DOCUMENTING THE DISTURBING TRUTH
The effort to restore the role of law to its proper prominence in our society sometimes defies tidy ideological categories. No better illustration of this can be found than the impressive documentary Waco: The Rules of Engagement, which was produced by two veteran liberal filmmakers, Dan and Amy Gifford. "People who disputed the government's lies [about the Waco siege and cover-up] were branded 'militia types' and 'religious kooks.'" observed syndicated columnist Paul Craig Roberts. "The affair was on its way down the memory hole when two liberals, Dan and Amy Gifford, found their conscience." The resulting documentary earned raves upon its debut at the liberal-left Sundance Film Festival in 1997, a slew of enthusiastically favorable notices from publications that span both the nation and the ideological spectrum, and was recently nominated for an Academy Award in the Documentary category.
The critical success of Rules of Engagement illustrates that "distrust of the federal government is no longer confined to right-wing extremists, but is firmly rooted in Middle America" notes a press release from Fifth Estate Productions, which produced the documentary. This is largely because, as film critic Roger Ebert points out, "You can look in the eyes of the people in this film and tell who you feel is telling the truth and who isn't." After wading through the official mendacity of federal authorities, and being treated to the chilling spectacle of federal troops boasting on camera about their willingness and eagerness to kill the Davidians, notes Ebert, the audience must conclude that if you're looking for people who are unbalanced zealots, you don't find them among the Branch Davidians, you find them among the FBI and the [Bureau of] Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; those are the people in this movie who deserve to be feared, I think."
"I can suggest three instructive purposes for the film," commented a reviewer in the left-wing journal The Nation. "You can use it to teach basic arithmetic: Have young people count the instances when officers of the government trampled on the Bill of Rights. You can turn the picture into material for an MBA program, showing future managers the benefits of inattention. (When you want something ugly done, your underlings will carry out the job on their own while you look the other way, leaving you fresh and clean. Just ask Janet Reno.) And of course the film deserves a place in the curriculum of every school of journalism. Facing the equivalent of a federally convened lynch mob, the Branch Davidians appealed to reporters to act as witnesses and go-betweens. By failing to step forward — let alone think about what was happening before their eyes the majority of journalists helped define as unreasonable any protest over the episode."
The information blockade erected by the FBI during the siege constituted a terrifying precedent by imposing wartime news controls on a domestic law enforcement exercise. As David Kopel and Paul Blackman point out in No More Wacos, the FBI confiscated film from independent journalists and prevailed upon the FCC to revoke the broadcast license of radio station KRLD, which was broadcasting coverage of the siege that was sympathetic to the Branch Davidians. The FBI also refused to release a videotape made by the Davidians during the siege, as the Bureau was fearful that dissemination of the tape would undermine the carefully constructed caricature of the Davidians as irrational, violent cultists. Rules of Engagement displays footage from that videotape, as well as a wealth of other information that was suppressed by federal authorities during the siege and the subsequent cover-up. Of course, the most dramatic — and troubling — footage is provided by images captured through Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR) technology during the climactic armored assault of April 19th. Analysis of the heat signatures contained on the FLIR footage strongly suggests that FBI troops armed with automatic weapons systematically thwarted efforts by Davidians to escape from the burning church, cutting down some who tried to flee. As the film documents, the FLIR footage and the critical expert analysis thereof had been available to the CBS News program 60Minutes, which spiked this incredibly important story.
Those who are understandably outraged by the Waco atrocity, and frustrated by the continuing refusal of Congress to hold its perpetrators accountable, will find some vindication in the success of Rules of Engagement. The process of public accountability begins with public awareness, and the success of Rules of Engagement illustrates that the necessary awareness continues to grow — even in Hollywood.
— William Norman Grigg
Waco: The Rules of Engagement (VHS, 136 min.) is available for $25.00, plus $2.00 for postage and handling, from: American Opinion Book Services, P.O. Box 8040. Appleton, WI 54913. Or call: 1-800-342-6491
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