Mr. Havikk's strategic purpose was to "expose my liberal bias" because of my unprincipled attacks on the Bush administration for ignoring the constitutional rights of American citizens. Rexx tells me that was the "Clinton administration was the real culprit" when it came to ignoring the constitutional rights of American citizens.
Rexx Havikk pointed to the Waco example, a frequent rallying point used by the right wing to point out the extra-constitutional excesses of Bill Clinton. Mr Havikk wrote:
Sorry Rexx, like Special Agent Fox Mulder, I want to believe, but the Republican X-Files case against Bill Clinton and Janet Reno is a ludicrous product of the GOP propaganda factory.
The GOP revised history is beginning to make Davey Koresh appear to be Davey Crockett making his last stand at the Alamo. Most non-insane Americans will roll their eyeballs in response to your hysterical nonsense. Go shop that Waco seige storyboard around the four prime-time networks, and maybe ABC or Fox will produce a mini-series about the Clinton's terrorist attack on the law abiding citizens of Waco Texas.
I'm tired of listening to Republicans defending the heroism of David Koresh, a cold blooded right wing Christian pedophile, for the past decade. In each retelling of the Waco myth the GOP entirely ignores the fact that the Waco standoff and crisis was created when Mr. Koresh opened fire and murdered four federal agents with a perfectly legal warrant to search the Branch-Davidian compound.
As far as I'm concerned when David Koresh opened fire and without warning gunned down four federal agents, it was lawful for Janet Reno to do anything in her power to gain entry to Branch Davidian compound and place Mr. Koresh and his cult followers under arrest for murdering a a federal agent.
Twelve years prior to the Waco seige, I living in Philadelphia on May 13,1985 and during the police siege of the residence of members of the militant black nationalist group Move. I was there when a police helicopter dropped a percussion bomb on the roof Move house because I was covering the story for a French publication that was interested in getting a first hand account of the breaking events in Philly that subsequently led to the bombing of the Move residence.
On May 13,1985 Ronald Reagan was POTUS and there was only one hurdle for Mayor Goode and the Philly police to jump in order to pull off the bombing.
It seems that the Mayor of Philadelphia needed to clear his plan to bomb West Philly with the White House. Reagan was so enthusiastic about the bombing proposal, he sent the technical experts on explosive devices to Philadelphia to build the bomb and advise the police on planning and executing a successful bombing of American insurgents living in Philadelphia. That bomb burned down six square blocks of residential housing in the Osage Ave neighborhood. Do you remember that event. Maybe you weren't even born then?
[photos above and below] AP news photos of the Osage Ave neighborhood in the wake of the 1985 Move bombing by the Philadelphia police.
Neither of the photographs fully documents the scope of the damage done to the Osage area, a close knit black working class neighborhood. The day after bombing, Osage Ave looked like a the crime scene of a terrorist attack. Seven unarmed Move members and two children were killed by the bomb. The police apparently had full knowledge of the power of the bomb they were about to drop because they evacuated the entire neighborhood before they dropped the bomb. Of course that wasn't much of a comfort to the innocent people who lost their homes or apartments due to the impact of the bomb and the raging fire created in the aftermath of the bomb.
The sad historical fact is that the 1985 bombing of the Osage Ave residence by the Philadelphia police was the first time in history that Americans dropped a bomb on other Americans.
A subsequent investigation disclosed that a panicked policeman opened fire on the Move house triggering a daisy chain of other cops who opened fire in the belief that they were being fired upon by Move members. The only weapon found in the Move house in the search following the bombing was a rusty pistol that hadn't be fired in decades. The entire rationale for the bombing action was this false positive report that Move members were firing upon cops from inside the house.
On the other hand, in Waco Koresh had already murdered four federal law enforcement agents from by firing without a warning from within the Branch Davidian compound. Despite the fact that Koresh was clearly a murderous madman, Janet Reno was patient with him. It was only after 51 days gridlocked negotiations with Koresh that Reno had the FBI and BFT agents attempt storm the compound to arrest Koresh.
I just want to be clear what conservatives are telling us about David Koresh and the Branch Davidian stand-off. By the right wing revision of Waco history, Janet Reno over-reacted in Waco because she ordered a siege of the Waco compound using Flite-Rite pyrotechnic grenades.
Flight-Right pyrotechnic grenades containing non-lethal CS gas, routinely used by law enforcement agencies and police assault teams to break up riots and or enter buildings where hostages were being kept. Flight-Rite no longer carries pyrotechnic grenades as a result of the Waco fiasco.
The first plausible explanation for the Flight-Rite grenades causing a fire at the compound is that Koresh and his cult were keeping gunpowder or other volatile chemicals in storage at the compound a fact unknown to federal authorities because they couldn't gain access to the compound. The second plausible explanation for the fire was that Koresh ordered his followers to start the fires as either:
1) an act of mass suicide or 2) a diversion for some of the the cult members to escape the compound.
The right wing's theory is that Janet Reno over-reacted by using the Flight-Rite grenades after a heavily armed Koresh and his wackos murdered ATF agents serving a legal search warrant.
On the other hand, right wingers are telling us it was okay for the Philadelphia police with the support and technical assistance from Ronald Reagan's FBI to bomb the Osage Ave. residence of a black political organization that was unarmed and simply refused to allow police access to their private residence?
It's debatable whether Move was a destructive cult but there is no doubt that the Branch Davidians were a destructive cult with a history of violence. Six years prior to the Waco stand-off Koresh stood trial on the attempted murder of George Roden his rival for leadership of the Branch Davidian cult during a contest to "raise the dead." Koresh survived that trial but there were reports of pedophilia by Koresh and his followers, a couple of he said, she said rape accusations by former cult members and the rumor (which turned out to be true) that Koresh had two under age "wives" aged 11 and 14 years in his harem. Most troubling were reports that Koresh was mail ordering massive shipments of automatic weapons to resell to buyers who couldn't get a firearms license because they had a criminal record or a psychiatric history. The BAFT got a warrant to search the Waco compound when UPS and the Postal Service both reported to the local authorities that massive shipments of weapons were being sent to the Waco compound. Tho local authorities fearing Koresh's violent history and his cache of automatic weapons called BAFT to assist them on the case.
You right wingers are more delusional than I originally thought. You seem to be telling us, "Why let messy historical facts get in the way of good plot line of a docudrama where the so-called good guys win?" You've been moaning for years about how Janet Reno was a big meanie to the pedophile whacko, cult leader Koresh who had so many illegal weapons in the Waco compound he was running a side business trafficking automatic weapons to anyone who want one.
But when the Philadelphia cops dropped a bomb on the residence of unarmed
black nationalists who were the equivalent of a neighborhood nuisance; that's okey dokey by the right wingers.
Six square blocks of multi-residential housing were destroyed and hundreds
of innocent residents were left homeless by the bombing of the Move house
on Osage Ave.in 1985 and not a word of protest from you freedom lovin' right wingers.
Instead the right wing hails the pedophile cop killer, David Koresh as a hero and a freedom fighter. If Koresh was a freedom fighter then right wing Republicans hate freedom and the American way of life as much the terrorist. The Republican Party's selective recall of historical events never ceases to amaze me.
Sorry Rexx, but when cast David Koresh in the role of a hero in the Waco siege you've lost your credibility of any American with common sense.