On this day in 1993, the FBI assaulted the fortress of an apocalyptic Adventist sect near Waco, Texas, and a fire broke out that killed at least 80 children and adults. Two years later, an American militia sympathizer exacted what he saw as revenge by bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City and killing 168 people, including children in the day care center.
The Waco confrontation had been building for months. The leader of the cult inside the fortress, David Koresh, was preparing for the end times by stockpiling illegal weapons, which were delivered by UPS trucks. One day, a package broke open, and the UPS driver called the feds. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms planned a raid on the compound in February, but word leaked out to Koresh’s followers, known as the Branch Davidians. When the ATF charged the fortress, the Davidians met them with a hail of gunfire. Four ATF agents and two Davidians died in the shootout. The Davidians then shot and killed three of their own.
The FBI responded to the murder of their fellow federal officers with hundreds of agents, tanks, helicopters, searchlights, and stereo speakers intended to blast the Davidians out of the compound with unbearably loud music. After fifty-one days of tense negotiations, Attorney General Janet Reno, convinced that the Davidians were abusing the children in the fort, decided to force them out. Armored tanks poked holes in the compound walls and began pumping in tear gas. Several hours later, the fortress exploded in flames. At least 80 adults and children died in the ensuing inferno, which was broadcast live on television.
A special investigation by former senator John C. Danforth criticized the FBI for trying to hide evidence that some of the tear gas was flammable, but concluded that the Davidians had started the fire themselves. Right-wing conspiracists, however, alleged that the FBI set the fire, and then shot the victims as they tried to run from the flames. The “tyrannical regime” of the Clinton administration had targeted the Davidians because of their unorthodox religious views and their refusal to submit to arbitrary gun laws. In the conspiracists’ view, their government was willing to do anything to control Christians and their guns – even burn them alive.
Gulf War veteran and militia sympathizer Timothy McVeigh had distrusted the federal government before Waco, but the siege of the Branch Davidians pushed him to the outer fringes of conspiracist paranoia. Convinced that federal agents had gassed, incinerated, and shot the Davidians because of their defense of their Second Amendment rights, he vowed to seek revenge. “ATF, all you tyrannical mother fuckers will swing in the wind one day, for your treasonous actions against the Constitution of the United States,” he wrote in a letter he hoped federal agents would find later. During the siege, he made a pilgrimage to Waco, where a student journalist photographed him sitting on a car and selling anti-government bumper stickers (“WHEN GUNS ARE OUTLAWED, I WILL BECOME AN OUTLAW”). Shortly afterward, McVeigh visited Area 51 in Nevada, where he believed the government had stashed alien bodies and technology.
It is deeply disturbing to watch the films of the ATF agents storming the fortress, or the US tanks attacking it. It is even more disturbing to look at the pictures of the dead children of Oklahoma City. After the bombing, President Bill Clinton gave one of his best speeches. “If you say that government is in a conspiracy to take your freedom away,” he explained, “you are just plain wrong.”
17 comments
April 19, 2009 at 11:18 am
saintneko
And then Bush II (The Child-Like Emperor) entered office and proved him (Clinton) wrong.
April 19, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Jason B.
Sixteen years ago already. Yikes.
April 19, 2009 at 1:27 pm
ekogan
Fox News didn’t exist at the time, but what did talk radio had to say on the subject?
April 19, 2009 at 1:32 pm
ekogan
Also it’s interested to compare the American reaction to the mess the authorities made of the Waco siege with the Russian reaction to the Beslan school siege (385 of the 1,100 hostages dead) and the Moscow theater siege (129 out of 850 hostages dead). The Russians just accepted the massive casualties as par for the course.
April 19, 2009 at 3:07 pm
herbert browne
*The Russians just accepted the massive casualties as par for the course…*
I guess that’s an indication of the level of reportage in the Russian press… unless one is actually, you know, talking to Russians on the street. The “par for the course” in Russia has probably different parameters than “courses” in this country. We’ve never had a Stalin… or a Stalingrad, for that matter. ^..^
April 19, 2009 at 5:32 pm
PorJ
Kathy:
What about the conspiracy theories tying Oklahoma City/McVeigh/Nichols to Iraqi expats in both the Phillipines and USA? I think there are two women who’ve made a career peddling tenuous links – one is Laurie Mylorie, the other an OKC local news reporter named Jayna Davis. Here’s a snippet of her theory:
I always thought this was one of those way wacko conspiracy theories but I’m not a specialist. Any info you could provide would be appreciated.
April 19, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Urk
man, that picture is terrible. I’m glad it’s below the fold, but wouldn’t have minded a warning. So sad.
I lost a childhood basketball buddy at Oklahoma City, a guy I used to play basketball with across the street from my grandmother’s house. We had drifted apart after high school, ironically because his politics developed into something much more conservative than mine.
April 19, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Urk
ah, didn’t mean to double the “basketballs” in that post.
April 19, 2009 at 7:50 pm
foolishmortal
If you’re in the habit of penning threats against the feds and stockpiling ammonium nitrate and gasoline, the idea that the “government is in a conspiracy to take your freedom away” probably isn’t that far off.
April 19, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Matt
Most all of the Russians I know were quite outraged by Beslan and the Nord-Ost theater aftermath. The reporting on it was terrible, and the extent of the government incompetence and malfeasance, was often not fully known, but even without it people were angry and outraged.
April 19, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Kathy
PorJ:
Laurie Mylroie has seen the hand of Saddam Hussein behind many tragic events, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Oklahoma City, and 9/11. Timothy McVeigh’s attorney compared her to “the da Vinci code people.”
April 20, 2009 at 3:33 am
ajay
Matt: and similar reactions, I believe, to the loss of the Kursk.
April 20, 2009 at 8:55 am
Dan
Why do you refer to the deaths of the FBI agents as “murder” and the deaths of the Davidians as “died”?? The FBI attacked and the Davidians defended themselves. The fact that the FBI “lost” a videotape that would prove who fired first is incriminating in itself and your biased language betrays your sentiments.
April 20, 2009 at 11:06 am
ari
It is deeply disturbing to watch the films of the ATF agents storming the fortress, or the US tanks attacking it.
Say again, Dan?
It is even more disturbing to look at the pictures of the dead children of Oklahoma City.
Oh wait, I guess you’re onto something: the author isn’t all that sympathetic to Tim McVeigh. And you, Dan? What are your thoughts on mass murder, for the record?
April 20, 2009 at 11:08 am
Jason B.
Four ATF agents and two Davidians died in the shootout.
I dunno, but it seems they both “died” in that sentence.
April 21, 2009 at 5:22 am
Eddie Baker
well..
I certainly beleive
e.v.e.r.y.t.h.n.g.
that my gov’t tell me especially as it is spoon-fed to our media… what are they called The Fifth Front?
our motto:
“shoot first then, figure things out”
April 23, 2009 at 9:42 pm
fromlaurelstreet
i think it was frontline that did a program about waco. i transcribed four or five of the full interviews of the lead fbi agents and was really surprised when i subsequently saw the program because it bore little relation to the raw transcript tapes that i listened to. at the time i remember thinking that the fbi got the very short end of the stick even from pbs.