Clicking on banner ads enables JWR to constantly improve
Jewish World Review May 8, 2000 /3 Iyar, 5760

Michelle Malkin

JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Arianna Huffington
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Debbie Schlussel
Sam Schulman
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports
Newswatch

Trakdata


Focus on the real Waco

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- ELIAN GONZALEZ GROUPIES continue to call the Easter weekend raid in Miami "another Waco." These people need a Texas-sized kick in the rear.

There is only one Waco. It's a travesty to compare the government's bloodless, three-minute retrieval of one little Cuban boy to the 51-day federal siege, capped by a fatal inferno, which claimed the lives of 21 innocent children and 59 adults on their native soil. If Beltway opportunists truly cared a whit about the government's lethal use of force against defenseless citizens, they would determine the truth – once and for all – about shots fired at Branch Davidians trapped during the Waco assault.

Instead, we have the pathetic spectacle of Senate Republicans weeble-wobbling over whether to conduct a full-blown investigation for the sake of a single child who isn't even an American citizen.

One man who might have shed light on the lingering question of gunfire at Waco was Carlos Ghigliotti. Ghigliotti ran a Maryland-based firm called Infrared Technologies Corp., which had done extensive work for the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Ghigliotti was, by all accounts, a respected expert in forward-looking infrared (FLIR) imaging and analysis.

Last fall, after studying hundreds of hours of ground-view and overhead FLIR tapes of the Waco raid for the House Government Reform Committee, Ghigliotti concluded that the FBI had fired shots in the direction of the Branch Davidian compound during the final assault on April 19, 1993. The findings echo those of another prominent thermal-imaging expert: Dr. Edward Allard, a former Defense Department physicist, who designed the FLIR equipment used by the FBI and analyzed Waco footage for the ground-breaking documentary, "Waco: The Rules of Engagement." Allard had concluded that flashes on the tapes could only be interpreted as blasts from automatic weapons shot into the building and possibly at people trying to escape the fire.

The FBI continues to deny categorically that any agent fired any shots that day. But now, Carlos Ghigliotti cannot tell the public about his follow-up research refuting the government's claims.

Carlos Ghigliotti is dead.

The 42-year-old consultant's badly decomposed body was discovered last weekend at his lab in Laurel, Md., after a building manager -- worried that Ghigliotti had not been seen in several weeks -- contacted police. Police statements about Ghigliotti's death have evolved rather strangely. Initially, Officer Jim Collins told the press: "We're investigating it as a homicide." A few days later, despite not having seen final toxicology and autopsy reports, Collins stressed to me that "there is nothing to indicate foul play was involved."

Another spokesperson, Lt. Fred Carmen of the Laurel Police Department, said: "We are investigating it as an unintended death, that is, a deceased person with no immediately apparent cause of death."

Close followers of the Waco case are understandably suspicious. And why shouldn't they be? Law enforcement officials have repeatedly lied, stonewalled, and suppressed critical information on all aspects of the Waco case over the past seven years:

They lodged bogus charges of child abuse against Branch Davidians. They denied using incendiary devices during the raid – only to acknowledge having fired at least two flammable tear-gas canisters into the compound. They "misplaced" audio recordings from infrared footage that demonstrated official government orders to use pyrotechnics. They confiscated – then "lost" – vital autopsy evidence from the Tarrant County, TX., coroner's office.

And now, they want us to believe that what Ghigliotti and Allard separately concluded were gunshots were merely flashes of sunlight and reflections of broken window glass. (This is the government's defense against a $100 million wrongful death lawsuit arising from the Waco siege, which goes to trial next month.)

Curiously, the investigative House committee headed by Rep. Dan Burton (R-Indiana) is not interested in immediately reviewing the work Ghigliotti left behind. "As soon as we get all the necessary information, we will hold hearings and present the information to the American people," Burton said last fall. Still no hearings. Still no final answers.

How long will the real Waco take a backseat to the lesser outrages that have distracted the Attention Deficit Disorder-afflicted Congress?


JWR contributor Michelle Malkin can be reached by clicking here.

Up

05/05/00: An Internet victim's sad story
05/03/00: Phony pooh-bahs of journalism
05/01/00: Zoo tragedy triggers dumb reaction
04/24/00: Ecoterrorists on the loose
04/19/00: Beware of Elian's psychobabblers
04/17/00: The truth about Erin Brockovich
04/13/00: In defense of an armed citizenry
04/10/00: Playing hardball with taxpayers
04/06/00: Read W.'s lips: More new spending
04/04/00: The liberal media-in-training
03/31/00: Sticking it to the children
03/28/00: Declaring war on HOV lanes
03/22/00: Clinton and the Echo Boomers
03/17/00: Is Bush a Liddy Dole Republican?
03/13/00: Katie and the politics of disease
03/10/00: Maria H, Granny D, and the media Z's
03/07/00: Bubba Van Winkle wakes up
03/03/00: Double standard for day traders?
02/28/00: Sluts and nuts --- and our daughters
02/24/00: Zoning out religious freedom
02/15/00: The Baby Brain Boondoggle
02/10/00: Buddhist temple untouchables
02/08/00: CDC: Caught Devouring Cash
02/04/00: Hillary's poisoned poster child
02/01/00: Corporate welfare on ice
01/28/00: The silly sound of silence
01/26/00: The Old Media meltdown
01/20/00: The pied pipers of KidCare
01/18/00: Our imperious judiciary
01/14/00: Tune out Columbine chorus
01/12/00: Dying to be an American
01/10/00: Time for smokers' revolt?
12/30/99: Reading, writing, PlayStation?
12/27/99: Fight money-grubbing mallrats
12/23/99: Christmas for Cornilous Pixley
12/20/99: Who will help the Hmong?
12/16/99: Shame on corn-fed politicians
12/13/99: EPA vs. the American Dream
12/09/99: Look behind the Pokemon curtain
12/06/99: Amateur hour in Seattle
11/30/99: Stop the Ritalin racketeers
11/23/99: Welfare for a sports fatcat
11/19/99: Jeb Bush's political ploy of the week
11/16/99: Ben & Jerry serve up junk science
11/12/99: A monumental waste of our veterans' resources
11/10/99: Tax-and-spend schizophrenia
11/05/99: Spooky Guy Haunts the Capital
11/02/99: Mourning the loss of the last Liberty Tree
10/27/99: AOL goes AWOL on parents
10/22/99: The persecution of Harry Potter
10/20/99: Don't doctor the law
10/14/99: The trouble with kids today
10/12/99: Pro-animal, pro-abortion, anti-speech?
10/07/99: Beltway press corps needs more skunks
09/30/99: ESPN overlooks athlete of faith, grace, and guts
09/27/99: Personal freedom going up in smoke
09/15/99: Farewell, "Miss" America
09/10/99: Will George W. work for a color-blind America?
09/03/99: Feminization of gun debate drowns out sober analysis
08/27/99: America is abundant land of equal-opportunity insult
08/10/99: Protect the next generation from diversity do-goodism
08/04/99: Sweepstakes vs. state lottery: double standards on gambling
07/21/99: "True-life tales from the Thin Red Line" (or "Honor those who sacrificed their lives for peace")
07/21/99: Reading, 'Riting, and Raunchiness?
07/14/99: Journalists' group-think is not unity
06/30/99: July Fourth programming for the Springer generation
06/25/99: Speechless in Seattle
06/15/99: Making a biblical argument against federal death taxes

© 2000, Creators Syndicate