Posted on 04/13/2003 10:01:57 AM PDT by Alissa
Brad Borst remembers that infamous day 10 years ago in more detail than he'd like.
He was a 19-year-old construction worker, helping to build the new Denver airport. At the end of his workday, riding a bus that took crews to a parking lot, he heard co-workers chatting.
"They were kind of joking around, saying something like, 'Did you hear that they burned up those religious fanatics?'"
Borst tensed, but kept mum.
As soon as he reached his car, he switched on the radio. That's how he learned his mother was dead.
The afternoon was April 19, 1993. Hours earlier, David Koresh and 75 followers had died at their rambling wooden residence outside Waco called Mount Carmel. Some had been shot; most died from burns.
Borst's mother, Mary Jean, 49, had been a Koresh follower. Brad had been raised at Mount Carmel, but because he disagreed with doctrines taught there, had left several months earlier.
"A few weeks after I turned 18, I went to see David and told him that I was leaving," said Borst, who now works as a police officer. "He gave me $50 and got me a ride to the bus station."
Today, from his home in Colorado, Borst is petitioning Congress to investigate his mother's death, because in the aftermath of the Mount Carmel tragedy he was convinced the Koresh faithful did not kill themselves, as official reports claim.
"There's no doubt in my mind that somebody turned and started shooting, but I knew the people inside, and they wouldn't have done anything like that. David taught against suicide," he said.
Two congressional hearings and a special investigative commission have found the FBI fired no shots during the siege, and Borst is aware there's little chance of a new airing of the Waco controversy.
His desperation and suspicions are typical of survivors of Mount Carmel, but they come from a page of history that, veterans on both sides of the conflict note, rapidly is being forgotten.
51 days
About 10 miles northeast of Waco, a gravel driveway leads into a 77-acre ranch where no cattle roam. Down the driveway about 100 yards is a wooden chapel where surviving Koresh followers — "Davidians," as they are publicly known — hold weekly worship services. The chapel, built in 2000, sits over the spot where the twin front doors of Mount Carmel stood.
About 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 28, 1993, gunfire broke out at the site. Agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms dismounted from cattle trailers and rushed the doors, trying to serve a search warrant. Koresh and his lieutenants, the ATF believed, were hiding automatic weapons and grenades.
The raiding agents swore the first shots came from inside the building, but Mount Carmel's residents claimed the ATF had charged the doors with guns blazing.
Because lawsuits challenging the ATF raid still are making their way through the courts, the agency refuses to allow its agents to comment on the affair. But former agent Robert White, now a sheriff's deputy in Hunt County, said he's sure the Davidians fired first.
"By the time I got out of that trailer, 200 to 300 rounds had already been fired," said White, who was shot twice during the fracas. "When they told Koresh that they were federal agents, as soon as he shut the door, the shooting started."
A 45-minute gunbattle ensued, killing five Mount Carmel residents and four ATF agents. As the ATF force retreated, a team of snipers from the ATF and Texas Rangers killed a sixth Davidian in a pasture not far away.
The ATF raiders were reinforced overnight by more than 300 FBI officers, who cordoned the area around Mount Carmel and brought in armored vehicles from nearby Fort Hood. The sky over Mount Carmel was declared a no-fly zone.
Teams of negotiators talked by phone night and day with the inhabitants of Mount Carmel, including Koresh, who was severely wounded. Their chats resulted in the surrender of 37 of Mount Carmel's 120 inhabitants to the FBI.
At sunrise April 19, FBI commanders ordered tank crews to bring the standoff to an end. Their tanks fired more than 400 tear gas grenades into hallways and rooms. Tank drivers also knocked large holes in the building, to create exit routes, the agency said.
Residents answered with small arms fire.
Just after noon, Mount Carmel went ablaze. It soon was a mountain of cinders and blackened wood. Nine people, all adults, escaped the flames.
From the ruins investigators salvaged the charred remains of 76 people, 18 of them children under 10.
In the wake of the carnage, a few congressmen and pundits called for the resignation of Attorney General Janet Reno. But President Clinton defended her, declaring Koresh "killed those he controlled."
