Coming
Soon!
From Common Courage Press
Recent
Stories
June
2, 2003
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter
Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
May
31, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
A Whiner Called Horowitz
Gary Leupp
The Frauds of War
Dave
Lindorff
Clinton, Bush, Lies and Impeachment
Tom Stephens
Does It Matter that the Bush Administration Lied?
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Who Is Next?
Joanne
Mariner
Trivializing Terrorism
Wayne
Madsen
Ayatollah Rumseld's Busy Week
Larry Magnuson
Is a Television a Radio or a Billboard?
Elaine
Cassel
Wake Up, America!
Gila Svirsky
Waiting for the Lament to End
Susan
Davis
Kitchen Dreams
Chris Clarke
Barbra Streisand: Environmental Hypocrite
Chris
Floyd
Bush Locates Source of World Evil: God
Adam Engel
Gravity's End Zone
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Orloski, Albert
May
30, 2003
Ben
Tripp
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Agenda
Neve
Gordon
The Bad Fence
Todd
Steiner
Endangered Ocean
Robert
Freeman
Bush's Tax Cuts: a Form of National Insanity
Sean
Carter
Utah Gets Fired Up for Executions
Daniel
Bacher
How Bush's War Violated International Laws
Tariq
Ali
Re-Colonizing Iraq
Steve
Perry
Bush Wars
Web Log
May
29, 2003
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Jason
Leopold
Despite Thin Intelligence Reports,
US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime
Ron
Jacobs
Popular Uprising, Inc.
Michelle
Ciaccorra
Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Yves Engler
The Economics of Health Care in
America: Pay More to Die Sooner
Kimberly
Blaker
Vouchers for Jesus
Harry
Browne
Stakeknife: Britain's Army Spy at
the Top of the IRA
Stew
Albert
Cops of the World
Steve Perry
Greens 04: In or Out?
May
28, 2003
David
Vest
DubyaCo.: It's Not So Funny Any More
Dave
Lindorff
My Grandfather's Medal
John
Stanton
America's Dying: Arts and Philosophy Hold the Key
Bernard
Weiner
A PNAC Primer
Robert
Jensen
Texas Dems Set a Standard for the Rest of the Party
Ahmad Faruqui
The Oil Business of Regime Change:
the CIA and Iran
Hammond
Guthrie
Disarming Conundrums
Steve Perry
What If There's No Such Thing as Al-Qaeda?
May
27, 2003
Kurt
Nimmo
Condoleezza Rice: Huckstress for Israeli
Myths
Anthony
Gancarski
Hillary: a Dem the NeoCons Could Love?
Patrick
Cockburn
Terror, Bush and Joseph Conrad
John Chuckman
an Interpretation of Bush's Character
Kathleen
Christison
What Sharon Wants, Sharon Gets
Jeffrey
Blankfort
AIPAC Hijacks the Roadmap
Steve
Perry
Trouble in the Hinterlands
May
26, 2003
Franklin
C. Spinney
Test Anxiety: Star Wars, Punctuated
Epistimology and the Triumph of Medievalism
Elaine
Cassel
Supreme Sacrifice
Sam
Hamod
When Trained Killers Return Home
Stew Albert
The Final Conflict
May
24 / 25, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Philosopher Kings: Leo Strauss
and the Neo-Cons
Uri Avnery
The Hannibal Procedure
Diane
Christian
Who's the Real Enemy?
"Just Cause" or "Kill the Bastards"
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life
William
S. Lind
Is Saddam Really Out of the Game?
William
Cook
Road to Nowhere
David Krieger
Bush's War on the Poor: Economic Justice
Ilan
Pappe
Academic Freedom Under Assault in Israel
Wayne Madsen
American Idle
Noah
Leavitt
Slowing Sowing Justice in the Killing Fields
Walt Brasch
Americans are Liars
Lenni
Brenner
John Brown and Dutch Bill
Mickey
Z.
Hope, Crosby & Al Qaeda
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Grievous Harm Here and Abroad
Adam Engel
Towers of Babel
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Guthrie, Alam, Orloski
May
23, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs (poem)
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
Hot Stories
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
June
5, 2003
Clinton, Reno and Waco
Remember What
They've Done
By MICHAEL LEON
In Sidney Blumenthal's new book The
Clinton Wars (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003) Blumenthal
includes a passages summing up the 1993 Waco tragedy.
