While we can never know the motivations of the people who were burned alive as part of their rescue, we can in fact know the motivations of the feds because it was all pretty well documented. They were concerned that the branch dividians had illegal weapons. They never once mentioned any other motivation in any warrant application, memo, or otherwise. There was some frantic post hoc invented pearl clutching after the operation was bungled at a truely unprecedented level and excuses were needed to prevent embarrassment of powerful people, but none of that came up before the feds killed a bunch of children and needed to make a case why that was nessessary and part of a professional and skilled law enforcement operation.
There is a reason that event inspired generations of domestic terrorists, and it was not because the feds had the moral high ground and executed an efficient, well planned and researched operation.The overwhelming evidence is that Waco was about ATF agents getting to finally cosplay some of their deepest fan fictions and it got people killed. It was the moral equivalent of dropping a 1000 ton bomb on a crowded village in the middle east and being shocked when it produced a generation of fanatic jihadists. It was one of the stupidest and least professional things the feds have ever done, and that's an illustrious list.
There is a reason that event inspired generations of domestic terrorists, and it was not because the feds had the moral high ground and executed an efficient, well planned and researched operation.The overwhelming evidence is that Waco was about ATF agents getting to finally cosplay some of their deepest fan fictions and it got people killed. It was the moral equivalent of dropping a 1000 ton bomb on a crowded village in the middle east and being shocked when it produced a generation of fanatic jihadists. It was one of the stupidest and least professional things the feds have ever done, and that's an illustrious list.