From: viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson)
Subject: Re: BATF/FBI Murders Almost Everyone in Waco Today! 4/19
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Lines: 44

In <C5rynw.Iz8@news.udel.edu> roby@chopin.udel.edu (Scott W Roby) writes:

>And I suppose the FBI also prevented them from coming out with their 
>hands up while national tv cameras watch.

	Would *you* have come out if you knew the only national TV
cameras were well over a mile away, and yet the agents with the guns
were only a few yards away?  They had contact with a lawyer, so I
am inclined to believe they had an idea of what their situation
actually was.  This also leads to the conspiracy theory that the
lawyer had the BATF pinned on rights violations if the BD's
acted as witnesses, hence the arson.  I doubt that one too, but
it is still quite clear that leaving a safe place to surrender is
a rather stupid thing to do until that place is no longer safe.

>Do you disbelieve everything the FBI says?

	As a matter of course, given how they've allowed no other
views to be heard.  I'll reserve judgement until the trial, but so
far as the FBI is concerned their statements carry the same amount
of weight as photons at rest.

>The BATF is by no means devoid of fault in the handling of this affair.
>But to suggest that they may have intentionally started the fire is 
>ludicrous.

	Ludicrous, yes.  Possible, yes.  Plausible?  Get the jury.

>If the fire were set by accident or by people outside the compound, I would 
>have expected far more cult members to flee the compound.  Or at least come 
>out shooting.

	That's what gets me too.  It is likely the cult members were
holed up in an enforced place inside the building.  With a decent arson
attempt I suspect many of them could have been trapped.  In addition,
the introduction of CS gas for several hours would have rendered many
of them immobile if not unconscious when their masks quit.  All the props
are there, but proving what scene was played is difficult.  The only
certainty is that the FBI and BATF have few witnesses against them.

< Dan Sorenson, DoD #1066 z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu viking@iastate.edu >
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