Reno and the Justice Department were not at fault, Clinton said, "because some religious fanatics murdered themselves."
But Koresh's followers denied responsibility.
"No one inside set any fires. There were no plans for suicide," declared Renos Avraam, one of the survivors of the blaze.
Nine months after the inferno, a jury trial for 11 Davidians accused in the affair opened at the federal courthouse in San Antonio. It lasted 49 days.
Three of the defendants were acquitted of all charges. None was found guilty of murder, but eight were sentenced to prison terms of five to 40 years for manslaughter and gun law violations.
Though the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 ordered reductions in the sentences, seven of the Davidians remain in prison today.
Patriots, militias
The gunfight at Mount Carmel was preceded in August 1992 by a shootout near Ruby Ridge, Idaho. U.S. Marshal William Degan, 42, and the 13-year-old son of white separatist Randy Weaver were killed.
During the standoff that followed, FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi killed Weaver's wife, Vickie.
The Ruby Ridge affair gave impetus to a gathering movement of tax protesters and gun-rights advocates who billed themselves as "Patriots." After the Mount Carmel standoff, the Patriot movement began to organize self-defense groups it called "militias."
"Remember Waco!" became the militias' rallying cry.
On April 19, 1995, the second anniversary of the Mount Carmel fire, a bomb exploded at the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168, including 19 children.
Middle East terrorists at first were suspected in the blast. But within days, two Americans who had been fringe participants in the militia movement, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, were in jail, and in 1997, they were convicted in separate trials. McVeigh was executed.
While criminal cases against the pair were pending, a film, "Waco: The Rules of Engagement," drew new audiences to the Mount Carmel controversy, and new supporters for the militia cause.
The documentary, researched by Michael McNulty, a Colorado novice to filmmaking, premiered at the prestigious Sundance Festival in 1997, was nominated for an Academy Award in 1997 and won television's Emmy award for best work of investigative journalism in 1999.
"It took the story of Waco out of the hands of the government and media, and put it in the language of people," McNulty said.
At its heart was a new claim, made by former Defense Department personnel, that an aerial infrared film of Mount Carmel made during the April 19 assault showed flashes of gunfire from FBI lines.
"Rules" and two lesser-known successor movies, said Brad Borst, convinced him that his mother and other Davidians had been slain by federal agents.
Though the movies gave a second wind to Waco critics, most observers say the militia movement began to decline soon after the Oklahoma City blast. In the wake of the bombing, too, federal law enforcement officers called on militia leaders and visited their meetings.
"Law enforcement attention encouraged the militias to chose between reform and revolution," said Chip Berlet, who follows right-wing movements for Political Research Associates, a Boston think tank.
"By our reckoning, the militia movement peaked in 1996, with 856 groups. By our count, it now has only 143," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which keeps tabs on right-wing organizations.
A new approach
Despite the passing of the militia movement, the Mount Carmel affair influenced the way in which American law enforcement agencies deal with groups of determined opponents, federal law enforcers say.
The change was evident in two post-Waco standoffs: with the Montana Freemen in 1996, and, closer to home, with leaders of the Republic of Texas movement, near Fort Davis in 1997.
On March 25, 1996, FBI agents approached a farmhouse near Jordan, Mont., where a group of Freemen had gathered. The agents carried warrants for the arrest of 10 of them. When the suspects wouldn't surrender, the agents cordoned the area.
They then implemented a milder strategy than that used at Waco.
They wore civilian clothes, not combat gear, and they kept armored vehicles out of sight. In Waco, the FBI had held daily televised news conferences, a practice that, some observers believe, created public pressures to end the standoff in a dramatic way. News conferences were not a feature of the Montana siege.
Perhaps most important, the agents allowed phone calls and visits by relatives of the holed-up Freemen. Many of the relatives pleaded with their kin to surrender. At Waco, more than a dozen relatives of the residents, including Jean Holub, Koresh's paternal grandmother, were denied both phone and personal access.
