20 Years Ago Today: Operation Showtime
By Anthony Gregory • Thursday February 28, 2013 10:54 AM PDT • 19 Comments
On February 28, 1993, the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Bureau raided the home of the Branch Davidians, a religious sect just outside Waco, Texas. The agency, which has suffered bad press due to sexual harassment and racial discrimination scandals, made sure reporters were there to witness its planned heroics and dubbed the raid “Operation Showtime.”
The agents sought to apprehend sect leader David Koresh, whom they deemed a dangerous cult leader, but who, as an integrated member of the community, they could have easily arrested peacefully on his regular jog or during one of his frequent visits to the bar. Indeed, not only had they monitored Koresh for over a year; he had befriended them, shown them a tour of his place and his weapons, and gone shooting with them.
But a quiet arrest would not serve public relations as much as a histrionic military-style raid, for which planning had begun under the George H.W. Bush administration, even employing a model of the Davidians’ home. A little over a month into the Clinton administration, the ATF conducted its planned assault, which resulted in instant tragedy and embarrassment.
There is controversy as to who fired first, but the agents attempted to break into the home, and as a gunfight ensued, four ATF officials were killed. When the ATF ran out of ammunition, the Davidians allowed them to leave the property in peace. A standoff began, stretching into April, and the FBI took over. The FBI waged psychological warfare and employed military tactics against the Davidians, then on April 19 pumped CS gas into the home, drove a tank through it, and fired incendiary devices, which it only admitted doing in the late 1990s. The home went up in flames and almost 80 Davidians died, including about two dozen children.
The Davidians were accused of several transgressions, accusations that helped in their demonization and served to rationalize the raid in the first place. They allegedly had a meth lab, which no one seriously believed, since this was based on the Davidians having reported the remains of a meth lab from years ago when they moved in. But the drug connection allowed for exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act and the use of military hardware in the siege. They were accused of stockpiling weapons, although at least one Davidian was a licensed weapons dealer. And eventually the focus fell on Koresh’s alleged abuse of children.
As bad as February 28, 1993, should have been for ATF’s public relations, in the long run it didn’t hurt at all. In the midst of Sandy Hook, progressives from Rachel Maddow to John Stewart focused on the ATF’s supposed underfunding and insufficient personnel. Maddow even depicted the agency’s behavior at Waco as heroic.
In the last 20 years, the militarization of domestic policing has only ramped up—the drug war, the terror war, gun confiscations and martial law after Katrina, an explosion in prison populations and spending on local policing, military weaponry in the hands of law enforcement, concentration camps for illegal immigrants, internal checkpoints, SWAT raids unleashed on mostly non-violent Americans about one hundred times a day. Police kill about one American every day, and even if you think 90% of them deserve it, the sheer enormity of this situation deserves unrelenting scrutiny if not revolutionary outrage, not the yawns or outright support that we see instead.
When the LAPD dealt with Chris Dorner earlier this month by surrounding him in a wooden cabin, launching CS gas and incendiary devices, and reportedly blocking his escape, it was carrying out a policy of instant summary execution, and the tactics were all too familiar. The officers had even told the media to look away, and all too many journalists were eager to oblige. And the people seemed glad to have one more killer off the street, unconcerned about the innocents hit in the police department’s reckless rampage to hunt down Dorner and kill him, as though they are properly judge, jury, and executioner.
Today, when something like that happens, there is almost no controversy at all. Americans can’t be bothered to debate the tendency of law enforcement to treat alleged criminals as a wartime enemy and employ military tactics to destroy the enemy. War is the health of the state, and the war on terror, along with all the traumatized veterans filling the ranks of domestic federal and local police agencies, have begun to bring the war to American soil. Yet it seems every week the public debate is about something infinitely trivial compared to the very real tyranny at our doorsteps.
It is February 28, 2013, and perhaps it is not too late to turn things around. We had a better shot at it on February 28, 1993, however.
