1. The ATF guys on their way to the Branch Davidian comound GOT LOST.
2. They asked directions from a mailman, cuz, hey, that’s FEDERAL, right? ‘Cept the mailman was a DAVIDIAN, see..?
3. The ATF was up for budget review and this assault was supposed to be a big victory showing how amazing, essential and fund-worthy they were. So they brought along a TV crew. The “go” code for these cowboys —not making this up— was SHOW TIME.
4. They initiated the gunfight, then it lasted only as long as they had ammo. When the ATF ran out of ammo, that’s when the gun battle stopped. The out-of-ammo attackers were permitted to withdraw unmolested. Their view of the film crew suddenly changed dramatically, they didn’t like it anymore.
5. The FBI brought in armored personnel carriers and drove over the Davidians’ cars parked outside. Then they wantonly, needelessly and repeatedly drove over the graves of the Davidians who were killed in the initial shootout.
6. The FBI played recordings of dying rabbits over loudspeakers, shone lights in their windows all night, played scary records and the song, “these boots were made for walkin’” which contains the lyrics, “I’m gonna light a MATCH” (there was later a fire).
7. The first thing the FBI did after the fire subsided was to raise the flag of the ATF on the still smoking embers, Mt. Suribachi-style.
8. FLIR experts were scared stiff to review video of the final conflagration, which showed shooting into the burning compound. The one FLIR expert the defense finally found to testify was later killed under mysterious circumstances.
9. The Compound Front Door (whose bullet holes would show that most of the shooting was from outside in) went MISSING, mysteriously. It was “lost”.
.
>> 9. The Compound Front Door (whose bullet holes would show that most of the shooting was from outside in) went MISSING, mysteriously. It was “lost”. <<
Just like the ceiling tiles from the room where Bobby Kennedy was shot.
.
Correctly, the lyrics were "I just found me a brand new box of matches (yeah) and what he knows you ain't had time to learn."
Can't really say if this was a foreshadowing of anything. I do, however, remember the sleep deprivation techniques.
The stand-off would have a “carrot and stick” design, the commanders said.
Sounds great, right?
But the teams were seperate and grew from totally different dispositions: The Carrot Group were social scientist/psychologist types —academic clinicians who loved taking notes and talking.
Meanwhile The Stick Team were basically military soldiers brought on-scene because Posse Comitatus (permission of soldiers used in police actions) has a drug exception, and one of the federal lies about the Davidians besides gun-running, bank-robbery and child-molestation was that they were also engaged in the business of drug-dealing.
This is also how the ATF were permitted to undergo military training at Fort Hood beforehand:
The FBI commando team had pushed the media back so far that there was no civilian scrutiny. Soon a gun-heavy summer camp atmosphere prevailed; the bored commandos had full reign on-site to terrorize the beseiged at their leisure, Lon Horiuchi was even said to be sniping individual Davidians from time to time.
The FBI didn’t disguise it’s contempt for squinty, scribbling shrinks and the shrinks regarded the commandos as nazis —the two sides barely communicated.
This placed nicely into Koresh’s focus on the Book of Revelation, which describes evil forcus that act crazy and test the faith of True Belivers.
The FBI’s objective was to weaken Koresh and his believers but instead their strategy was the perfect force to instead strengthen them.
Almost 100 people died in the fire.
Would they have done this, had it been a MOSQUE..?