-Caveat Lector-
CounterPunch
edited by alexander cockburn and jeffrey st. clair
September 29, 1999
Waco and the Press
The ashes of the murdered Branch Davidians and their children -- all 74 of
them -- were still glowing as the nation's major news institutions rousingly
endorsed the decision of Janet Reno and her boss, Bill Clinton, to give the
FBI (and, as it turned out, the Delta Force) the go-ahead for an operation
that ensured massacre. Newsweek, we particularly remember, rushed out its
cover of Koresh swathed in flames like one of the damned in a medieval
painting. It was one of the great failures of American journalism, one of
the most sickening, one of the most predictable and one of the most
revealing. To this day one can meet progressive types who devote many of
their waking hours to activities designed to save Mumia abu Jamal who didn't
give a toss about the Branch Davidians and their terrible slaughter by the
federal government, and who still don't. Use the word "cult" and both reason
and moral judgement enter recess.
So now comes further proof of the lies, deceptions and cover-ups of the FBI,
and how do the big press poobahs react? Do they make confession that they
bought a cover-up and tried to sell it to the American people, the vast
majority of whom steadfastly continued to believe that the government was
lying and that an infamy had been perpetrated? Here's Ted Koppel, the night
of September l, discussing the seizure by federal marshals of tapes of FBI
hostage "negotiators", discussing the use of pyrotechnic grenades the
morning of the Waco raid:
"... the credibility of the FBI, which probably did tell the truth about
most of what happened, that credibility is badly damaged, while the
credibility of conspiracy theorists, who tend to be wrong about most of what
they've spun together about Waco, their credibility is newly enhanced. It is
on these two fronts that the greatest damage has been done."
In this disgusting paragraph Koppel defines his career role as flack for
state power. For him the issue is not that an agency of government planned
mass murder, just as the so-called conspiracy nuts first surmised, then
proved. For him the issue is the credibility of the state. For the liberal
elite -- in whose ranks most so-called conservatives can be numbered -- this
is always the issue.
In the Koppel program that night was Henry Ruth, a former Watergate
prosecutor who was appointed in the aftermath of Waco to investigate the
federal raid. "The real issue,"Ruth said, "was whether any military force
was actually used in the raid, separate and apart from just military
advisors, and my guess is that such force is so dangerous, so controversial,
that it probably did not happen, but it's certainly worth looking at in this
environment where the whole credibility of the investigation is now at
stake." Note here Ruth's desperate eagerness to let the government off the
hook, and preserve the cover-up (code-named "credibility") intact.
Koppel was scarcely alone. Here's a CBS broadcast of September 2:
"For years now the disaster near Waco has been exhibit number one for many
who have deep distrust of the American government. From conspiracy sites on
the Internet to documentary films, Waco has provided a focus for those who
see the government as the enemy. And now they say there is proof the
government has been lying, reports CBS News Correspondent John Blackstone.
'This is just fodder for the conspiracy theorists,' says psychologist
Margaret Singer. She says this is just what the militia movement needs to
say we told you so....Many are certain to see this as government out of
control. 'The anti-government movement, the militia, hate groups are
absolutely going to get a boost out of this and I think it's really a
tragedy for that reason,' said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law
Center. At one time conspiracy theorists may have been viewed as eccentrics
far out on the fringe, but then Timothy McVeigh drove a truck full of
explosives to Oklahoma City and we all discovered just how dangerous it can
be when people stop trusting the government."
As with Koppel, the problem for these CBS broadcasters , and for the shrink,
Singer, and for Potok, from that fraudulent Dees outfit, is not one of
overweening and murderous government, but of potential sedition. Anything
that disturbs popular torpor is tactically inept. Accomplices in the great
and ongoing Cover-up of Everything that Really Matters -- the central
mission of the Fourth Estate, they tremble for Power, whenever Power is
displayed in an undignified or unappetizing light. The film Waco, A New
Revelation, whose disclosures about the pyrotechnic devices CounterPunch
reported many weeks ago, has had the benign effect of discrediting the FBI
and the Department of Justice and its chieftain, but in the end it may
permit the FBI to recoup, by saying that the target of the pyrotechnic
devices was just an outhouse and that these same projectiles never struck
the main building in which the Branch Davidians were sheltered.
