Koresh And Burn

On the tenth anniversary of the day David Koresh and his followers murdered scores of children and took their own lives, I'm linking to an old article from Glenn Reynolds' one-time writing partner, David Kopel. It's a twisted little epistle.

Kopel blames all of the deaths at Waco on the federal authorities, making such claims as the ones that "the FBI's "Hostage Rescue Team," ... was holding hostages, rather than rescuing them" and that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms "launched an unnecessary machine gun attack on a children's home for publicity purposes." Kopel even compares the FBI to Hitler's SS ("As with the children at Auschwitz, incineration followed the gassing"), a particularly classy touch.

The fact is -- which even Kopel is forced to admit -- is that the ATF agents had valid arrest and search warrants, lawfully issued by the federal judiciary. Koresh had no right to resist arrest or the search of the Davidian compound, let alone murder four federal agents in cold blood. And after the initial standoff, Koresh and his followers had no right to do anything except surrender and release their hostages. They certainly had no right to use children as human shields.

Also interesting is Kopel's half-apology for Koresh: Sure Koresh molested pre-teenage girls, but "girls of such age have often been brides in other cultures or other eras." Sure Koresh viciously beat children, but the Texas authorities never prosecuted and, besides, "[a]ll of these incidents occurred long before the BATF attack [sic]. Besides, Koresh had been molested and abused himself. I'd love to see Kopel make those arguments to the children David Koresh raped, beat and prepared for their own deaths. Kopel concludes that the rabidly pro-gun Koresh "probably" could have been convicted of child abuse, but says the federal agents involved were the "most eggregious child abusers."

So much for individual responsibility, morality and respect for the law.