On June 13 — 81 days after the Freemen standoff began — the remaining 16 holdouts surrendered. No shots were fired, no chemical weapons were used and no one died on either side of the barricades.
FBI Director Louis Freeh credited "a fundamentally different approach" by the bureau, one that, he said, "put patience above the risk of bloodshed.
"A strategy from Day 1 of patient, honest and persistent attempts at negotiation ultimately prevailed," he said.
A similar conclusion resulted from the last of the political and religious standoffs of the '90s, the May 1997 confrontation with members of the Republic of Texas movement. A low-key approach by state troopers and Texas Rangers, with advice from FBI veterans, brought quick results: Within seven days, the Republic's leaders had surrendered.
Two members fled into the wilds, one of whom was killed in an exchange of gunfire with DPS officers. Nevertheless, the operation was roundly deemed a success.
"The DPS was certainly conscious of what had happened at Waco, and was extremely interested that something like that not happen again," said Mike Cox, the agency's press spokesman at the time. "Texas showed the world how it should be done."
From the Freemen and Republic of Texas standoffs, former FBI negotiator Clint Van Zandt said, law enforcement planners learned that "the talking cure works."
"The phoenix that came out of the ashes of Waco," he said, "is a new approach."
Unchanged faith
Most people have put the Mount Carmel tragedy behind them, and even the surviving Davidians now are looking toward the future.
Larry Lynch, a former deputy who negotiated with Koresh by phone during the Feb. 28 gunfight, now is sheriff of McLennan County, whose seat is Waco. The Mount Carmel episode put Waco on the map, he said, but didn't have a lasting negative effect on the city.
"The only thing is, you don't have to say 'Texas' after you say 'Waco' anymore," he said.
Though a few believers have died, and a few have fallen away, a core of some three dozen Davidians has kept the faith, which, members say, gives them hope for the future.
"I don't anticipate our serving out the time that remains," writes Davidian prisoner Livingstone Fagan, 43, whose wife and mother died in the April 19 fire.
Fagan is the last of the Davidians slated for release, in 2007; the six others are to be released in 2006.
"There are surprises yet to reveal themselves in the prophetic timetable of events," he suggests.
The "surprises" to which he refers include the return in the sky of David Koresh, notes Clive Doyle, 62, one of those who was exonerated in the 1994 San Antonio trial.
"David predicted that he'd come back in a somewhat different form," he said, "and even though all of my life I've expected things too soon, we still believe that it won't be long."
You and I both would probably not be able to agree with David Koresh on his interpretation of the Bible, but I fully support him being able to gather a congregation and worship without being persecuted, and in this case actually attacked and killed, by the Federal government.
The situation could have been handled by local authorities, who by the way had dealt with David Koresh previously, much more peacefully and effectively.
Of course the BATF was looking for a chance to justify their pathetic existence.
The trouble is - the so-called science your guys practice isn't science; it's put out by hucksters intent *only* on espousing their limited, pre-conceived point of view to a crowd that is very naive in matters technical.
You'll *also* notice I rarely, if ever, get 'called' on any technical point.
Can't really say that about anybody else - now can you?
The points contained in the *full* report Sen. Dansforth issued have yet to be refuted technically. Sure, a few 'stabs' have been taken - usually by isolated individuals *outside* their specialty BUT they have failed to address the bulk of the OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE supporting a Davidian source for the fire or anything else.
You may attempt to keep this 'conspriacy' alive - but you're failing on the technological front to refute the *real* science that was put into verifying the FBI's statements and their account of what happened.
The evidence has NEVER been on your 'side'.
Bush defeated Saddom and the "elite republican guard" in only 21 days ?
That's just delicious.
Fine - your eyes deceive you then, JUST as McNutty intended them to!
You see, it's a technique people like him learned a looooong time ago - cut and excerpt *only* that video/film needed to 'make your case' - the public will 'suck in' whataver your 'point' is.
McNutty avoids like the plauge VISIBLE IMAGERY photographs of THOSE areas where he 'claims' weapons were fired - VISIBLE IMAGERY shows NO PERSONNEL in those areas, andm those anomolies have been explained MORE than satisfactority to those ABLE to COMPREHEND several basic factors ...
