The Shadow of Waco | Retro Report | The New York Times

Watching a re-run of the Koresh bio on A&E today: At the end of the Waco standoff on April 19, 1993, I was in a Sociology class at UT Austin. At the time, I was of the general opinion: Well, the government had been sitting there since late February, arguing with Koresh---SURE they should have done something. But one guy stood up in class and said: "The government does not have the right to go in and kill people for no reason." (The residents of the compound had not been violent in any way prior to the ATF firing on them.)

I today see his point. (Government agents fired first; government agents set the place on fire.)