Text Excerpt 1: Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum The War Against the Branch Davidians "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck." Operation Trojan Horse--the code name for the Waco operation--was planned and executed from the beginning to the end as a military action, not a civilian action. That is, from February 28, 1993 to the final day on April 19, 1993, Operation Trojan Horse was a military action, and military equipment was on the scene. The Waco Tribune-Herald, March 1, 1993 published a photograph of a military combat vehicle at Mt. Carmel on the day of the raid. On April 21, 1993, two days after the inferno, an Air Force cargo plane transported the ATF agents from Waco. Thus we see that the civilian law enforcement facade in the Waco action was thick in rhetoric but thin in fact; from beginning to end, the US military presence was the dominant theme. Difference Between War and Law Enforcement War and law enforcement have different goals. The purpose of law enforcement is to enforce the law. Alleged violators of the law are apprehended with only the force necessary to arrest and deliver them to the judicial system for trial. The purpose of war, on the other hand, is the domination of the target. It is the job of the war machine to kill, to maim, and to destroy. The war machine must also create terror to convince potential opponents to submit on command. Therefore, the war machine must not only inflict maximum death and suffering on its victims, but must also broadcast its achievements to convince others to submit on command. This is the story of the attack on the Branch Davidians. For reasons that are not clear at this time, a military and intelligence operation, with a civilian law enforcement facade, was planned against the Branch Davidians. The complex details of the Davidians' history and lives were woven into this facade. These details and their subplots serve to direct attention away from the essentially military attack and extermination of the Branch Davidians. The New Military and the New Paradigm The spirit of the American military has changed since the days of the World War II movies. In those days the US military was a citizen army of draftees and volunteers protecting the shores of the US and its allies after a clear act of aggression by a foreign country. These days the military has become a publicly funded career option for professional soldiers and soldier-bureaucrats. The military no longer confines itself to the defense of the US. It has taken an active role in the internal struggles of other countries, often working closely with the Central Intelligence Agency to shore up military juntas and autocratic regimes against the citizens of those countries. These actions are largely covert and illegal and often aimed at civilians. "Killing Hope" by William Blum (Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, 1995) documents 55 such military-CIA interventions in foreign countries since the Second World War. (See link to William Blum's webpage in Musuem list of sponsors.) So-called "surgical strike forces" are sent on hundreds of missions a week throughout the world, without declaration of war. According to The Tampa Tribune, March 1, 1996, the Special Operations Command, made up of covert operations units in the four services, works closely with the CIA and performs 280 missions a week. These are the "black bag" operations. At home, the military is expanding its role in the post-Cold War era. "Much of the military's intrusion has been accomplished without public notice," says Sam Smith, writing in the March, 1996 Progressive Review in an article entitled "Mission creep: militarizing America." (See Museum Library for link into Progressive Review.) Like all vested interest groups, the US military is seeking to expand its employment opportunities. The way to do this is to create new markets for services. One such suggested market for use of soldiers was social services work (The Washington Times, May 10, 1995). A more likely avenue of employment for the US military, however, is warfare against civilians, in the manner of the Latin American juntas. Drug Czar McCaffrey's background in Latin America has doubtlessly prepared him well to play an important role in the war on civilians here in the US. Contemporary US soldiers train for civilian warfare on Military Operations Urban Training facilities (MOUT). A MOUT facility is a full scale mock-up of a modern small town, used to train soldiers to shoot and kill civilians. In one army base in Camp Lejeune, the Marines have constructed a 31-building town with a city hall, a church, a hotel, a business district, and condominiums. MOUT facilities sometimes have several hundred yards of built-in sewers to give the soldiers practice invading and occupying civilian areas. According to Marines Get a Taste of Urban Warfare Against 'Enemies' at Home, which appeared in Los Angles Times, July 11, 1995, "what to do when guerrillas are hiding behind women and children" is one of the problems confronted during MOUT training. In these scenarios, "guerrillas" are the adult male civilians--the husbands and fathers--the soldiers are trying to kill. The war against the Branch Davidians was the first major exercise of the new paradigm--the US military's war against US citizens. Next: Excerpt 2, Mt. Carmel ------------------------------------------------------------ Entire set of text excerpts from the Museum available with anonymous ftp from ftp://ftp.public-action.com/wm2-0txt.zip Excerpted by Carol Valentine. Images omitted. 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