This article follows chronologiocally the one above - it contains McNutty's lame response:
FLIR:Mike McNulty responds
by John Blanton
Turns out it's a small world after all.The January issued of The North Texas Skeptic had been out a few days when I received a phone call from Mike McNulty. McNulty is the writer and award winning producer of three documentaries related to the Branch Davidian siege near Waco in 1993. He wanted to clear up a few points I had touched on in the January issue in an article titled FLIR.
In FLIR I had reviewed McNulty's documentary of the same name, and I had noted some discrepancies between points made in the video and what had reasonably been demonstrated. In mid-January we discussed his concerns in a brief phone conversation. I followed up the conversation with a short e-mail recapitulating the points discussed. Here is that e-mail edited a bit:
1. I mentioned you say in your video that federal police deliberately killed innocent BDs on 19 April 1993. You deny it says that. You say the video only states that to a great degree of certainty that is what happened.McNulty noted that he was pressed for time due to work commitments (new project coming up), and he would not be able to respond directly. He did say in his response to my e-mail he was forwarding my note to his experts for consideration. He did provide the following comments in his response:2. I asked about the hot gun barrels that show up bright in your video but do not show up at all in the 19 April video. You said the gun barrels are too narrow (about 1/2 inch) to make an image from that distance. You emphasized the 19 April video was from over 4000 feet away. You did not touch on the fact that this was with a telescopic imaging system that effectively removed most of that 4000 feet. I pointed out that object size is not what determines whether a bright object will show up in the image. Rather it is the total amount of energy that reaches the image plane. I asked if you knew anything about stellar astronomy where (up to recently) even the biggest telescopes produce only point images of stars, yet the stars still produce an image on the plate/sensor array. You said stellar astronomy does not count because that is done with visible light, not IR. I told you your knowledge on this topic is incorrect.
3. You objected to my contention that the dust conditions on 19 April were nowhere near the conditions of your (COPS L.L.P.) tests, where they kicked up dust in front of a weapon before firing it. You also said dust on 19 April would have coated objects on the ground, suppressing any glint. Ergo, the flashes seen in the 19 April video were gun fire.
4. In response to my question as to why some agents on 19 April risked their lives to save BDs from the fire while others were using automatic weapons to finish off the survivors, you said their actions depended on whether they could be seen by the TV cameras. We did not discuss how these Keystone Cops on 19 April knew the exact location of very TV camera at every instant.
5. I brought up the issue of BDs being killed by BDs. Specifically I asked "Who killed Vernon Howell?" You said the children in the bunker were not shot, and you mentioned some autopsy data concerning other BDs in the compound. That is still unresolved. My information on this is based solely on newspaper reports of the findings of the investigators.
6. I mentioned my information that both 14-inch barrel weapons and 20-inch barrel weapons were tested at Fort Hood. Your video states the Fort Hood tests did not incorporate the 14-inch barrel weapons, which would have a more pronounced muzzle flash. You contend that Senator Danforth's commission required the short barrels be used, but they were not. You disregard the FBI's statement that the short barrels were also tested at Fort Hood.
I am sorry that I can't give you more than this. I'm up to my eyes trying to get the final report on this subject off to Congress and other important items...McNulty copied Barbara Grant, David T. Hardy, and Fred Zegel on this e-mail, and I subsequently received some comments from Hardy:I can't comment in the detail needed on your "Phone recap", there are a number of misconceptions and errors... I just don't have time to walk you through them.
I think this might be helpful though, go to the S.P.I.E organizations web site and look up vol. 4370. There you will find Fred Zegal's papers on the tests, Barbara Grant's and David Hardy's independent material and on the Government's side, Dr. Klasen and Mr. Frankel's material on the "recreation." Once again, I would also recommend looking at the Danforth Preliminary report, the Danforth Final report an the Protocol agreement and the Vector Data Systems report and the Federal Judge's (Walter Smith) final ruling.
