Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns From: [l v c] at [cbvox1.att.com] Subject: Commentary on Waco Raid - Long Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1993 03:00:04 GMT Excert from The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor (July 1993), PO Box 84904, Phoenix, Arizona 85071. Copied in part and distributed with permission of the McAlvaney Intelligence Advisor: "Readers of this issue of MIA are encouraged to read it several times, think about it, discuss it with familiy members, and copy and distribute it as widely as possible, and file it for future reference." THE WACO MASSACRE: TRIAL BY FIRE (A Case Study in Police State Tactics In America) "The devices of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments." Senator Henry Clay, March 14, 1834. On Monday, April 19, 1993 the US government, in an act of mass murder unrivaled in US history (intended to send a warning to gun owners and so-called "religious nuts" across the country), burned 86 people, including 24 children, to death in the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas -- climaxing a 51-day siege launched by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, (BATF) on February 28, 1993. As editorialist Charley Reese recently wrote: "When you start with an "allegation" that gun control law has been violated, and you end up with nearly 100 people, including 25 children, killed, and millions of taxpayers dollars down the drain, that's bad law enforcement no matter how you slice it." On February 28, the US government (led by BATF) launched an assault with 100 militarized warriors and large amounts of military equipment against the Branch Davidian religious commune, their church and their home, in its Mt. Carmel compound near Waco, Texas. The original attack left four BATF agents dead and 16 wounded and somewhere between 5 and 10 Branch Davidians dead. The attack had been planned for nearly a year, using an almost identical replica compound in Arkansas built for training by the BATF. Photographs taken by aircraft provided the exact dimensions of all structures as well as the locations of the windows and doors. The BATF botched the original raid in every way possible maintaining that they were simply trying to serve a search warrant to look for illegal weapons inside the compound (i.e., with 100 troops, stun grenades, helicopter gunships, etc.). There seems a strong possibility that at least some of the BATF agents were killed or wounded by "friendly" fire from their own men, or from the helicopter gunships overhead. Several unarmed Branch Davidians not in the compound, but on or near the grounds were shot and killed by BATF snipers at the time of the raid (or that evening). Military helicopters shot at the compound from above and killed a young girl sitting on here bed nursing her baby. The final raid involved the FBI (who took over after the BATF botched the operation) and the US Marines attacking the compound with tanks, punching holes in the walls, pumping a battlefield chemical warfare agent (CS gas) for six hours, and igniting fires that killed all 86 inhabitants (i.e., 62 adults and 24 children, including 17 under 10 years of age). As the Los Angeles Times wrote: "Almost as many Americans died in the two assaults as died in the entire Gulf War." In the aftermath of the massacre, President Clinton, Attorney General Reno, and officials of the FBI defended their action, claiming the Branch Davidians (a bunch of religious nuts and child abusers) set fire to their own compound, committing a massive, preplanned suicide. Koresh and his followers held no hostages, had committed no violent crimes, were not threatening to kill or harm anyone. The were minding their own business on their own property. Everyone in the compound was there of their own free will. Texas social workers had been in the compound and found no indication that any outsider who visited the compound would be in any danger. One of the children living in the compound told her father, according to him, that "it was a joy to live there." A massive coverup by the Clintonistas, the FBI, the BATF and the Establishment-controlled media has pacified the great majority of the American public in spite of the worst massacre of men, women and children by our government in US history. President Clinton and the Establishment's message in the aftermath was clear: Let this be a warning to religious misfits, dissidents, gun regulations violators, Constitutionalists, and traditionalists: Get in our way, oppose us, or thumb your nose at us and we will destroy you -- by fire if necessary. What a horror to watch men, women and children burned to death for no other crime than resisting the omnipotent state. It is a chilling example of the police state that is emerging in America with ominous parallels to Nazi Germany, which "coincidentally" massacred hundreds of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto exactly 50 years earlier on April 19, 1943. Gun control, people control, persecution of religious minorities and incredible ruthlessness and wickedness were all part of the Third Reich in Germany and are part of the Fourth Reich emerging in America today. The Branch Davidians were not the first (nor will they be the last) group the BATF has attacked for "alleged" gun control violations. Last year alone, the BATF raided over 