As Dan Gifford, executive producer of the earlier Waco: The Rules of
Engagement asserted on September 3, "No national news organization is saying
anything at all about the government's careful prepping of the Davidian
building to burn nor its machine-gunning of the Davidians in the burning
building that is so clearly shown in the FBI's own aerial surveillance video
that is included in Waco: The Rules of Engagement."
One riposte of the state to the Waco disclosures is to emphasize, as did the
CBS man, that those who mistrust government are by definition subversive,
dangerous and possibly homicidal and therefore presumptively deserving of
incineration. A Reuters story by Jim Wolf, put out on August 31, sets the
stage. "The U>S> government is preparing for possible violence from cults,
guerrillas, hate groups and end-of-world-fearing zealots as 2000
approaches," the report began. "The Federal Bureau of Investigation 'expects
to see increased and possibly violent activities among certain groups
related to the millennium,' a top official warned Congress in July. The
official in question was Michael Vatis, head of a new FBI-led interagency
center "to protect critical U.S. infrastructure". According to Reuters' Jim
Wolf "Vatis did not cite possible targets but FBI director Louis Freeh has
said they include Jews, non-whites and their 'establishment allies, i.e. the
federal government."
So we can see the stage being set for the next Waco. Maybe the ATF, whose
agents launched the first unprovoked assault on the Branch Davidian
compound, should plan a preemptive strike on the residence of former
president Ronald Reagan. After all, Reagan more than once affirmed his
confidence in impending Apocalypse, citing Holy Scripture as his source.
Reagan even identified Megiddo as Ground Zero for the apocalyptic finale.
Here's just the sort of dangerous extremist the FBI is concerned about.
Among upcoming Koppel broadcasts:
"Wounded Knee: the bitter legacy": Koppel explains that "in many ways the
saddest consequence of this infamous massacre of American Indians was that
it served to buttress the position of extremist native Americans who have
long argued that the white man was intent on exterminating Indians
altogether."
"Tuskegee: the tragic fall-out": Koppel explains that "in many ways the
saddest consequence of this infamous medical experiment in which federal
scientists and doctors deliberately failed to treat 600 black men suffering
from syphilis (while pretending that they were) is that it served to
buttress the position of extremist advocates of 'Black Power' who have long
argued that the white many is intent on exterminating blacks altogether."
"Vietnam: The..." Enough. You get the idea.
CounterPunch
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© Copyright: 1998-1999. All rights reserved.
CounterPunch is a project of the Institute for the Advancement of
Journalistic Clarity
http://www.counterpunch.org/wacopress.html
Bard
We don't need a 3rd Party; we need a 2nd Party!
In Memory:
SEVEN TRUMPETS
http://www.seventrumpets.com/
SEVEN SEALS REVELATION
BOOK ONE
http://www.sevenseals.com/
SEVEN SEALS REVELATION
BOOK TWO
http://www.branchdavidian.com/
WACO: The Rules of Engagement
(slow loader due to extensive horrific images)
http://www.waco93.com/
by Fifth Estate Productions
****************************
Check it out!
(let this first page load completely)
http://harvest-trust.org/
*****************************
Waco Massacre
by William Cooper
http://216.221.173.225/
*****************************
Overview of Davidian Massacre
by Carol Moore
http://www.cia.com.au/serendipity/waco/moore3.html
*****************************
THE DAVIDIAN MASSACRE
by Carol Moore
http://www.kreative.net/carolmoore/davidian-massacre.html
*****************************
Waco Pictorial Essay
by Gary Hunt
http://www.illusions.com/opf/wacoind.htm
*****************************
Mt. Carmel
http://start.at/mt.carmel
© Branch Davidian Seventh Day Adventist Association
*****************************
Thoughts on Waco: A Remembrance
by Jack Kettler
http://www.visi.com/~contra_m/cm/discuss2/cm98_jk_waco.html
*****************************
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