Regarding your item # 2 about hot gun barrels being or not being visible to the FLIR used by the FBI - the issue is Spatial Resolution of the sensor. There is not really any relativity to the magnification used in conjunction with the ocular portion of the instrument. The issue here is the detector footprint relative to the size of an object on the ground. Please see Barbara Grant's work for more on this subject.
Sorry I can't be of more help right now, but again, I think the final report to the Congress may be of further assistance to your understanding of this issue and the sited papers above will definitely round out your knowledge on the subject. 1
I'm sorta popping in on this conversation at the last minute, and this is not my field, but....Hardy is right. This is not his field. Hardy is a former federal attorney who has written a book, This Is Not An Assault, that is critical of the government's actions during the siege, and his knowledge relating to optics and imaging systems is about on par with McNulty's. 2Barbara Grant calculates the "footprint" (I believe the term is IFOV, Instantaneous Field of View, but again, this is not my field) of each sensor element and pixel on the Waco FLIR at between 9" and 20" on the ground, depending upon the aircraft altitude and slant angle. Even at the former, a CAR-15 barrel would only be about 1/18 pixel wide and shy of two pixels long.
A half-inch wide hot object is going to be emitting photons ... but represents only a small part of each element/pixel. It may not be enough to raise the brightness of the entire pixel, and thus may not appear. Mike's later tests were filmed at much closer range, where the gun barrels completely fill multiple pixels, so that they are seeing an area entirely filled by the photon emitters.
The analogy in ordinary photography would be a light source that, projected on the film, was much smaller than a silver halide grain. At some point, the source might be bright enough to darken the grain, but shy of that, it would not, even though it would have done so if its absolute brightness were the same and its projected size enough to cover the entire grain. Given the size of silver halide grains vs. those of detector elements, this is a lot less likely to occur in practice.
I pointed out in response that a 1/2-inch gun barrel would cover 1/18 of a pixel of the FLIR imaging system, given McNulty's comments above are true. FLIR imaging systems typically have dynamic ranges of 256 to 1024 and above, meaning that an object that is hot enough to saturate (e.g., 256 signal level) the FLIR sensitivity would register (with a signal level of about 15) if it covers 1/18 of a pixel. The Waco FLIR showed no hot gun barrels.
Barbara Grant is another matter. She "received her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Stanford University and has authored several dozen publications and patents in the field of novel organic and polymer materials." 3 She is president and chief executive officer of Siros Technologies, a company with headquarters in San Jose, CA, and involved in the development of laser systems for telecommunications.
Dr. Grant chaired a workshop devoted to analysis of the Waco FLIR at the April 2001 SPIE (International Society of Optical Engineering) conference in Orlando, FL. 4 Hardy and Zegel presented at the workshop as well as others. The presentations covered the following topics:
Waco investigation: image analysis of FLIR videotapesHowever, Dr. Grant declined to be identified as one of McNulty's consultants. In an e-mail she referred me to the technical publications.Assessment of Waco, Texas, FLIR videotape
Studies of small arms signatures using comparable equipment to the Waco FLIR
Muzzle flash issues related to the Waco FLIR analysis
A quick look for Fred Zegel on the Internet only showed up his association with the FLIR controversy and I was not able to find any technical publications by him. Various news sources cite him as a leading expert in FLIR image analysis, formerly with the Night Vision Laboratory at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. Apparently he was initially skeptical of the gunfire theory of the Waco FLIR flashes, but a few sessions with former colleague Edward Allard convinced him of the theory's merits. Dr. Allard was the retired Deputy Director of the Night Vision Laboratory and holds patents related to FLIR technology. 5
At this point let's review some juicy tidbits for the conspiracy buffs out there: Zegel came down with severe blood poisoning from an insect bite and as a result was unable to attend the tests at Fort Hood. Subsequently, Allard was felled by a stroke, and about the same time FLIR expert Carlos Ghigliotti died of a heart attack. The Web sites critical of the government's role point this out unfailingly.
Despite McNulty's having forwarded my note to Zegel I never received any correspondence from him. My own e-mail to Zegel has gone unanswered. Apparently nobody is interested in personally committing to the points raised in the January phone conversation.
