At 03:40 PM 9/9/99 -0700, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
>On Thu, 9 Sep 1999, Ian Goddard wrote:
>
>> This supports no other conclusion than
>> that mass murder was the Govt's intent.
>
>Not! It would be *highly* difficult to say the "government"
>as a big global body *intended* anything. The "intent" of
>*any* group of individuals, much less an organization such
>as a goverment is a difficult thing to determine and this
>statement screams of inflamatory rhetoric!
>
>The last time I checked, the *government* included such things
>as the congress, the president and the courts. And getting
>them to agree on things, particularly something such as
>"lets commit mass murder" seems very iffy in my opinion.
IAN: When I say "The intent of the Govt at Waco was X," I assume that most people would understand this to mean "All agents of the Govt who were involved in planning operations at Waco." One can, in fact, find statements to that effect through the literature on the subject. There's no real ambiguity here.
If someone said "The Govt did not plan to commit mass murder at Waco," it would not be logical to posit thus that their claim was "bogus" (as you suggest mine was) simply because they used a word with global meaning. So I fail to see the logic of your thinking.
As I see it, and maybe this is dishonest as you imply, if the FBI releases video to the Davidian's defense and on it there are muzzle flashes of guns firing heavily at the Center, firing in conjunction with the activities of tanks and heavily as the fire breaks out, this means that part of the plan was to fire guns at the Center even as the fire breaks. Because guns kill people, it therefore follows that part of the plan was to kill people, a lot of people, which is mass murder.
If the evidence shows Govt agents acting
in an organized/planned fashion, firing
guns into a building filled with people,
I can't think of any more appropriate
conclusion to draw than that the Govt
acted with intent to commit mass murder.
I'm sure that if the Davidians had so
assembled around a building and started
to fire heavily into it, anyone who said
they were NOT trying to commit mass murder
would be declared dishonest, but put Govt
agents in their place and the very same
conclusion would be portrayed as honest.