2,000 homes or businesses with a number of innocent victims killed, and tens of millions in assets seized and hundreds of Americans jailed, in their quest for the Holy Grail called gun control. And it should be realized that this gestapo-like organization did not just arrive with Bill Clinton. It came on stream in 1968 with the Gun Control Act of 1968 and has been growing in power and in its attacks on the American people ever since. As syndicated columnist Paul Craig Roberts noted: "the tragedy near Waco happened precisely because of federal laws regulating gun ownership. The Branch Davidians hadn't assaulted anyone. The lived peacefully in the community. Except for federal gun laws they would all still be alive. It is the liberal premise that gun ownership is evil, should be illegal or at least heavily regulated, and that has created an atmosphere in which the BATF like an unthinking bully, can run roughshod over Americans' constitutional rights, due process, and freedom." It is obvious that the government (and the BATF) wanted a highly publicized "victory" over gun owners and "religious nuts," and thanks to the whitewashing and coverup by the Administration and the media, the American people have by-and-large slept through the most unspeakable slaughter of innocents in US history. In spite of all the mess-ups, the government has its victory, gun owners and religious groups across America now live in fear of similar treatment at the hands of Clinton's Gestapo, and the momentum toward gun control, toward persecution of Christians and other minority religious groups, traditionalists, and Constitutionalists, and towards a socialist America and the New World Order continues to accelerate. A. THE FINAL ATTACK: THE FIERY HOLOCAUST At 6:30 am MONDAY, April 19, government tanks began ramming and punching holes in the Mt. Carmel compound nd a Special Operations Team from Quantico, Virginia began pumping CS gas into the gaping holes in the buildings. within hours 86 people were dead, victims of a raging inferno that may well have been started by the military tanks puncturing a propane tank and overturning lanterns or candles used by the Branch Davidians for light and heat, after federal officers cut off the power to the compound some 50 days before. The Davidian compound was a tinderbox constructed of used lumber, plywood, and sheetrock tacked together with tar paper. Its floors were littered with combustibles, including bales of hay and kerosene, gasoline, and propane on which the Branch Davidians were largely dependent after electricity was cut off by the government. The potential for fire was obvious from the start and well understood by the government. If the inhabitants of Mt. Carmel had been dangerous terrorists, drug dealers, or enemies on the battlefield, the government attack could not have been more brutal. After the initial attack (2/28/93) former McClennon County Texas District Attorney Vic Feazell blamed the BATF for the deadly confrontation, accusing them of "a vulgar display of power." In 1987, Feazell helped lead an investigation of the Davidians and their firearms, in which they were completely exonerated from any illegal activity. "We treated them like human beings rather than stormtrooping the place." Likewise, Jack Harwell, the McClennon County Sheriff, called Koresh on the telephone and informed him of the charges, and asked him to turn himself in, along with six others and to surrender their weapons. When deputies arrived at the Church grounds, Koresh and the other Davidian members peacefully complied. Feazell said of the Davidians, "They're protective of what's theirs. They're protective of their land. They view their land as Muslims to Mecca and Jews view Jerusalem...If they'd (the BATF) called and talked to them, the Davidians would've given them what they wanted." Feazell's view of the BATF blundering has been seconded by anti- terrorist expert Col. Charlie Beckwith, the founder of the US Army's Delta Force Commando unit. He has told reporters the BATF raid was an "embarrassment." Beckwith faulted the plan implemented by the BATF, saying the intelligence behind it was responsible for the disaster. Subsequent to the first BATF attack Feazell predicted that the government would kill all the Davidians, and after the massacre (the second attack) he said that they intended to kill these people from the beginning to cover the tracks of their own crimes they committed by raiding the compound to begin with. After the original public relations disaster on 2/28, the government strategy seems to have evolved over the next 51 days as follows: First, through a massive media discrediting of the Davidians through the "party line" press over several weeks. Second, by slowly preparing the public to believe that all of the people remaining in the compound were under the total control of an unpredictable psychopath, and to expect a mass suicide, yet saying that there was no reason for them to believe that Koresh would carry out a mass suicide. Third, to cloak their act in righteousness (as tyranny always does) by saying their efforts on Monday were to force the people out using non-lethal CS gas "for the sake of the children." 