One of the recommended readings was the report by Vector Data Systems. The company was hired to analyze the Waco FLIR and to conduct the follow up test. Their report is very comprehensive and carefully correlates a number of flashes in the Waco FLIR with known sources. In one example the report points out a glass shard where a BATF agent broke an upstairs window of the compound on the first day. The glass lay on the roof for those 51 days and registered as a flash in the FLIR on the final day. It now would seem to be far fetched to claim, as McNulty and some others still do, that debris on that last day could not have produced flashes in the FLIR imagery. 6
McNulty also suggested I review Senator Danforth's final report, so I did and came away with this interesting excerpt. The FBI had placed listening devices about the building, and on the final morning they recorded the voices of cult members planning the destruction of the compound as they poured flammable liquid around. Investigators reviewed their recordings later and correlated events from the audio with other sources of information, including the FLIR and observations by agents at the scene. Furthermore, government agents observed activity inside the compound that was consistent with the intentions expressed in the audio, and the FLIR video shows multiple ignition points about the time of the last recorded voices from the bugs. The report continues:
As the fire began to spread, FBI agents heard gunfire within the complex. They stated that some of the rounds sounded "cooked off" by the heat, but that others were rhythmic in nature, leading some of the agents to conclude at the time that the Davidians were committing mass suicide.I cannot reconcile this testimony with McNulty's contention that government agents fired at Davidians in order to keep them trapped inside the burning building. There is furthermore the testimony by the agents themselves that they did not. McNulty does not go so far in his statements to say the agents are lying. He will not, because he then might have to repeat those accusations in court. And that he cannot do.Shortly after the fire began in the southeast corner of the complex, Davidians David Thibodeau, Derek Lovelock, Jamie Castillo, and Clive Doyle exited the chapel. Doyle had injuries on both sides of his hands consistent with liquid fuel burns. Graeme Craddock exited the chapel area through a window, entered the rear courtyard, and concealed himself in a concrete structure at the base of the water tower. He was not arrested until 3:30 p.m. At approximately 12:10 p.m., Davidian Renos Avraam exited to the roof. HRT agents attempted to help him to safety, although he resisted. Similarly, Davidian Ruth Riddle jumped from the white side roof but then reentered the complex. Special Agent James McGee exited his secure position in a Bradley, ran into the flaming building, and rescued Riddle against her will. Once Riddle was safely outside of the complex, McGee questioned her regarding the location of the children within the complex, but Riddle refused to answer. Marjorie Thomas and Misty Ferguson, who fell or jumped from the second floor on the white side of the complex, were badly burned. According to one of the Secret Service paramedics who treated her, Marjorie Thomas was in respiratory arrest and would have died had she not received the immediate medical care provided to her. During the course of the fire, a total of nine Davidians exited the complex. These Davidians were initially treated in the fortified medical position near the "T" intersection and then, transported to the rear medical area field hospital. The severely burned victims were flown by MedEvac helicopter to Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas. 7
Finally, it's hard for anybody to take a dispassionate stance on this issue. In fact, very few sources I have researched in this connection do so. In particular, there seems to be a large body bent on using this case to vent their own anti-government hostility. In the light of recent events I hear echoes of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in some of these diatribes.
References
1 Mike McNulty, e-mail on 24 January 2002.
2 David T. Hardy's Web site is at http://www.hardylaw.net/.
3 http://www.sirostech.com/about/DBG.html
4 http://www.spie.org/conferences/programs/01/or/confs/4370.html
5 http://www.indirect.com/www/dhardy/allard.html
6 http://osc-waco.org/VDS/vds.pdf
7 http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/pdf/finalreport.pdf
Lets see:
Apollo 1 - Three died on the pad, burnt to death because of a electrical short.
Challenger - 7 died on liftoff because of faulty O-rings.
And the lastest - All dead because of falling insulation during liftoff.
NASA safety policy, procedure and results are ineffective.
Eavesdropping federal agents recorded the leadership issuing orders to start the fire.