Tags: American History, Bill of Rights, Civil Liberties, Civil Society, Police, The State, War, Weapons 
What happened twenty years ago at Waco is the precursor to what is going to happen in the near future in America. To those that said in the past that “it can’t happen here,” its happening. With the advent of the Patriotic Act and the ongoing legislation related to the so called “War On Terror” it is obvious to any observer that the last vestiges of the rule of Constitutional Law and protections of the Bill of Rights have been shunted aside and replaced by the law of elitist men who seek power and control over the American people. There is no turning back now. We are headed down the road to serfdom and the land of the gulag. It took 225 years to destroy the American Republic. But,over time,all the bulwarks put in place to ensure limited government have been pulled out and brick by brick replaced with an edifice of centralized government power and collectivism. Sad to say the Founding Fathers are spinning in their graves.
libertarian jerry | Feb 28, 2013 | Reply
It is important to point out that we also just passed the 20th anniversary of 1993 WTC bombing. That incident, which killed five and injured 1000 people, was an FBI sting operation, supposedly gone bad. But we now know the FBI urged their agent provocateur Ahmed Salim to deliver a live bomb to the perpetrators. We know this because he was wise enough to make his own independent recordings of his conversations with his FBI handlers. Remember that the alleged perpetrator of the OKC bombing in 1995 was supposedly retaliating for the Waco incident. There is now a large body of evidence to show that Timothy McVeigh did not act alone and was another agent provocateur. That coupled with the bomb blast evidence showing that the ANFIL bomb could not have caused the damage Murrah Bldg sustained that day means that official narrative is utter BS. So what really did happen?
Tim | Mar 1, 2013 | Reply
This was a horrible fiasco at the time, and I remember it started mainstream conservatives on the anti-government path they are still on. Even under Reagan the government was only demonized in the form of the DMV. When the ATF, which has the same number of agents to enforce existing gun laws on a growing population as it did then, went into that compound guns blazing it turned the right wing of this country against everything but the average troop. On a side note, I don’t watch Maddow, but Stewart’s point was that the ATF is purposely underfunded and not allowed to do even basic records checks to “enforce existing laws.” I would recommend anyone interested watch the segment as this article does a very good job of mischaracterizing the thing that Stewart talked about. What is interesting to me is that I see stories of child pornography holders being taken down in this same way. I think this goes back to something I saw on an Occupy protest sign. It showed how the riot cop used to dress like the rioter. Now he dresses like iron man as he sprays pepper spray on non violent protestors. Too often I hear cops say that the main part of the job is “going home at the end of the day.” While it makes for feel good moments on camera, that’s not good policing. It makes you extremely risk averse, and that’s why they smoke people out, literally. Instead of taking risks and allowing people to retain some amount of human dignity or the appearance of innocence until a verdict, police swoop in like special forces on a raid.
Pdubble | Mar 1, 2013 | Reply
Thank you so much for remembering this event. I am not so naive as to believe that the mainstream media (and hence, the mass public) will ever give this event the recognition it deserves as a benchmark in America’s steady slide into police state status, but it’s gratifying to see there are at least some who recognize its significance.
Cornwall Libertarian | Mar 2, 2013 | Reply
It is important to note that local officials could easily have arrested Koresh for forced marriages of 12- and 13-year old girls. Koresh responded to requests of the local sheriff’s office and would have voluntarily come in if he had been asked. The ATF wanted a media show and disregarded common sense in the raid on the compound. There was not an immediate public risk that warranted the raid.
MDC | Mar 5, 2013 | Reply
Forgive me: “the law of elitist men?” Try “the law of elitist women and men.”
Michael J. Kubat | Mar 11, 2013 | Reply
Thank you Anthony Gregory for your vigilance in this matter and for working to keep it in front of a public that tends to too soon forget such events. For my generation, Waco and the Davidians’ demise will forever remain in infamy.
Adam | Apr 18, 2013 | Reply
Great article. Keep up the good work as it doesn’t go unnoticed. Though I was too young to remember much about Waco, it sure is astounding to say that 20 years ago we were well into what seems to be a fascist state. America, the land of the free.. I’m not sure the populace understands what “free” really means anymore..
DP_Thinke | Apr 20, 2013 | Reply
Here‘s my anniversary perspective.
Alan | Apr 21, 2013 | Reply