1. USING CS GAS ON CHILDREN --- President Clinton, Janet Reno, and their FBI/BATF employees have described CS gas as "a harmless tear gas, an irritant, designed to cause the mothers to grab their children and run out of the building." No one in the police or military who has ever used CS gas believes this. CS gas (O-chlorobenzylidene malonitrite) has been banned as a chemical warfare agent by the Chemical Weapons Convention signed in Paris in January by the US and 130 other nations. Used during the Vietnam War to flush Vietcong from hidden tunnels, the gas causes dizziness, disorientation, shortness of breath, chest tightness, nausea, burning of the skin, intense tearing, temporary blindness, coughing and vomiting -- in short it is designed to blind and disable (very different from "relatively harmless"). CS gas is a battlefield incapacitating gas! On March 10, The Houston Chronicle reported that former Houston police SWAT commander Lt. Jim Gunn said that "CS gas can get into a child's lungs and cause congestion and dill them." Benjamin C. Garrett, executive director of the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute in Alexandria, VA said in the Washington Times I(4/23/93) that: "the CS would have most harshly affected the children in the compound. The reaction would have intensified for the children since the smaller you are, the sooner you would feel response." It is important to note that the children did not have gas masks (they were too small to wear them). Beth Stephens, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, public interest law firm based in New York, said "tests have documented at least 80 deaths caused by exposure to CS gas. Tests have found that CS is a toxic substance which is highly dangerous to people who inhale its fumes, particularly when in confined areas." CS was pumped into the Mt. Carmel compound (an enclosed area) for six hours before the facility caught fire and burned to the ground. The Washington Times (4/22/93) wrote: "'The powerful chemical the FBI used at the Branch Davidian compound would have turned the cult children's last moments into a final Hell,' chemical experts said yesterday. "It would have panicked the children whose eyes would have involuntarily shut. Their throats and lungs would have been burning. The would have been coughing wildly,' said Benjamin Garrett. 'Eventually they would have been vomiting in a final hell.'" [ED. NOTE: This is the gas Clinton, Reno, and their underlings described as a "harmless irritant."] Neal Knox, head of the Firearms Coalition, said recently: "CS gas is classified as an irritant only in very low concentrations. In higher concentrations such as in a building, it immobilizes by nausea, vomiting and vertigo." thomas C. Swearengen, in his authoritative reference work: Tear Gas Munitions, states that: "In outdoor situations where it is desired to drive a mob from an area, the sue of CS may hamper the movement of the rioters because of the rapid onslaught of immobilization symptoms. In indoor situations, a victim could be immobilized and could possibly receive a lethal dose through his own helplessness." Amnesty International calls CS "particularly dangerous when used in massive quantities in heavily built up an populous areas ... or when launched into homes or other buildings. This writer has talked to a half dozen special forces, military, and police personnel who all agree that CS is a highly toxic battlefield immobilization gas. "Bo" Gritz told this writer that: "CS gas is not just an irritant; it is designed to knock you down and makes you incapable of any practical functions." That our government would use it on women and children (thereby immobilizing them and preventing them from running from the building) is cruel, inhuman, and unspeakably evil, and is the kind of thing the Nazis and Communists would have relished in. [ED. NOTE: For this reason alone Clinton should be impeached, and Reno, William Sessions and Stephen Higgins (head of the FBI and BATF) should be fired and all four tried for criminal child abuse. Isn't it ironic that Clinton and Company are pushing criminal child abuse laws for spanking children, refusing to get forced government inoculations, etc. and then helped perpetrate this crime (the greatest example of government child abuse in US history) on 24 innocent children. Ignore what they say, but watch what they do!] 2. CS GAS IS HIGHLY FLAMMABLE IN ENCLOSED AREAS -- US Army Special Forces retired Lt. Col "Bo" Gritz has said that the use of CS gas in an enclosed space set the stage for a total inferno. When the buildings exploded into flames, it was like they were filled with natural gas. Flames exploded everywhere almost all at once. Gritz has said on several national radio talk shows (including one with this writer) that "the dispersant used in CS gas, known in military assault circles as 'CAP,' is a highly flammable dust initiator. Just a small spark would cause CS gas to explode into an uncontrollable and engulfing fire." CS gas, dispersed in a fine white particulant (powder) called CAP is therefore highly flammable and explosive. It acts like coal dust in a coal mine or dust in a grain elevator that can be ignited into a conflagration by just one spark. This writer has talked to a half dozen active duty or retired military personnel, police, and government agents who have had hands on experience with CS gas. All acknowledged that it is highly flammable and explosive in an enclosed area and that that is common knowledge in the military and police. If that