I believe that is a bold face lie
Have you heard the tapes? .
Yes or No?
If you have not, then you are just a shrill.
When they interview some FLIR experts, let me know.
HAVE you ever seen an electron?
HOW is it you have the faith, then, to repeatedly 'take' someone else's account of how they 'work' - day in and day out - and rely upon the studied work of others in specifying the safety standards and practices used in building devices that use said electrons?
The answer is - you haven't, yet, you continue to use said 'unseen electrons' on a daily basis relying on a HUGE body of knowledge embodied in science which *has* proven their existance (AT LEAST to the point we can engineer useful products that employ their 'effects').
So, too, do I rely on the studied and detailed work on credible, credentialed professionals who have studied and verified 'said tapes' thereby authenticating the veracity of the events as related by the Law Enforcement personnel present at Mt. Carmel ...
Do the pseudo-patriot web sites you harken-to for information on this subject EVER detail the work done by a Mrs. Lena Klasén on this subject -
- or review the work performed by Vector Data Systems?
I'LL BET NOT.
Well then, I'll spell out for you in some detail what they found/determined via data and 'experiments' they participated in or reviewed -
- excerpted from "The Final Report"
(a) FLIR Testing and Analysis. Virtually the only evidence cited by those claiming government agents fired shots into the complex on April 19, 1993, is the FLIR videos recorded by the FBI Nightstalker aircraft from approximately 10:42 a.m. to 12:41 p.m. on that day. In fact, however, this evidence strongly supports the conclusion that no agent of the United States fired a shot on April 19.The FLIR tapes show 57 flashes, emanating principally from alleged Davidian positions inside or on top of the complex. Eighteen of the flashes occur on the back side of the complex, with some occurring around government vehicles that were operating near the complex. During the past three years, representatives of the Davidians and several independent experts retained by the media and Congress have concluded that gunfire could have caused or did cause these flashes. The FBI and its experts have claimed that the flashes are reflections or “glint” coming from debris scattered in and around the complex.
The Office of Special Counsel retained two teams of experts to analyze the FLIR tapes from April 19. Working with the United States district court judge in the civil litigation brought by some of the Davidians and their families against the United States government, the Office of Special Counsel and its expert, Vector Data Systems (U.K.) Ltd., conducted a field test of FLIR technology at Fort Hood, Texas on March 19, 2000. The purpose of the test was to identify the thermal signature, if any, that gunfire and debris would leave on a FLIR recording.
The Office of Special Counsel conducted the test under a protocol agreed to and signed by both the attorneys and experts for the government and the attorneys and experts for the Davidians and their families. The protocol identified the FLIR equipment, the weapons, and the other conditions that would best approximate the scene at Waco in 1993.
Based on a detailed analysis of the shape, duration and location of the 57 flashes noted on the 1993 FLIR tapes, and a comparison of those flashes with flashes recorded on the March 2000 FLIR test tape, Vector Data Systems (U.K.) Ltd., concluded with certainty that each of the flashes noted on the 1993 tapes resulted from a reflection off debris on or around the complex. These conclusions are supported by color photographs which show the reflective debris at the exact location of many of the flashes noted on the 1993 tapes.
Mrs. Lena Klasén, a second independent expert retained by the Office of Special Counsel, concluded that thermal activity caused by human movement or motion did not exist near or around the area of the flashes noted on the FLIR tapes. She further concluded that photographs taken during the tear gas insertion show no people at or near the points from which the flashes emanated. Mrs. Klasén also performed a three-dimensional analysis of the reflection geometry existing at the complex on April 19, 1993. This analysis accounted for the Nightstalker’s movement, the position of the FLIR sensor, and the changing angle of the sun. Based on this analysis, Klasén, like Vector, concluded that the flashes on the 1993 tapes were from debris. The FLIR test and the expert analyses prove conclusively that the FLIR tapes do not evidence gunfire directed at the Davidians from government positions. Copies of the Reports of the FLIR experts retained by the Office of Special Counsel are attached hereto as Appendices H and I.
