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Waco: Carlos Ghigliotti's report
Carlos was an infrared expert-- here's more on him.
On April 19, the day of the fire, FBI had an aircraft circling overhead with a FLIR unit (FLIR=Forward Looking InfraRed, a title still used after the units got small enough to where they no longer had to be mounted looking forward). This produced monochrome videotapes that showed heat. An issue arose as to whether they also showed gunfire coming from FBI positions before and during the fire -- the FBI denied it fired a shot that day. Several experts said the tapes did reflect gunshots.
The House Committee on Government Reform hired Carlos to examine the tapes. Unfortunately, he died from a heart attack (a weakness that ran in his family). The Committee thereupon issued statements that he'd never given them a report, that they were about to fire him, and essentially disavowing everything to do with him.
There was one problem with that story. Carlos had faxed me the report right after he gave it to the committee and briefed its staff. He found there were indeed gunshots. In fact, he pieced together an encounter. A Davidian appeared to throw something at an armored vehicle, and the something went off with a quick burst of heat. The hatches on the vehicle opened, some people dismounted, and fired in the direction of the fleeing Davidian. The battle went on from there. Carlos told me that as he played and paused the video for the congressional staffers, explaining what they were seeing, they looked like they were sucking on lemons.
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@Old Guy: People who say "it can't happen here" are engaged in fantasy.
The common factor among every incident of "it" happening has been that it was done by the hand of man.
Taken as a species, man has many flaws. One of the greatest is that it doesn't take much to get us to perpetrate violence against our fellow man.
The thing that is troubling is that so often people say the military and the police will not follow unconstitutional edicts in the case of administration becoming a dictatorship, But this seems to suggest that can not be counted on.