Originally posted by SPreston
reply to post by Taxi-Driver
Thank you Taxi-Driver for your two cents worth. Any more government loyalists want to bare their souls and lay down some more good old propaganda
without evidence?
Funny thing is I am not a Government loyalist, Bubba Gump.
I have been keen on identifying propaganda far before 9/11.
Here is a little diddy I wrote prior to 9/11 -- it isn't exactly supporting the Government propaganda now is it!?!
" It was a simpler time, a more trying time in the history of the United States of America. The year was 1876 and the nation was attempting to
recover from the bloodiest war in its brief history. In the southern states, blue clad union soldiers still held their wartime power and used it to
police the citizens. A strong military presence was felt throughout the south on an everyday basis; a similar scene to what today could be compared to
any number of unstable, militarized Central and South American countries. 1876 was an election year, and the presidential race was a close one, what
separates this election from other close races was the strong presence of the military at the polls, and assisting with decisions rendered by the
Electoral College. Once a hotly debated and negotiated Presidential winner was determined, the Congress of the United States was compelled to end
future military involvement in civilian matters. In 1878 the Posse Comitatus Act was passed into law. The Act prohibits the use of military rule and
troops for domestic law-enforcement purposes as well as restricts the military from involvement in civilian decision making processes with overly
political and partisan roles (Anderson, 2001).
The Posse Comitatus Act isn’t without some loopholes, and with revisions to the act throughout the last century, those loopholes have become
even more accommodating for civilian law enforcement’s requests for military assistance; none more than the “drug law exception” (Kopel &
Blackman, 1997). This provision was added to the Posse Comitatus Act in the early 1980’s following President Reagan’s declaration of a war on
drugs; it allowed civilian law enforcement agencies to procure the aid of the military, free of charge, for actions taken against a drug nexus. Prior
to the drug law exception the costs alone would make enlisting military assistance a prohibitive endeavor for most law enforcement organizations. The
exploitation of the Posse Comitatus Act’s loopholes has already had a catastrophic impact on the lives and well-being of some American citizens. The
most striking example of this would be the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) and Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) siege on the
Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas in the spring of 1993. The tactics and resources employed by these civilian law enforcement agencies blurred the line
of government policy, and could prove disastrous again if left unchecked.
Serious flaws plagued the BATF’s planning and execution of their ill-fated raid on the Mount Carmel Center, February 28th, 1993. In the spring
of 1992 the BATF began investigations on the Branch Davidians in Waco. Their probe revealed the delivery of empty grenade hulls, devices for
converting semi-automatic weapons into automatics, receipts showing the purchase other arms, ammunition, as well as powered aluminum, and black gun
powder that could possibly be fashioned to create grenades (Hall, 2003). With proper licensing the stock piling of weapons would be legal, however,
David Koresh, the leader and pastor of the Branch Davidian Church, had not followed the proper steps required to posses all the arms (Hall, 2003).
It is believed that the Branch Davidians began their interest in, and subsequent stockpiling of weapons for monetary purposes. The Davidians
bought, sold, and traded firearms at area gun shows as dealers (Hall, 2003). When the presence of large quantities of arms was combined with the
Davidian’s intense focus on the Biblical book of Revelations, and Koresh’s interpretation that the evils of the world were to be bringing war to
Mount Carmel’s doorstep; the Davidians began stockpiling more than weapons. They stockpiled food, water and made preparations for an eminent attack
(Hall, 2003).
Perhaps this combination of weaponry and religious philosophy is what the BATF found disturbing enough to mount a raid of the magnitude in which
they did. The BATF’s approach was a stark contrast to the precedents set by local police, who has just knocked on the front door at Mount Carmel and
entered the center without any conflict at all (Easterbrook, 1999). According to Kay Kubicki, a former BATF agent who has served on the counsel of the
National Association of Treasury Agents, who reflects back on the BATF executive decisions as: “Waco was a need (for the BATF) to look pretty
(Kubicki cited in Larson, 1995).” Agent Kubicki’s ironic revelation could be a more accurate explanation of why the BATF was so compelled to
conduct an operation of the magnitude they did, just to serve a search warrant on a community with no prior adversarial confrontations with law
enforcement. An operation that’s planning was so preoccupied with political appearances that BATF leadership fabricated allegations of drug
involvement, breached the laws of the states of Texas and Alabama, disregarded constitutional statutes, stretched the loopholes of the Posse Comitatus
Act, and most importantly gave very little consideration to the welfare of innocent children within the Mount Carmel Center (Kopel & Blackmon, 1997).
The BATF made allegations of a drug nexus at Mount Carmel, in the form of an on-site, operational, methamphetamine laboratory. The BATF had no
contemporaneous evidence to support this claim, nor was there any mention of drug law violations on either of the two search warrants obtained by the
BATF in regards to their Branch Davidian operation (Kopel & Blackman, 1997). Furthermore, the strategies used to take down a methamphetamine lab are
vastly different than the ones used by the BATF on February 28th or by the FBI on April 19th 1993. As Kopel and Blackmon state:
Had BATF actually been planning to take down a methamphetamine lab, its plans would have been far different. Testimony at the 1995 congressional
hearings indicated the potential dangers of an