Re: in defense of Lon Horiuchi

[nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)]

Zooko Journeyman quoth:

> Lest any naive readers who aren't familiar with the details of
> the event buy this kind of spin-doctoring, please be aware that
> the woman in question was probably not visible to the sniper,
> and it is almost certain that he was aiming at her armed
> husband who was shooting back.  The bullet travelled through a
> door or some such obstruction I think (I forget the details)
> before hitting the victim.

Zooko,

About the best spin that you can put on this is that the agent was
trying to shoot (again) the retreating Randy Weaver and showed an
utter disregard for the safety of the others in the cabin; who were
known to include women and children.

This is the point.  Not that all Fibbies are demonic baby-killers
but that the arrogance of their agency and its government allow them
to mark someone--Randy Weaver or even Jim Bell--as 'bad guy' and
call out unreasonably huge campaigns against them.  Once so marked,
the "victim" is then helpless, completely without recourse, the
"justice" system by then having been poisoned against them by the
Fibbies and the prosecutors.  [For those that survive long enough
to have an encounter with the justice system.]

> You could more reasonably blame the husband for having the
> stupidity or carelessness to get in a firefight with his wife
> and child in the building.

I don't find that at all reasonable; since Weaver was on his own
property, minding his own business before agents started shooting
at him.  Yes, I know he was wanted for failure to appear for a
court date--that hardly justifies the whole exercise.

> More generally, don't buy any of the spin that anonymous
> cypherpunks (and plenty of named ones) like to put on such
> stories without reading the more balanced accounts yourself.
> Anonymous, above, would _like_ you to think of the FBI sniper
> Lon Horiuchi as a murderous baby-killer who chuckled gleefully
> when he saw his opportunity to take out a toddler.

Perhaps he didn't chuckle gleefully, but he obviously didn't
show much regard for the Weavers' lives either (/before/ Vicky
Weaver's death that is).  BTW, neither I nor anyone else has
accused him of killing a toddler.

>                                                     Anonymous
> is no different from hatemongering pamphleteers and propaganda
> ministers in any penny-ante revolution or Orwellian minitru.
> Perhaps he's on the side of the good guys, but his tactics
> have the same stink that I recognize from reading the
> propaganda blurbs of the bad guys.

Yes, I can see why you would recognize such a smell.