FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED AUG. 1, 1999 THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz Possible incendiary devices found in Waco wreckage
Could it be the fog of denial and obfuscation surrounding the cynically motivated and deadly 1993 government tax raid on a Seventh Day Adventist church in Waco, Texas are finally starting to clear?
Rare is the radio show I do on this subject that isn't blessed with some government apologist calling in to insist the Rev. David Koresh did indeed possess automatic weapons at the Mount Carmel Church. Of course, the government promised to display such "captured machine guns" at the trial of the survivors in San Antonio, and never did. Nor do the government cronies like to admit that possessing such weapons is still perfectly legal in this country, upon payment of a mere $200 tax.
Do most Americans endorse government taxmen with submachine guns firing on and incinerating dozens of innocent women and children (after incapacitating them with a nerve gas banned under the Geneva convention, which turns to deadly cyanide when it burns) in attempts to apprehend a preacher suspected of being $200 behind on his tax bills -- doing so in massive armed raids organized to gain TV coverage a few weeks before their congressional funding hearings, even after the main subject of their investigation publicly invites said agents to drop by and inspect his weapons at any time?
A great step forward in clearing the purposeful fog which has been laid down here was the 1997 Academy Award-nominated documentary "Waco: The Rules of Engagement," which first brought to public attention infrared footage shot by a government plane circling high overhead on the day of the final fire, as FBI agents purposely blocked fire engines from the scene.
That footage shows what appears to be automatic rifle fire into the back of the compound to stop any residents from coming out or resisting the armored vehicles as they moved in to knock down the walls and staircases of a building known to be heated with kerosene heaters (the government had illegally shut off the electricity) and reinforced against government bullets with bales of hay.
But now speeds the pace at which the government snow job melts.
"The head of the Texas Department of Public Safety said Tuesday that evidence held by the Texas Rangers since the 1993 Branch Davidian siege calls into question the federal government's claim that its agents used no incendiary devices on the day that a fire consumed the sect's compound," reports Lee Hancock in the July 28 Dallas Morning News.
James B. Francis Jr., chairman of the Texas Department of Public Safety, declined to detail the evidence, but said, "With the proper experts analyzing it, it might shed light as to whether an incendiary device was fired into the compound that day."
U.S. District Judge Walter Smith of Waco, the judge who oversaw the trial of the Branch Davidian survivors in San Antonio (they were acquitted of all major and capital charges, but sentenced to decades in jail, anyway) in a July 1 ruling refused to dismiss Davidian claims that the FBI may have fired into the church on April 19, or allegations that FBI negligence was responsible for the final tragedy. In fact, the judge ruled that the claims have sufficient merit to warrant scheduling an October trial date for the wrongful-death lawsuit filed by surviving sect members and families of the 80 people (mostly women and children, many black and Asian) who died when the compound burned.
"Sources close to the government's Davidian investigation say the current questions center on several 40 mm munitions found in the compound wreckage," reports Mr. Hancock of the Morning News.
"Mr. Francis said Tuesday that some FBI officials made statements to Texas Rangers immediately after the fire 'that are contradictory' to the federal government's account of what happened. ..."
Michael McNulty of Colorado, author and co-producer of the documentary "Waco: The Rules of Engagement," who is planning a follow-up documentary for release this fall, was granted access to some of the stored evidence from the Waco site by a Justice Department public-affairs official, Mr. Francis told the Morning News.
"In those visits, Mr. McNulty said, he and an expert assisting his film company examined a 40 mm shell casing and two 40 mm projectiles that he contends are pyrotechnic devices," reporter Hancock continues.
"He said they also found that at least six items listed in Texas Ranger inventories as silencers or suppressors were actually 'flash-bang' devices. Those devices are commonly used by law-enforcement officers to stun suspects, and they sometimes ignite fires in enclosed spaces because they emit a loud bang and flash driven by a small pyrotechnic charge.
"Mr. McNulty said he thinks those devices could be key evidence because Texas Rangers' evidence logs indicate they were recovered from areas of the compound in which the fires broke out. ...
" 'It's our belief that these pieces of ordnance could -- and probably did -- have an impact on the fire on April 19th,' he said."
In a carefully worded denial, Attorney General Janet Reno responded from Washington Thursday, saying she has "gone over everything and I know of no such evidence. ... To date, I have found no basis for concluding that the FBI was in any way responsible."
Has seen no evidence to date. My, there's a strident vote of confidence.
Vin Suprynowicz, assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is author of the new book, "Send in the Waco Killers," available through web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html, or at 1-800-244-2224.
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Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John Hay, 1872
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
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