is true (and it is!) then the FBI and the Clinton people must have known that by pumping the CS gas into the enclosed (tinderbox) compound, that they were signing the Branch Davidians's collective death warrant. Therefore, the strong possibility needs to be considered that the Waco conflagration was not an accident, that it wasn't mass suicide (which will be discussed below) but premeditated, cold blooded, murder of 86 people -- in order to burn up the evidence of BATF's illegal/unconstitutional attack on the compound on February 28 -- just as former McClennon County District Attorney Vic Feazell suggested. One survivor said: "that the black smoke was so thick that within seconds he couldn't see where he was. People were trapped. The building was falling down. The damn tanks had just destroyed the structure and nobody knew where they were because the ceiling had just fallen in. Everyone was disoriented and blinded by the (CS) gas." Isn't it incredible! The American government has agreed not to use CS gas against Iraqi (or any other) enemy soldiers but used it against helpless women and children. What has our government come to? And most Americans don't even see anything wrong with their actions! [ED NOTE: The burn units at local hospitals and hospitals as far away as Dallas were warned hours before the final attack that they could expect a large number of burn patients. The FBI must have "expected" (or "planned"?) a fire!] 3. WAS THE WACO HOLOCAUST A MASS SUICIDE? -- All of the survivors said that there was no plan for a mass suicide or even individual suicides. The Branch Davidian religion (an offshoot of Seventh Day Adventism and totally different from that of Jim Jones) forbade and taught against suicide. It should also be remembered that no one commits suicide (except for a few Monks during the Vietnam War) by burning themselves. There has never been a mass suicide by burning. The one thing that all family members have repeated time and again is that no one in the group would have ever committed suicide. Koresh was planning to write a book about the siege. Steve Schneider asked his attorney if he should get his hair cut before he came out of the compound or in jail. There were many indications that these two Branch Davidian leaders and other members were very future oriented and not contemplating suicide. And yet, Clinton, Reno and the FBI justified their attack on the compound by saying that they feared a mass suicide. Then after the gas, which they pumped into the compound for six hours, ignited a raging inferno that killed the 86, they said: "See, we told you we feared a mass suicide." Could this have been a very Machiavellian government strategy to get rid of the incriminating evidence of their botched, unconstitutional 2/28 raid by burning all the evidence and embarrassing court testimony, and calling it mass suicide? Koresh was found with a bullet hole in his forehead. Police friends tell this writer that people don't commit suicide by shooting themselves in the forehead. Koresh's first lieutenant, Steve Schneider, was found with a bullet hole in the back of his head. People don't commit suicide by shooting themselves in the back of the head. Were the bullets fired later by government agents to make it look like suicide? We will never know! 4. GOVERNMENT JUSTIFICATION OF THE MASSACRE: OPERATION COVER THEIR BACKSIDES -- a) PRESIDENT CLINTON'S PRESS CONFERENCE AND DAMAGE CONTROL President Clinton gave a Rose Garden press conference on 4/20/93 in which he defended and sought to justify Reno's, the FBI's and BATF's actions in Waco. The lies and distortions which Clinton told in that press conference were incredible: 1) "The Branch Davidians had illegally stockpiled weapons and ammunition." [ED NOTE: That was only suspected, but never proven. Shouldn't the government have proven that before they killed almost 100 people? Is it now lawful to kill people during investigations of wrongdoing? Lawful or not, it is now commonplace in America!] 2) Koresh "placed innocent children at risk." [ED NOTE: There was no risk until the government attacked the compound. Wasn't it Clinton, Reno, the BATF, and FBI that put the innocent children at risk?] 3) "The Bureau's efforts were ultimately unavailing because the individual with whom they were dealing, David Koresh, was dangerous, irrational, and probably insane." [ED NOTE: None of the townspeople who knew Koresh observed this, nor did the former District Attorney of McClennon County, nor the sheriff's deputies who knew him. He did have strange religious views, but most of the townspeople who knew him liked him.] 4) Clinton said the April 19 FBI attack on the Branch Davidians was "an effort to protect the young hostages." [ED NOTE: The government didn't protect them, they killed them. And, the children were not hostages. They were there of their own free will. The Waco siege was never a hostage crisis.] 5) Clinton said: "Mr. Koresh response to the demand for his surrender by federal agents was to destroy himself and murder the children who were his captives...He killed those he controlled." [ED. NOTE: There is no evidence that Koresh murdered any children; it is open to question whether at the last moment he shot himself; and children (according to local townspeople, Branch Davidian survivors, and Texas social workers, were not captives.] 