This Is Not an Assault: Penetrating the Web of Official Lies Regarding the Waco Incident [Kindle Edition]

The sheer brazenness of the ATF's (and later the FBI's) claims about how evidence went missing is incredible. First, the ATF claimed that there was no video footage and no still footage; when Hardy proved that there were at least two still cameras and four video cameras, it turned out that ATF was having massive troubles on February 28. One still camera's owner "forgot to take pictures". One still camera was stolen from a room under control of the ATF. The automatic video camera across the street failed for no known reason. The video camera near the radio van also failed, and, oh, we gave the tape away without making a copy. A forward observer's video camera may have existed once, but we can't find it anymore. The overhead video camera in the helicopter worked fine--except for the important moment when the gunfight began. Yes, there was another video camera in that helicopter; here's the footage--which also inexplicably failed at the exact same moment.

The disappearances were universal. Even the blank videotape from the failing video camera across the street disappeared. So did the door that both Davidians and ATF claimed would prove their case.

Throughout this book, you come to care less about whose fault it was or how horrible either side was, but about the incredible blatantness of the ATF and FBI coverup. Evidence lost, cameras from multiple sources all inexplicably losing video at the same, important, time. Still cameras disappearing from the evidence table; videotape from multiple sources but all aimed at the same location all disappearing; the mysterious front door. All gone, none of it the fault of Davidians, but of government agents. And a massive, twelve million dollar Justice Department investigation not doing anything about it except indicting the one whistle-blower who brought one of those disappearances to light. If it hadn't been for Bill Johnston, no one would know about the incendiary devices used at Waco by the FBI, or even about the twelve tons of evidence held by the Texas Rangers. When ex-Senator Danforth's Justice investigation was over, he spent pages and pages explaining why all the other cases of perjury weren't worth litigating over--only the whistleblower deserved to be arrested.

He might as well have just taken that twelve million dollars and erected a gigantic neon billboard over Washington DC saying "Of course it was the ATF and FBI's fault!"

Hardy's book is poorly edited but brilliantly written; the hunt for official documents is fascinating; the analysis of those documents chilling. Liberals who fear a police state will have their fears confirmed, and Conservatives who believe in strong law enforcement should receive a wake up call from "This Is Not An Assault."

This book is neither on the political left nor the political right.... it draws high praise from conservatives, and from Gore Vidal. In my eyes, the latter is decisive; when America's most brilliant living author praises an unknown writer's text, nothing more needs to be said.

The book carefully documents the evidence from which each conclusion is drawn. We are neither handed the authors' conclusions on a platter, nor buried as they plod through unorganized data. The points are made, the evidence set out, and the reader is assumed to be intelligent enough to make his own judgment. That said, the authors' insight is at times astonishing. They pick up details of a radio call overheard on a media videotape -- details of how a government sniper dons his equipment on a government-made videotape -- how dozens of 911 call tapes can be interlinked to give a solid timeline on the entire event. Like Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, these writers not only see, but observe. This book took not only writing skill, but first-rate intellectual abilities.

One warning to the reader: the first 10% of the book is a sedate summing up of the traditional view of the Waco incident. At that point, put on your seat belts, because the book suddenly kicks into gear! This is not a detached history of events, but a narrative written by interesting, energetic, and obviously extremely intelligent authors, one of whom who was personally involved in much of the history he documents. By his account, he started in trying to write a scholarly treatment of trends in law enforcement -- and found himself stepping through the looking glass.

One astonishing book, and the best yet on Waco.