WARNING TO U.S. MIITARY AND FEDERAL LEOs: DO NOT FOLLOW ORDERS TO 'WACO' AMMON BUNDY OCCUPATION, OR RISK CIVIL WAR
Stewart Rhodes
De Oppresso Liber? We Shall See
This is addressed first and foremost to the entire U.S. military, but especially to the military Special Operations Command and community. Secondly, it is addressed to federal LEOs, and especially to their SRTs, such as the FBI HRT (many of whom are former military special operations). This comes from combat arms and special operations veterans, along with veteran Sheriffs and police officers, within the Oath Keepers organization:
Critical Warning:
The Ammon Bundy led occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon must be handled as a normal, non-crisis, law enforcement matter, and preferably by Oregon Sheriffs (who are organized as the Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association), and their deputies, together with the local community there in Harney County, OR. The locals can resolve this, if given enough time. The Oregon Sheriffs can resolve this, if given enough time.
This situation must not be handled in a military or paramilitary fashion, using military assets, military rules of engagement, or otherwise attempting to end it suddenly by use of dynamic assault, resulting in catastrophic loss of life, as has occurred twice in recent American history, with horrific results (at Ruby Ridge in 1992, and at Waco Texas in 1993). If you do it “Waco” style here, you risk pushing this nation over the edge into a civil war, because there are “no more free Wacos.”
This is not an emergency situation, unless you turn it into one. Ammon Bundy’s occupation of an empty building is essentially the same as civil-disobedience sit-ins that the political left has engaged in for decades, from anti-war and civil rights protesters in the 60s and 70s (including a nineteen month occupation of Alcatraz by American Indian activists), to Occupy Wall Street Movement and Black Lives Matter activists today.
These ranchers, cowboys, and veterans just happen to be armed, as westerners tend to be. Get over it. There are no hostages, there are no close-by neighbors at risk, there is nobody there except those who want to be.
So tread lightly, and at most handle this like the Montana Freeman standoff, where the FBI was patient and waited them out, with a peaceful surrender coming after eighty one days. In this situation, the locals will likely have this resolved long before that length of time. Regardless, there is no rush.
Despite that reality of there being no emergency here, we have very good reason to believe that ideologue leftist bureaucrats within the Obama Administration – such as within the D.O.J., and their politically minded “perfumed prince” puppets within the D.O.D. – are pressuring you to prepare to use military assets and military rules of engagement to conduct a dynamic raid. We are an organization of current serving and retired military, police, fire-fighters and other first responders, and we have contacts at every major military installation in America (including Joint Base Lewis-McChord), and at the Pentagon. We hear things. We’ll just leave it at that.
And we know that the Obama Administration considered the use of military force during the Bundy Ranch standoff in April, 2014, pursuant to Directive No. 3025.18, “Defense Support of Civil Authorities.” Fortunately for all Americans, they decided not to do it. This fact was confirmed by a May 28, 2014 Washington Times article:
A U.S. official said the Obama administration considered but rejected deploying military force under the directive during the recent standoff with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his armed supporters.
From Inside the Ring: Memo Outlines Obama’s Plan to Use the Military Against Citizens.
So, the military force hammer was, in fact, on the table during Bundy Ranch, as we suspected. Please don’t try to tell us it’s not on the table again, now. We know it is. The only question is whether the Obama Admin leftist weenies will be foolish enough to try to actually use it, and if they do, whether you will be foolish enough to obey their idiotic orders and obediently act as that hammer.
In addition, it is clear you federal LEOs have not handled this in the normal law enforcement manner of cordoning off the area and immediately initiating negotiations. Why is that? Why has there yet to be even an attempt to open direct lines of communications between you and Ammon Bundy, as members of Pacific Patriot Network, Idaho III%, and Oath Keepers on the ground in Burns, OR have been repeatedly urging you to do for the past week, to no avail?
Don’t do it. Do not follow unlawful orders if the Obama Administration fools decide to go “full retard.” No matter how eager the politicians like Harry Reid are for Ammon Bundy’s head, after the black eye Ammon and his family gave them at Bundy Ranch in 2014, and no matter how much they pressure you to “make an example” out of these guys, you cannot drop the hammer on a bunch of ranchers, cowboys, and veterans sitting in an empty building without it blowing up in all of our faces. Treat this with kid gloves, like the Montana Freeman standoff, instead of like the Waco standoff, or risk setting off a civil war.
The stuffed-shirt, pencil necked metrosexuals inside the D.C. beltway will not be the ones bleeding and dying in the chaos that could follow (at least not at first).