7) Clinton said: "I hope very much that others who will be tempted to join cults and to become involved with people like David Koresh will be deterred by the horrible scenes they have seen over the last seven weeks." [ED. NOTE: Is this a not-so- veiled threat that if you belong to an unpopular, misfit, non- mainstream religious group, the same thing could happen to you? The intimidation value from the Waco inferno for the government against small religious groups, conservative, patriotic, pro- life, or non-mainstream groups is incredible. Conform or we'll destroy you!] 8) When asked by a reporter, "Why now," Clinton replied: "There was a limit to how long the federal authorities could maintain with their limited resources the quality and intensity of coverage by experts there. They might be needed in other parts of the country." [ED. NOTE: Limited resources? This is the government which is giving billions of dollars to Russia in aid and requesting billions more for 1001 boondoggles. And as far as spreading the "experts" too thin, there were only a few hundred troops and agents there. The government has tens of thousands of federal agents and allegedly over a million military personnel.] 9) Clinton said: "The danger of them [the Branch Davidians] doing something to themselves or to others was likely to increase, not decrease, with the passage of time." [ED NOTE: Quite to the contrary, as time went by, the likelihood that they would come out increased, according to experts who have dealt with many of these types of crises.] 10) Clinton said: "They [the FBI] had reason to believe that the children inside the compound were being abused significantly, as well as being forced to live in unsanitary and unsafe conditions." [ED NOTE: There was no evidence of child abuse according to several Texas social workers who had visited the compound. However, the gassing (with CS gas) and burning of the children by the Clintonistas does seem to this writer to qualify as child abuse. And if the conditions were unsanitary and unsafe in the compound it was because the government had turned off the water, heat and electricity 50 days earlier. Government gunfire into the building might also qualify as "an unsafe condition."] 11) Clinton said: "I was frankly surprised to say that anyone would suggest that the Attorney General should resign because some religious fanatics murdered themselves." [ED NOTE: But what if the Attorney General and her subordinates murdered these people? Will your religious group be the next one to be labeled by Mr. Clinton or Ms. Reno as "dangerous religious fanatics"?] 12) Clinton said: "There is unfortunately a rise in this sort of fanaticism all over the world. And we may have to confront it again." {ED NOTE: Is that a veiled threat against other religious non-conformist groups?] 13) Clinton said: "I do think it is important to recognize that the wrong doers in this case were the people who killed others and then killed themselves." {ED NOTE: This is like declaring the Jews of the Nazi holocaust as the "wrongdoers" for killing German military officers and then killing themselves by rushing headlong into the gas chambers.] Jack Wheeler, a contributing editor to the Strategic Investment Newsletter, summed it up quite well: "Let me state things clearly. It is one thing to be laughably incompetent, quite another to be murderously incompetent. I think the President should be impeached and the Attorney General indicted for murder. To hear how over 20 children endured a nightmare of torture by CS poison gas, and then see the Attorney General praised in Congress and hear the President ruthlessly dismiss their deaths in a tone of voice as devoid of humanity as Lenin's, has for the first time in my life made me ashamed of being an American." b) THE CHILD ABUSE ACCUSATION -- "Child abuse" is the new buzz phrase and headline grabber of the Clintonistas and the political left in america, and by their definition can include spanking your children; failure to get your children mandatory government inoculations; failure to teach your children about alternate lifestyles; and eventually home schooling may be included. The Clinton Administration has tried to justify their Waco massacre by accusing the Branch Davidians of being child abusers. (It is very important Constitutionally to note that child abuse is a local or state crime and therefore does not fall under the authority of the federal government [i.e., the FBI, BATF, etc.].) President Clinton, Janet Reno, and other officials, through their spokesman George Stephanopoulos said on 4/21/93: "there is absolutely no question that there's overwhelming evidence of child abuse in the Waco compound." George Stephanopoulos said: "The children were being abused, even to the instruction on how to clamp down on cyanide pills." The FBI has conceded that there was no truth to this claim by Stephanopoulos. Janet Reno claimed on April 19 that it was concern for the children that had first brought federal attention to the Davidians, that "suspected" sexual abuse of children was a basis for the original raid, and that the decision to punch holes in the compound and insert "chemical irritant" was based in part on "information that informants were being slapped around and beaten." She subsequently admitted, though, that "we can't prove child abuse in terms of a criminal case." [ED NOTE: Incredible! It