The Ashes of Waco: An Investigation
by Dick J. Reavis

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Book Reviews of The Ashes of Waco: An Investigation

Book Review: A Good Place to Start
Summary: 4 Stars

Now, if you are pro-ATF/FBI then you will not like this book. The author does have a decidedly pro-Davidian bias to his writing so it is not an evenhanded version of the story but it stops short of being an ultra-right wing diatribe. It is what I believe to be basically the truth concerning the matter and that is that despite the technicalities of the alleged wrongdoing of the Davidians the government grossly overstepped its authority and trampled the Constitution that they are sworn to uphold in order to get their way.

The real issues here are not whether the Davidians broke some relatively minor firearms law or even whether they committed suicide by setting the fire that killed them or whether the government set the fire accidentally or deliberately. It is about a government that has a warped sense of what's right and basically makes war on its own citizens in order to prove that it is in control. It is about the frightening trend of our government to think of themselves as our rulers and above the law that they are sworn to uphold and it is certainly a chilling realization of that old saying about absolute power corrupting absolutely.

The bottom line for me is that the ATF planned this raid as an attack from the get go to make itself look good for their upcoming budget review and chose a fringe religious group to exploit because they thought that they would be good fodder for them from a political perspective. Then when their home invasion tactics blew up in their face they and the FBI basically systematically assassinated those people because they had the temerity to stand up to the federal government's thuggery. In the end they tried to cover up their wrongdoing and punish the survivors for embarrassing them. Even if you believe that David Koresh and his people were a bunch of kooks it shouldn't matter: what the government did to those people is just wrong.

If you have any interest in hearing the non-government version of what went on during this business then give this book a try, but read other versions too. I also recommend "No More Wacos: What's Wrong with Federal Law Enforcement and How to Fix it".

Law enforcement should not be about using tanks to smash down walls to force people to submit; those are war tactics that have no place in how a government treats the citizens of a free society.

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