Writes Blumenthal (page 54): "On
February 23, 1993 agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms surrounded a compound outside Waco, Texas, housing a
cult group called the Branch Davidians. Its leader, Vernon Howell,
who called himself David Koresh after the biblical King David
and Cyrus the Great, preached to his small band of followers
that the federal government was the source of evil in the world
and that they themselves represented the forces of goodness.
All women were sexually shared with him as his 'wives.' Apocalyptic
war must be waged against the government to bring about the reign
of peace on earth and the second coming of the Messiah, who was
himself. He stockpiled an arson of weapons. There were reports
of sex abuse of children. In their effort to storm the compound
four federal agents were killed. The FBI took the place of the
ATF and returned on April 19, lobbing tear gas and bulldozing
into the building. Suddenly, a fire consumed it. Eighty-nine
people were killed, including Koresh and the children."
Blumenthal also points out that despite
criticism mostly from the political right the Clinton administration
was exonerated of all charges and that the Branch Davidians were
found to have to have been responsible for their own demise in
the fire.
The timing of this published version
of events at Waco by a key Clinton player is apropos. This spring
marked the tenth anniversary of this infamous domestic slaughter,
though it has been rarely acknowledged as a slaughter by the
few remembrances published in April.
In memory of the 84 people killed at
Waco, the standard narrative as promulgated by Blumenthal merits
a challenge.
I remember Waco. In April 1993, I wrote
a letter of encouragement to Attorney General Janet Reno urging
her to stand tall in the shower of condemnation following the
deadly FBI assault.
The media, President Clinton and government
spokespersons had assured the public that in so many words the
Branch Davidians were a bunch of gun-stocking, child-molesting,
religious crazies, and that one David Koresh was a dangerous
and depraved cult leader.
Taking the broadcast media and government
spokespersons at face value I sympathized with Reno, the BATF,
and the FBI in their apparent attempt to rescue children from
the throes of a bunch of religious whackos. And I had little
good will for the efforts of the religious-minded in general,
much less these benighted clowns from Texas.
But the Waco attack and its aftermath
demonstrate that a bias against the religious-minded among us
can be as blinding and deafening as any religious dogma.
A gentle, earnest, and mildly unorthodox
group of Americans gathering together and searching for meaning
in their lives was deprived of their civil liberties, their religious
community center, their home and their lives, and many of the
grieving survivors were imprisoned, lied to and slandered afterwards.
Why? Because to make money in Texas some
of the religious group sold and bought guns, and then reportedly
screwed around with some of the guns making semi-automatics into
automatics--not an exceedingly rate occurrence in Texas. And,
it was reported as Blumenthal noted, that in accordance with
their interpretation of Biblical scripture, David Koresh had
parent-sanctioned sexual relationships with teenage women in
the community in an apparent effort to repopulate the planet
in their reading of God's Biblical Prophecy. Hardly capital offenses.
Setting the Record
Straight
Reno wrote me back a brief note a few
weeks later that she supported a full investigation into the
events and circumstances of the two deadly government assaults
on Waco. Not surprisingly, the subsequent government-sponsored
investigations --including former Republican Senator John Danforth's
(as special counsel for the department of Justice)--exonerated
the BATF and FBI.
And a bullying political offensive launched
by congressional Democrats in the 1995 Joint Sub-Committee Hearings,
(with detestable performances by then-Rep. Chuck Schumer D-New
York and Rep Tom Lantos D-California) aimed to head off the political
damage to the Clinton administration through a mean-spirited
attempt to smear anyone as part of the "lunatic fringe"
who dared to question the BATF and FBI and ultimately the Clinton
administration for its 1993 killing of 80 innocents.
Denial of civil liberties, rampant and
deadly police/military power, cover-ups, and bullying political
offensives. Does that sound like anything happening today? It
surly does, except in 1993 we had an opposition party (as wrong-headed
in most other matters as they were and are) with the requisite
backbone to come out and call a spade a spade, and not be bullied
into silence. Judged solely in terms of guts, a solid sense of
right and wrong, and the truth of conviction, I will take the
1993-94 Republicans over today's supine Democrats any day.
