the death screams made by butchered rabbits -- and perhaps playing recordings of them through loud speakers really did help the FBI operatives do their jobs better. Maybe all the BATF and FBI personnel were ignorant of the flammable nature of their C-S gas and that its use was outlawed by the Geneva Convention, even against enemies in war time.
         Perhaps the experts were wrong in their analysis of the FBI's own FLIR (Forward Looking Infra Red) footage, reluctantly released under the Freedom of Information Act and featured in the documentary "WACO: THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT." Maybe this footage DOESN'T show a staged military-style mass murder using the burning building to flush the Davidians out the back, conveniently hidden from prying TV cameras, where they could be slaughtered with automatic weapons by troops hiding behind tanks and then have their bodies conveniently bulldozed back into the burning rubble.
         There IS one thing we CAN be completely sure of though: The FBI and their Hostage *RESCUE* Team (HRT) knew everything there was to know about everyone in the Davidian compound. They had access to the most extensive computer information network in existence. They had the most sophisticated information gathering procedures and equipment in history. They had an inside snitch. They even bugged a milk container.
         We can be sure that the Law and Order Industry personnel at Waco knew the name of every child in the compound. They knew their first, last, and middle names. They knew these kids' birthdays and they knew how old they were. We can be sure they knew that there were twenty-two of them inside when they began injecting the highly toxic and flammable C-S gas into the buildings. We can be sure they knew how many little boys and how many little girls were in there when they threw their "flash-bang" grenades into the explosive mixture.
         When they arrested Tim McVeigh for blowing up the Murrah Federal enclave building in Oklahoma City, it was reported that he said only one thing.
         He said, "I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE KIDS."
         But for the moment, let's give the Law and Order Industry at Waco the benefit of the doubt; maybe they didn't know a similar clandestine police technique had evolved and been used to incinerate some of the Black Panthers back in the sixties. Maybe they think it appropriate to imprison the few surviving victims of such "law enforcement" operations for from fifteen to forty years on spurious weapons charges. MAYBE THE POLITICIANS AND BUREAUCRATS THOUGHT DYING RABBIT SCREAMS WERE THE APPROPRIATE MESSAGE TO SEND TO DAVIDIAN CHILDREN UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES. And perhaps the law establishment bureaucrats truly believe it is appropriate to give medals to those who incinerate children "in the line of duty" -- and to promote those in charge, as they did Larry Potts.
         And just possibly the government agents actually DID tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" when they testified at the congressional hearings into the Waco massacre -- despite the contrary opinions of some:

"The people in Waco should convene a grand jury, because it's clear to me that the FBI and BATF agents in their testimony before Congress were lying through the teeth." -Rep. James A. Traficant, Jr., D-OHIO [a former sheriff] CSPAN, 08-02-95 10:08am EST, from the House floor.

         After four years, taxpayer Carol Ward just won a $325,000 settlement, including $250,000 in punitive damages, against the IRS because, according to presiding Judge William Downes, IRS agent James Dolan was "grossly negligent" and acted with "reckless disregard" for the law, and he made three false statements in a sworn declaration. Understandably after four years of court dates and litigation, far from being satisfied with the settlement, Ward said she could see why some people would make bombs or take up arms against the government. Ms. Ward, 49, who describes herself as "just a housewife with not enough to do," says:

"This is not paranoia. I've lived this [hassle with the IRS], but I made it through," ... "I have dreams of taking a machine gun to a room of people. I could never do that, but if I feel like that, could you imagine what someone else might do?'"

"I would've expected a greater loss of life and property of the federal government by now," Ward said to shocked hosts on [Denver] KOA's morning radio talk program Friday." -excerpted from "OK City motive: Victory doesn't cool anger" By Angela Cortez, Denver Post Staff Writer ~08 June, 1997.

         On May 26, 1997 near Jackson, Mississippi, a random truck driver told me, "There was only one thing wrong with the [Oklahoma City] bombing. McVeigh didn't plan thoroughly. He didn't know there was a nursery. Even if they do execute McVeigh, the score will be GOVERNMENT 1, HOME TEAM 168." I asked the driver if he knew anyone else who felt that way. He said "Ask almost any truck driver." "But what about other bombings?" I asked. "Well, just stay out of Federal buildings," he suggested.
         Some of the people have been listening to all those messages the politicians and bureaucrats have been sending. So far, Tim McVeigh sent the loudest answer.

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The Unanimous Declaration
of the thirteen united
States of America

... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

L. Reichard White lives six houses up from the old Black Horse Tavern, a birth place of the Whiskey Rebellion -- which explains a lot. His current project is a revision of historical perspective, based on the theory that many modern problems find their basis in small-group instinctive drives which fail to work correctly in modern history's large super-groups. He has supported his writing habit for over twenty years by beating casinos at their own games.

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