was supposedly "concern for the children, their sexual and physical well being" that caused Reno and her associates to pump in lethal CS gas for six hours when those children had no gas masks, an act that probably killed those children with the fire that followed! Ron Paul recently remarked: "How dare the Clinton Administration talk about sexual deviance! It's officials could have had their own float in the Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Parade."] The facts seem to vary from the Clintonista version. The Texas child welfare department, which had visited Mt. Carmel several times, said that they found no evidence of child abuse at the compound and they interrogated children and mothers and other adults extensively. Dr. Bruce Perry, the psychiatrist heading the team treating the 21 children who left the compound, said after intensive psychological as well as physical examinations that "none of the 21 children had been sexually abused or molested." The Texas Department of Human Services had on three occasions extensively investigated the Branch Davidians regarding allegations of child abuse at the compound, interviewing both children and adults, and found no signs of physical or sexual abuse. Janice Caldwell, the executive director of the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services, told reporters on March 5: "They [the 21 children] are in remarkably good shape considering what they have been through. No signs of physical abuse have been found." The March 6 Houston Post reported that authorities had found that all the youths appear to be in good condition psychologically and physically. Social worker Joyce Sparks said, according to the Post, that "the children [ED NOTE: who were home schooled] were remarkably well-educated and they're fascinated by books." [ED NOTE: Compare those opinions by Texas medical, social, and welfare experts with accusations by Clinton and Reno. Who's lying and tho's telling the truth? Who's trying to protect themselves? It's call CYA. As Alexander Cockburn wrote in the Los Angeles Times (4/21/93): "Incredibly, today when the government calls someone a 'child abuser,' it's like calling someone a communist in the 1950s or a witch in the 17th century. Normal standards of evidence or reason don't apply." 5. THE GOVERNMENT COVERUP: OPERATION DAMAGE CONTROL (OR WHITE WASH) -- The US government has refined the art of political coverup to a science. They have had practice: 1) The POW/MIA coverup after World War II, Korea, and Vietnam whereby thousands of American POWs and servicemen were left in the hands of the communists; 2) The Kennedy Assassinations (John and Bobby) Coverup which is now in its 31st year; 3) The Watergate Coverup which ultimately backfired on Nixon and Company; 4) The AIDS coverup presently being perpetrated by the government a(and particularly the CDC) to hide the extent and magnitude of the AIDS crisis; and, now, 5) The Waco Massacre Coverup. a) BURNING AND BULLDOZING THE EVIDENCE -- The BATF (and other government agencies) love to burn, bulldoze or cremate the evidence. In the Weaver case, the government tried to burn out the Weaver cabin by dumping fuel on the cabin via helicopter and only an alert reporter waving a camera in the air saved the surviving Weavers from the same fate as the Branch Davidians. Shortly after Randy Weaver, Kevin Harris and the three Weaver girls came out of the cabin, the BATF and FBI grabbed the bodies of Vicki and Sam Weaver and had them cremated. Therefore, no trial evidence from autopsies. (Sam Weaver, age 114, was shot several times in the back by the marshals, Vicki in the head by an FBI sniper). When Congressman John Ashbrook (R-OH), who was investigating potentially illegal Rockefeller bank dealings with Russia, died suddenly of massive stomach bleeding over a decade ago, his wife (under pressure from the government) had his body quickly cremated -- with no autopsy. Ashbrook's death had all the symptoms of a poisoning. When Gordon Kahl was killed in Arkansas by government agents in 1983, the cabin in which he was killed was burnt to the ground and Kahl's body and all evidence at the crime scene was burned up. (The FBI controlled the crime scene from beginning to end.) In Waco, on April 19, crucial physical evidence and key witnesses were consumed by fire. Then on May 12, FBI officials, citing the fear that someone might fall in the bunker (though the entire site was fenced and guarded), and a need to fill holes and cover trash and raw sewage for safety and health reasons, rolled bulldozers across the burned out compound completely obliterating any remaining evidence. b) SILENCING BATF AND FBI AGENTS -- Shortly after the original BATF attack, two agents came forward on TV in New York (though their faces were not shown) and said they were afraid of a coverup. All BATF agents have already been threatened by the Washington office of BATF with the possibility of being punished, dismissed, or prosecuted for speaking publicly about the raid. The agency is struggling to keep these agents silent. Four of their comrades died because of bungling, malfeasance, and mendacity at the top of the BATF. c) THE SO-CALLED "INDEPENDENT" ARSON TEAM HAD CLOSE TIES WITH THE BATF -- The Clintonistas, immediately after the fire, suggested an "independent" investigation to investigate the burned out Branch Davidian