From: busta@vicki.enet.dec.com
Subject: Re: Welcome to Police State USA
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 115


In article <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.


 The above statement ignores reality. The BD WERE provoked.


> 
>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.


 Damn, Phil. You must have seen a different tape of the initial raid than
I did. Your `doorbell' happened to include lobbing percussion grenades and
attempting to storm the compound through the windows. I can honestly say
I have never seen a `doorbell' that works like that.



> 
>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.


  THINK, man. The BATF are serving a warrant on someone who they feel might
 have illegal automatic weapons. If they expected, as you state, that `the B-D
 to be anything other than peaceful citizens' they could have sent one, maybe 
 two agents up to the front door, knock, and attempt to serve the warrant on
 the person answering the door. Scenario one, that person lets them in to 
 perform the search and no one gets hurt. Scenario two, the person answering
 the door pulls a weapon aand kills both officers. Now you have two dead BATF
 agents instead of four, the BATF knows exactly where they stand with regards
 to the BD and began to formulate a plan of action to arrest those responsible
 without harm to the innocent people/children within the compound.


> 
>The stupidity was the attempt to serve a warant on the place by
>ludicrously underarmed and unprotected police. 


 No, the stupidity was the attempt to serve the warrant SWAT style.


> 
> 
>If anyone on the net cares to suggest a sure fire method of bringing
>the murderes of four police officers to justice perhaps we could
>hear it.


 Sure, do it within the law. The BATF is there to uphold the law, not
 circumvent it to fit their needs.....


> 
> 
>Phill Hallam-Baker
> 
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 Paul R. Busta	                                     Busta@vicki.enet.dec.com
 Salem, N.H.
 603-894-3962

         "One only sees what one observes, and one observes only 
              those things which are already in the mind."
