(From Panetics 2(3), 12-14. 1993)

On February 28, 1993, some 300 or more 'swat' team members led by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) attempted to raid a fortified encampment of Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas. This group has beencharacterized as a 'survivalist' cult. It was heavily armed.

The purpose presumably was to search for and remove illegal weapons and heavy ordnance from the cult'scompound. Four BATF men were killed and 16 were wounded. It was reported that eight cultists were wounded.

Negotiations were conducted with the besieged cultists over the next 50 days, until the BATFforces attempted to inject tear gas into the compound with armored vehicles. The compound burnedto the ground and possibly 80 cultists and children died.

Even though the Waco incident continues to be awash with strong currents of emotion andaccusations, it will be worthwhile if we can develop a "balance sheet" showing the relationship of financial costs to human pain and suffering. Particularly this will be useful if we can examine the panetic effects of different courses of actions. It will be useful to determine whether government decision-making could have used an assessment of pain and suffering versus dollars in deciding on a course of action.

No present-day politician is likely to address the following analysis in determining a course of action regarding Waco. But something like this analysis had to be an unspoken undercurrent in their thinking.

True, the following analysis is crude and almost pro forma. Consideration of cultism is avoided, even though this has been a powerful distraction in the public's mind. If the group at Waco had been skinheads, or drug runners, the government was still obliged under the law to respond to strong evidence of a large arsenal of illegal weapons and take action to confiscate them.

Assume a steady-state condition within the colony prior to any government action. In other words pain and anguish compared to the general population would only be different because the group was confined. It lived as a commune, with separate dormitories. It is is not the lifestyle of normal communities, but it could be hard to identify additional pain and suffering caused by commune living. Such living conditions were acceptable to the members with the knowledge that they were surrounded by communities and people living normally in family units and open villages, towns and cities.

Then reports of an arsenal of combat weapons caused agencies of government to attempt an entry to thecompound for the purpose of inspecting and removing illegal, excessive weapons. This led to a heavy exchange of gunfire. Government forces were repulsed with 4 dead and 16 wounded.

Assume that there were 81 colony people and 300 government personnel involved. Assume that 16 government personnel were wounded, spent 2 weeks in the hospital and 5 weeks with outpatient care. Assume that 8 colony people were wounded, without hospital care for 51 days.

Calculations appear as follows:

Govt.: Wounded--16; in hospital 14 days at intensity 7 suffering = 1568 dukkhas. On outpatient basis, at intensity 5 suffering x 35 days x 16 = 2800 dukkhas.

Within the colony: Wounded--8, with crude medical care; 51 days x 8 persons x intensity 8suffering = 3264 dukkhas.

Colony under siege: limited food, watch hours kept, sound disturbance, siege conditions: 81persons x 51 days x intensity 4 suffering = 16,524 excess dukkhas.

Govt. personnel: 300 mounting 24hour watch, tent living, food, maneuvers, exposure to cold: 300persons x 51 days x intensity 3 suffering = 45,900 excess dukkhas.

Total increase in pain and suffering: 65,880 dukkhas. (Suffering of 1 person with mild toothachefor 8 hours equals one dukkha.)

Govt.: cost $51 million through 51 days of siege.

Looking at future:

Every additional day of siege generates 1288 dukkhas of added suffering and costs $1 million. In other words, $7813 generates or sustains or is accompanied by one dukkha of suffering. Government spending is thus connected to suffering at Waco. A continued standoff creates additional pain and suffering.

Siege has reached a steady-state condition. Both sides appear to have talked themselves out. N results from this effort. Only visible future milestone is an exhausted food supply in one year.

Negotiations essentially exhausted.

To continue siege up to one year: over 400,000 dukkhas of suffering imposed; $314 million would be the estimated government cost.

(ed): Worst case scenario (actually happened): 80 persons die. Average economic worth of person =$3501000 Loss: 80 x $350,000 = $28,000,000 lost economic value to society.

Cost to taxpayers (society) on 51st day: already about twice this 'value' of deceased commune people lost to society. This "value' will be exceeded each 30 days of additional siege. Yet we cannot expect a smart political leader to follow these numbers directly in his reasoning. He could not have predicted the loss of life without access to kinds of information apparently not available to him. Nor does he place a dollar 'value' on human life, yet he will assess in his mind the fact that the commune people are zealots; have isolated themselves from American social life; probably pay no income tax; produce little if any jobs, productivity, or cultural contributions to society. They have withdrawn and isolated themselves as a matter of choice. He will also assess the burden of $1million per day, the energetic scrutiny of the media people into every aspect of the Waco standoff and the embarrassment, of government at having failed on the initial approach. Covering these grim considerations is the heavy overlay of emotional arguments and rhetoric which are brought to bear on the decision making.

The panetic analysis would indicate that government should take steps to conclude the siege even earlier than 51 days. Once again, most errors throughout this episode have been in the execution of plans: failure to avoid swat team operations on an armed colony previously alerted and failure to understand cultism, when a colony with a fanatical leader is under siege and with murder charges hanging over its leaders.

In all probability, first things were not done first. Ideally a thorough assessment of cult behavior–with projected reactions–would have been first. It is an assessment as to whether BATF cadres were trained and equipped to deal with a heavy armed cult group. As a wild conjecture, it could be that a group of Seventh Day Adventist preachers would have been the best group of initial negotiators! Probably, the BATF field troops with flak jackets and automatic weapons were not trained properly to deal with cultists made desperate by a confrontation. Interesting, no one has said much about why the Waco Davidian group acquired such a big armory, and what they felt the threats were, from which they needed protection.

The decision to end the siege should have been taken as soon as negotiations were at a standstill, in order to minimize both cost and pain and anguish. Instead, lacking a panetic analysis, apparently the top leaders waited until the field forces got tired of the siege inactivity, and a tricky way to inject tear gas, etc. into the compound was devised and presented as a logical next step.

When the Attorney General, or other leaders, ask, "What are the options?" or "What are the alternatives?" they should have available such panetic estimates of alternative courses of action.