A Conservative Quandry

The other night on the Documentary Channel (nothing else was on the satellite worth watching), I caught a portion of a documentary on the Waco/Branch Davidian raid. This was basically a series of video tapes of Congressional hearings and audio tapes of conversations between David Koresh and negotiators and 9-1-1 calls made from the compound that gave a look at both sides of the standoff. Although Koresh may have been miguided, I must say that based on the portion of the documentary that I watched, which was about an hour's worth, I came away with sympathies to the Branch Davidians. The evidence presented seemed to point to the ATF, who was at the compound to deliver a warrant primarily dealing with statutory rape, according to the documentary, storming the compound with blazing guns. The 9-1-1 tapes also indicate that the Davidians were defending themselves, begging the operator to get in touch with the Feds to call it off. The 9-1-1 dispatcher displays irritation that the radio frequency given to him for contact is not working. Further evidence that the Feds had their radios turned off came from a member of the media, who was asked by the Feds to call an ambulance.

Of course, the agents were following orders, for which they cannot be blamed, except to the extent that they acted with malice if they did. The shots were being called by Janet Reno in Washington. This has prompted me to think over some of the other debacles of the Reno Justice Department at the Clinton Whitehouse.

And then I remembered Elian Gonzalez. Elian was a Cuban refugee, only about 5 years old, who washed up on the shores of Miami. He lost his mother, who fled Cuba to bring her son to a better life in the U.S. Elian was taken in by some of his relatives already in Cuba.

Fidel Castro's government then got wind of the situation and demanded that the boy be returned to Cuba. The Reno Justice Department, under darkeness of night, raided the house of the boy's uncle, who was caring for him, and took him at gunpoint, crying, from the arms of his un-armed uncle. Shortly thereafter, he was deported back to Cuba and Papa Fidel.

As many inconsistencies as we can point to with the left on this issue, I cannot help but maybe question some inconsistency on the right.

From another perspective, Elian Gonzalez and his mother, had she lived, would have been illegal aliens unless granted political amnesty. We on the right, and rightly so, call for the sealing of our borders and the deportation of illegal aliens. But we were screaming at Janet Reno for deporting Elian.

No one questions his life would have been far better than in Cuba, but so would the lives of many of our brown brothers from the south of Texas.

Am I off base? Am I missing something?