- for were it *true* you would faithfully produce the two dead men as proof.
(And I see you CAN'T refute the facts presented here either, so - who is 'using words as an octopus uses ink'?)
From reading his work - yes.
Does McNulty and his motley crew of filmmakers likewise have any industry exposure/practical use of same?
Self-styled debunkers mean nothing. They have thoroughly *debunked* the moon landings several times. Sometimes the debunkers need debunking.
FBI Secrets: An Agent's Exposeby M. Wesley Swearingen, 1994Reviewed by Jon RolandWes Swearingen served as an FBI agent from 1951 until he retired in 1977. During that period he perpetrated or witnessed numerous violations of law by FBI agents and their operatives, heard revealing statements by other agents about their illegal activities, and read files which documented violations of the rights of American citizens. The activities of FBI agents and their "informers" include warrantless break-ins, theft, fraud, kidnapping, perjury, fabrication of evidence, suborning of witness perjury, and murder. The targets were political dissidents: anyone FBI agents didn't like. Swearingen details how members of the Black Panthers were murdered by FBI operatives, another was framed for a murder he didn't commit, and still others were prosecuted on trumped up charges. He does not mention anything about the deaths of John or Robert Kennedy or Martin Luther King, but he describes an agency so deeply involved in criminal activity of every kind as to be capable of causing the deaths of those men and others who have died under mysterious circumstances. He describes various files on political dissidents, called the "Security Index" and the "Reserve Index", which eventually included about 500,000 names, and which were the persons to be arrested without warrant and taken to detention areas in the event of a national security emergency. For those who are inclined to dismiss such concerns as paranoid, here is supporting evidence, notwithstanding the repeal of authorizing legislation in 1971, which would not stop people like these. Swearingen provides an insider's view of the COINTELPRO program of suppression of political dissidents, but also tells us that the program continues to this day under another name, apparently without a paper trail. He paints a picture of an agency riddled with corruption, incompetence, and inefficiency, composed of men who may have once been patriots, but who have been reduced to common criminals, whose crime fighting activities are limited at best and largely for show, with political repression being the primary mission. Some may suggest that the FBI may have been reformed since Swearingen left the agency in 1977, and no longer does the things he describes. Certainly there have been some reform efforts, particularly during the period Edward Levi was Attorney-General, and we would expect another generation of agents to have taken the place of those Swearingen worked with, but available evidence, including continuing harassment of Wes by his former agency, indicate it has not been reformed at all. There have been other books by former FBI agents that have told similar tales, such as William Turner, author of _Hoover's FBI: The Men and the Myth_, and books by former agents of the CIA, such as those by Philip Agee, John Stockwell, Victor Marchetti, Frank Snepp, and Ralph McGehee. It seems likely that similar books remain to be written by agents of almost every agency of the U.S. government, revealing them as criminal enterprises and implicating almost every employee as criminal conspirators. Such agents should read this book and begin gathering the evidence they will need to take out with them. Even Swearingen still speaks with pride of his crimefighting activities, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there is no constitutional authority or federal jurisdiction for statutes against the offenses he was investigating, making enforcement in federal courts itself a criminal violation of the civil rights of the targets, even when they really are bad guys who deserve to be prosecuted under applicable state laws. The most important thing this book reveals is the mindset of government agents, and the way otherwise good men get corrupted by the system of which they become a part. They are totally ignorant of the principles of constitutional republic government, and willing to do whatever works, regardless of legality. Their arrogance was revealed in a statement by Special Agent Joseph G. Deegan in 1977: "We are the only ones who know what is good for the country, and we are the only ones who can do anything about it." After reading this book and others, it is clear that this statement reflects a dangerous delusion of grandeur. Anyone who is involved in any kind of politically significant activity, or who is concerned about the future of this country, needs to read this book to learn how government agents operate and how citizens can defend themselves against them, both in court and in the field. These agents are not very effective, and people should not be awed by them. Standing up to them works if one exercises a few simple precautions, such as taping all encounters and having witnesses around at all times. Going armed at all times may not be a bad idea, either. Available from:South End Press
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