compound site and confirm the "truth." That "independent" investigator, who claimed the fire had been set by the Davidians (based, he said, on infrared photos taken from a helicopter) was revealed on ABC Nightline to be a former BATF employee (who had been on a joint BATF task force for 10 years) and long time contractor for the FBI, whose wife is personal secretary to the head of the Houston BATF -- where the whole raid was planned. The FBI controlled the crime scene for three weeks following the holocaust, letting no Texas Rangers, local police or truly independent arson investigators in, and then bulldozed the entire site on May 12. (So, now, no one else can investigate the burnt out compound.) d) THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT WILL NOT INVESTIGATE THE DECISIONS FOR THE FINAL ASSAULT -- Although Bill Clinton promised a "vigorous and thorough" investigation of the handling of the entire Waco affair, on May 15 the Justice Department said it would not investigate the decision making process associated with the final assault. (This is like saying in a murder case we will not investigate who pulled the trigger or who gave the order to pull the trigger, or in Watergate, not investigating who gave the order for the Watergate break-in). As the New York Times (5/16/93) said: "Clinton officials said that since Ms. Reno has been widely supported in Congress, and since polls show that the majority of Americans supported her decision to use tear gas, and blame the cult members themselves for the final deadly fire, department officials concluded that nothing could be gained by looking more closely at her order to carry out the assault." e) LIES THE GOVERNMENT TOLD DURING AND AFTER OPERATION WACO -- "Governments are constituted to lie to the greatest number of people the greater part of the time." Machiavelli, in The Prince. BATF, FBI, and Clinton Administration officials have consistently lied and contradicted themselves since the siege of Mt. Carmel began. Just a few of a growing list of the lies include: 1. The media was told the day before the raid (2/27) to get ready for a big blowout and to get their TV cameras in place. The BATF originally denied it told the media, but later admitted that it had. 2. The BATF said that Koresh had to be arrested at the compound because he had not left it for several months. Numerous people in the area said that was a lie and that they had frequently seen him out jogging, at the store, and in town until shortly before the attack. The BATF finally admitted they knew nothing about Koresh's movement because they NEVER even put him under surveillance, let alone did they try to arrest him. 3. The BATF originally said that they had an arrest warrant for Koresh and a search warrant for the compound. Later it was shown that they only had a search warrant and no arrest warrant. 4. The BATF said that the element of surprise was the key to success and that they wouldn't have attacked if they had known that the Branch Davidians were expecting them. This was a lie. Everyone in town, including the Branch Davidians knew about the coming attack. They moved a whole army of men and equipment up to the compound. Later BATF director Higgins admitted that they knew they had lost the element of surprise and went ahead with the attack anyway. That decision caused the death of four BATF agents. 5. The BATF told the Texas National Guard (in order to obtain use of their helicopters), that there was an illegal drug lab at the compound. There was no evidence of this before, during, or after the raid according to the Waco Tribune-Herald (3/28/93). 6. On March 6, FBI officers denied that they had any plans to use psychological warfare techniques against the Branch Davidians (i.e., such as loud rock music, bright lights, weird sounds). The FBI used them constantly throughout the siege. 7. In his press conference the evening of the fire, Bill Clinton said Janet Reno had acted "because of the children" who were "being abused." Later, officials admitted that there was no evidence of child abuse. 8. On March 2, the FBI's Bob Ricks told reporters that when the FBI approached Koresh, he was going to go outside with grenades (in front of the TV cameras), pull the pin, commit suicide and take as many agents with him as he could. On 4/20 on McNeil/Lehrer Newshour FBI Director William Sessions said that all of the FBI analyses of Koresh indicated that he would never commit suicide. 9. On April 28, FBI Deputy Director Floyd Clarke told the House Judiciary Committee that the "Branch Davidians had used their own children as human shield by holding them up in front of the windows." The truth is, the Branch Davidians hoisted their children up to the windows to see the M1-A1 Abrams battle tanks sitting in their front yard, as FBI spokesman Richard Swensen later admitted. 10. BATF Director Stephen Higgins testified before a Senate subcommittee (4/2/93) that the BATF mission failed only "because the Branch Davidians ambushed the BATF." What a lie. The BATF attacked the Branch Davidians and not the other way around. 11. The FBI and Janet Reno stated repeatedly that the reason they attacked the compound on April 19 was "concern for the safety and well being of the children." This was a lie! You don't ram into buildings with military tanks and pump CS gas (a gas so deadly and debilitating that it has been banned by international treaty for use in warfare) into a building filled with women and children, and call it "a concern for the safety of the children." 