For the record, we can remember Waco
by considering the following points of an alternative narrative
of the FBI attack that is overwhelmingly supported by the evidence:
--The reported Koresh sexual irregularities
were not under the jurisdiction of the BATF and FBI, and no evidence
of sexual abuse was ever made public. The allegations were simply
reported in the press after being pushed by some in the Waco
religious community with a theological ax to grind against Koresh
and echoed by the Clinton administration, and then becoming conventional
wisdom.
--The whole pre-February 28 investigation
and raid smelled of a political stunt against an easy target
designed to protect and enhance the reputation of a near-rogue
agency, the BATF. Basically, the BATF were looking for a loud
and safe gunfight.
--That the FBI lied about the lethality
of the CS gas (a type of tear gas) used against the Branch Davidian
community center banned by the Geneva Convention for use in warfare.
--The FBI lied about the presence of
fragmentation grenades at the scene, which have no use except
to kill people.
--The FBI lied about shooting machine
gun fire into the building.
--The FBI initially lied to Janet Reno
about babies being beaten by the Branch Davidians.
For insightful analyses of Waco, recommended
reading is: David Thibodeau. "A Place Called Waco"
(BBS, 1999), lauded by Howard Zinn as "An extraordinary
account of one of the most shameful episodes in recent American
history." And, James Tabor and Eugene Gallagher. "Why
Waco, Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America"
(University of California Press, 1995), described by Ramsey Clark
as "a critically important book... "
But it is a film that graphically illustrates
the horror of the attacks and the mendacity of the government
line--the Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated documentary "Waco:
The Rules of Engagement (1997)," (www.waco93.com).
To this day the executive producer Dan Gifford, a former reporter
for ABC, CNN and the McNeil Lehrer Report, remains incensed at
the way critics of the government assaults on Waco, including
him, have been painted out-of-hand as somehow belonging to the
lunatic fringe sympathetic to blowing up federal buildings.
Politics and Violence
Waco, Ruby Ridge, MOVE, Wounded Knee,
Kent State, Jackson State, deadly attacks on citizens working
for labor and civil rights, and the numerous wars against perceived
international enemies of the moment. Government violence is government
violence, irrespective of whom the victims are; and in this case
that still directly affects the lives of 100s the American left
and liberal/left's response has been inadequate to hostile.
One historical truth is that the raison
d'etre for war and government violence generally is a damn lie.
In 1994, with memories of Waco and the
Republican and citizens' vocal challenges to the Waco murders
ringing in the political culture, Republicans swept into control
of the Senate and House.
For Democrats today, there is perhaps
a political lesson to be learned --Speak the truth loudly to
those in power, and speak out for the victims of violence. For
the survivors and the victims of Waco, there should have been
a loud acknowledgment of the truth at Waco: You were murdered
because you were different and were thought to be an easy target
for a duplicitous and violent federal agency.
In Gifford's film Waco: The Rules of
Engagement, a powerful interview segment presents a sympathetic
Sheriff Jack Harwell of McLennan County, Texas nearly in tears
as he speaks of his experience with the Branch Davidians: "They
were all good people. They had different beliefs than others,
different beliefs than I have, maybe different beliefs than you
have in their way of life, especially in their religious beliefs.
But basically they were good peopleI was around them quite a
lot. They were always nice, mannerly, they minded their own businessThey
were always clean, and courteous. I liked them."
In the face of continued government violence
and its intimate relative, mendacity, one can take solace in
the fact that in the work of a handful of people of all political
stripes who identified with the victims of violence the truth
can still emerge.
Democrats seeking the truth about war
today and the path to an election victory in 2004 can take a
cue from Waco--the American electorate does not like liars and
accessories to mass killing in charge of its government. But
the truth needs to be told.
Michael Leon
is a writer living in Madison, Wisconsin. His writing has appeared
nationally in The Progressive, In These Times, and CounterPunch.
He can be reached at: maleon@terracom.net
Today's
Features
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter
Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|