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("Quid coniuratio est?")
Waco + 3 Years: You Might Not Know
** Janet Reno claimed to be concerned about the children at Mount Carmel. Yet during the siege the FBI, supposedly under control of the Justice Department, blasted the Branch Davidians "with ear-shattering noise and aimed powerful electric spotlights into their windows at night to prevent them from sleeping, and turned off the community's water supply and cut off its sewers." [Bradford, 21]
** David Koresh had never been convicted of any crime. [Wattenberg, 32]
** Giving his opinion on the Branch Davidians, McLennan County [Texas] Sheriff Jack Harwell stated, "They had their property line, and they were basically good people. All of 'em were good people." [ibid.]
** Machine guns are not unconditionally outlawed in the United States. [ibid.]
** The type of search warrant used by BATF was not a so-called "no knock" warrant. "Though the search warrant issued for the February 28 action did not authorize a 'no knock' raid, [the BATF] had practiced only a forcible entry." [Reavis, 139]
** One of the Branch Davidians, Jaydean Wendell, had been a police officer in Hawaii before she came to Mount Carmel. While others of the women -- for example the aged Victorine Hollingsworth -- "bent low over the children... trying to protect them [from flying bullets]... Wendell grabbed a rifle... went into her room, climbed atop a bunk bed, and while lying there, apparently exchanged shots with the raiders in front of Mt. Carmel." [ibid., 166]
** Among the Branch Davidians were a Harvard-trained attorney (Wayne Martin), an electrical engineer who had, until 1992, taught physics in an Australian high school (Graeme Craddock), and two nurses. [Reavis]
** Charges against the Branch Davidians of child abuse "were repeatedly shown to be false." [Reavis, 229]
** BATF tank drivers who circled the compound during the siege, "mooned the residents and made obscene hand signs." [Reavis, 249]
** Most of the guns at the Davidian compound were purchased as investments and had never been used. The "armaments that Koresh and [Paul] Fatta owned had more than doubled in value since the date of their purchase." [Reavis, 293-294] In point of fact, the "Davidians had a profitable legal gun business." [Moore, 47]
** It is not, per se, illegal to "stockpile weapons." Texas Rangers "recovered about 200 guns from the ashes of the Mount Carmel Center, roughly two per resident. Statewide in Texas, 17 million people own 60 million guns, or about four per resident." [Wattenberg, 32]
** "The massacre of the Branch Davidians was the greatest government massacre of civilians on American soil since the massacre of 300 Native Americans at Wounded Knee in 1890." [Moore, 4]
** "I thought I was going to die that day [Feb. 28]. I thought I was going to get blown away... Put in that situation where you've got women and children crying and screaming, 'Oh, my God, please help us, save us, do something! They're shooting at us! '...You do anything, you pick up anything you can, if your life is threatened, to defend yourself." -- Kevin Whitecliff before sentencing. [qtd. in Moore, 141]
** "I don't care who they are, nobody is going to come to my home, with my babies around, shaking guns around, without a gun back in their face. That's just the American way." -- David Koresh [qtd. in Moore, 167-168]
** With all the gunfire, "it is inevitable that BATF agents injured, and even killed, some of their own." [Moore, 171] According to Newsweek magazine, a federal source in Waco stated "there is evidence that supports the theory of friendly fire." [qtd. in Moore, 171]
** "The FBI strictly controlled its daily press briefings, limiting the number of questions and punishing reporters who displeased them by refusing to call on them." According to Time magazine photographer Shelly Katz, it was the worst suppression of the press he had seen in 27 years of journalism. [Moore, 235-236]
** "I recognized early on that the government was systematically poisoning and prejudicing public opinion with a blitz of inflammatory disinformation to stir up hatred against David Koresh and to foment a thirst for his blood... " Former Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver [qtd. in Moore, 238]
Bradford, R.W. "Mass Murder, American-Style". Liberty [magazine], June 1993
Moore, Carol. The Davidian Massacre (Best is to order directly from Moore; phone (202) 986-1847 for more info; or order from Gun Owners of America.)
Reavis, Dick J. The Ashes Of Waco. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. ISBN: 0-648-81132-4
Wattenberg, Daniel. "Gunning for Koresh". The American Spectator [magazine], August 1993
I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation."
See also: http://www.europa.com/~johnlf/cn.html
See also: ftp ftp.shout.net pub/users/bigred