12. CS gas was described by Clinton, Reno and FBI officials as a harmless (irritant) tear gas. This is a lie! It is 80 times stronger than tear gas, immobilizes its victims and throws them into violent coughing and convulsions (i.e., the "perfect" weapon for a police state to use against young children and women!). 13. Clinton said on 4/20/93 that CS was a "tear gas which had been tested not to cause permanent damage to adults or children." That is a lie! (See Section A,1 above.) 14. The government said they had exhausted all avenues to resolve the standoff. This is a lie! They refused to let any of the family members speak with the Branch Davidians even though this has helped to resolve many such former standoffs. They refused to let "Bo" Gritz and Jack McLamb, who negotiated Randy Weaver and his family out last August, assist, although they volunteered numerous times. 15. The BATF said after the February 28 fiasco that "we were outgunned." That was a lie! They had helicopter gunships, armored vehicles, and fully automatic weapons to use against the Branch Davidians, not to mention stun grenades and the military's most high tech equipment. 16. George Stephanopoulos said: "The children were being abused, even to instruction on how to clamp down on cyanide pills." Though this makes for chilling headlines, the FBI has denied that this was true. 17. On April 19, FBI spokesman Bob Ricks quoted Branch Davidian survivor Renos Avraam as saying: "The fire's been lit. The fire's been lit." But when questioned on camera by reporters, Avraam said: "One of the tanks knocked over a gas lantern, and it started a fire under some bales of hay that were laying around...The fire wasn't started by us." f) THE LIBERAL MEDIA IS COOPERATING IN THE COVERUP -- The mainline media in America is owned by the Establishment and is by-and-large very pro-Clinton. So, unlike the Rodney King case where they were instantly for King and against the police, in Waco the media were instantly for the BATF and FBI and against the Branch Davidians. There has been "some" accurate newspaper coverage, but for the most part the media has reported the Clintonista party line on Waco 100%, and has totally ignored the Constitutional, due process, and human rights issues. During MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour (4/20/93) terrorism "expert" Frank McGuire claimed that "David Koresh had left a trail of criminal behavior going back to 1987," (which was not true) and Fort Worth Star Telegram columnist Bill Thompson described him "as one of the vilest mass murderers of our time," (which also was not true). FBI spokesman Bob Ricks labeled Koresh "a classical sociopath," Attorney General Janet Reno branded him "a dangerous criminal," and bill Clinton called him "dangerous, irrational, and probably insane." Then the media repeated these unsubstantiated (and largely untrue) allegations thousands of times, and to the average American they became "truth." [ED: The dynamic duo of government and media have the ability to create "reality", or the "appearance of reality" out of thin air!] Such unsubstantiated statements served to condition the pubic to accept the Draconian government response as justified, no matter how unconstitutional and brutal, since the target was characterized as a monster who had to be brought down by any means. [ED NOTE: It has occurred to this writer that he has seen no pictures of the people killed at Waco, including the children. After a plane crash or other tragedy, pictures of the victims (while alive) are usually shown. Not so with Operation Waco. The pictures might elicit public sympathy (e.g., these were real people, real children, real babies which were slaughtered. No pictures are likely to be forthcoming.] Then shortly after the 4/19 inferno, the make-for-TV, network movies began to emerge, retelling the government version in gory detail. First came the NBC made-for-TV presentation, which faithfully followed the FBI/BATF/Clintonista party line. According to the 5/3/93 issue of Time, before the last bodies were removed from the rubble in Waco an NBC film crew was already recording the re-enactment scenes at the reconstruction of the actual site in Oklahoma. CONCLUSION: Does anyone really think that a Justice Department investigation of its own FBI, or a Treasury Department investigation of its own BATF will be anything besides a total whitewash? And as for a Congressional investigation, Senator Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has already said, regarding a congressional investigation: "I'm not looking for them to blame anyone or anything like that." The fix is already in! They must cover up and bury the biggest potential political scandal in US history. If Watergate could send the Nixon Administration, Wacogate, which is 100 times bigger, could certainly sink the Clinton Administration. But it won't -- it will be completely covered up! Watch for disappearing BATF and/or FBI agents who know too much and don't like what they saw, or for strange things happening to Branch Davidian survivors in jail. Remember Jack Ruby's sudden cancer. Before it is over, the coverup will be thorough, total, and perhaps as deadly as the massacre itself!