I just watched the Waco on Netflix. It was surprisingly even handed and didn't paint the ATF or FBI in a very good light.
I think the problem, and we still see this today, is that the government just decides to curb stomp certain people for breaking the law. Then when things go south, they blame all of their poor decisions on the criminal suspect. "I wouldn't have had to kill all these people if you hadn't broke the law and brought me out here in the first place."
The original ATF raid was meant to be a display of force when they could have just as easily scooped Koresh up the next time he came into town to buy groceries- they had an informant literally in his house who snuck off right before the raid started.
Then, it seemed like the FBI's hostage rescue team was constantly undermining the negotiation team. They interviewed the lead negotiator, and he was basically pushed off the case because he kept butting heads with the tactical guys, and after he left not a single person walked out of the compound before they burnt it down.
That is surprising. Since it’s Netflix was Koresh played by a black guy? Kidding but that is good to hear that they are talking about how the govt handled that. It’s weird because they could’ve arrested him at any time before all that
Its not as good as it seems. This is a case where the tide clearly turned against their narrative, so everyone can churn out a vaguely "against" the government angled piece to pretend they don't have an obvious bias.
Waco is nearly impossible to defend at this point, so they stopped trying and instead just make it sound like ambiguous, depersonalized organizations like the FBI and ATF (or the "negotiation team and hostage rescue team") fucked up, instead of naming names and demanding accountability from guys who still have positions and taxpayer funded lives. Because even when they give the name, they don't point out how some of them have horrible histories that make their very attendance a point of problem and went on with their respective organizations to continue these same actions.
Because that would be actually attacking how the government handled it, instead of just treating it as a footnote of history.
Well said. I was in 6th grade when that all went down and didn’t actually look into it til I was 22 in the Air Force. I was shocked