Did the FBI start the fire or was it a mass suicide by the Branch Davidians? I've heard from all sides, and I'm more leaning that the FBI may be holding on to more than they are letting on. I would love a report from someone that is impartial to both sides. Also, the limited series on Netflix is fantastic.
I just finished the special the podcast American Scandal did on it. https://wondery.com/shows/american-scandal/
The fires in the building started in the same exact spots where the FBI hit the building with military incendiary shells. Then the FBI said that the cultists must have started the fires to commit suicide. It must have required skill to start fires at the same spots where fire-causing artillery punched through the walls, at the same moment the women were starting the fires to make the FBI look bad. Fortunately, the media didn't fall for it, and has always reported it as mass suicide.
If this is on spotify I'll check it out. I'm fascinated by the demure in which the Davidians worked under. Seemed non violent, willing to work it out... and the FBI just swooped in. This is not to say that Koresh wasn't wrong and awful in his own right, but I can definitely see the juxtaposition between the "only-in-self-defense" Davidians vs the "at-all-costs" Government. I just feel awful for all those people that didn't get to see outside again, and the 50+ day slow demise of everything they knew. I often wonder what they were thinking about on that last day, last hour before it all went down. Were they still faithful? Were they, in some way, hopeful that they were now going to this eternal life? It was a cult, with my declaration of that riding on the fact that Koresh did consider himself the son of god and made other people believe that, too. The milquetoast nature with which they went about it was sort of endearing, though. I do love those things with which make me push and pull and grapple with my emotions/logics, etc. That's why this to me was so fascinating.
Towards the end of the special on netflix, They talked about how the FBI/ATF/etc used CS gas (Non-lethal tear gas) on several other standoffs... all that resulted in fires. So that in itself makes sense. I havent heard much on the front of military incendiary shells... just the tear gas.
I was exposed to both what they called CS gas and what they called tear gas. We also were exposed to chlorine gas. The tear gas was unpleasant but tolerable. Made your eyes tear up. The CS gas made some guys, the ones who didn't get their protective masks on in time, throw up. Is CS gas another type of tear gas than the other kind I described? I don't know but I'm guessing the Army correctly told us of the two different types of gas, CS and tear.
I just watched episode 1 last night on Netflix. I'm intrigued and interested to relive what happened. All of this happened when I was like 10 or so, so I remember everything but have forgotten or never picked up all the details at that age. I just finished the Unabomber docuseries the other day as well. Same thing, so many details about the Unabomber I never realized when I was younger. Both of these are inspiring me to get off the grid and do my own thing
