|
|
Title: Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion
Purchase
Item
Manufacturer: Seven Stories Press
List Price: $24.95
Our Price: $15.61
|
|
| Customer Reviews: |
| Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by Seven Stories Press Must read for all Americans | Every time the news reports a homicide even remotely connected to crack (and this would include most gang related murders, even to this day..), they should mention the international crack trade and its role. This will never happen, obviously, which is why we need people like the late Gary Webb in this country.
My only problem with the book, it goes into detail a bit too extensive for my attention span. But there's an obvious reason for this; the book is primarily written to back up his news story in which the mainstream press vilified him for, accusing him of unsubstantiated claims. The full circle detail is necessary. Fortunately, Webb is a good enough writer where even someone with no more than a high school education, like myself, can hang in there and read the entire book without resorting to skimming over paragraphs. Just when I start to say to myself, "alright, got it, we know these guys are contras, we know they're dope runners...what now?", the question is seemingly answered in the following paragraph. I don't know if a writer could have done a better job balancing the act of exhausting resources and laying all of them into full detail and making the book understandable to a lay person like me.
One of the most important books ever written on government corruption and its effect on it's citizenry. As you're reading this review, crack cocaine is still eating American inner cities alive. Rest in Peace, Gary Webb. And may your courageous reporting echo through this country as long as poor American communities suffer from this pandemic. | | Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by Seven Stories Press Dark Alliance | This book is outstanding!It's a shame that such a talented investigative
journalist had to lose his life because of it's content. | | Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by Seven Stories Press How the "National Security State" Works When "We the People" are not "minding the store." | In this rather mind-boggling expose, award winning reporter, Gary Webb, who unfortunately was forced to commit himself to suicide, eventually gave his life to this cause, dots all of the "I's" and crosses all of the "T's" in this Alice in Wonderland journey deep into the bowels of the American national security run state apparatus. The reader gets a healthy dose of how bad a democracy can get when no one is "minding the National Security State." In graphic form, Webb outlines how it can happen that an administration that has declared "war on drugs" can actually end up in bed with the likes of Pablo Escobar, Manuel Noreiga, and the Ochoa brothers.
Spread out before us in excruciating and embarrassing (if not often tedious) details is a picture of what can happen when a "twisted set of means" (using the proceeds of drug sales to finance an ill-advised counterinsurgency) are put to "questionable ideological ends" (overthrowing a Marxist run government to return the much hated Somocitas to power). The book demonstrates that when this illicit "means-end" pair, are allowed to operate under the cover of secrecy; behind the shield of "plausible deniability;" and under the guise of sensible national security policy, it can literally suck all of the oxygen out of a democracy.
In an effort to return the brutal and much hated Somoza regime back to power, by supporting the remnants and holdovers of that deposed regime (a ragtag bunch of crooks, thieves, drug traffickers and murders if there ever was one), reassembled as the Nicaraguan "Contras." The "Just say no to drugs" Reagan administration, ended up in bed with the worse drug traffickers of our times.
But if being in bed with the most notorious drug traffickers in the world was not bad enough, the worse aspect of this foreign policy disaster was sacrificing a whole generation of America's inner city youth to a death sentence as a result of a nation awash in an ocean of "crack" cocaine. America intercity life will never recover from this disaster.
The Story
When the two Boland amendments, prohibiting funding for a U.S. backed "Contra army," were passed, the Reagan White House, at the suggestion of none other than Colonel Oliver North himself, sought to find financing by other more novel means; to wit: North suggested that since various national security agencies were already keeping close tabs on the drug traffickers, why not allow the drug cartels free access to our "inner city drug market," in exchange for them plowing back some of their drug profits into financing the "Contra" army? When this suggestion was made in a high level meeting, most attendees were surprised and embarrassed for North for having made such a stupid idea. However, a new clever strategy had just been born, and the wheels of the national security state began to turn. According to the book (confirmed only by Escobar himself) the then Vice President Bush met with Pablo Escobar personally and "cut the deal" that led to the "crack explosion" of the mid-80s.
The Rest of the Story
Although millions of dollars in weapons and aid from drug proceeds did eventually reach the "Contras," never was there a respectable force fielded sufficient to challenge the Sandinistas. However, in the process of destroying a whole generation of black inner city youth, fueling an internecine war between ghetto street gangs, erecting a string of more than ten thousand crack houses across the nation, and filling up the jails, adoption centers and mental hospitals, the "Contra fiasco" did make a handful of drug dealers such as LA's cocaine Kingpin "Freeway Ricky Ross, rich.
The only drawback to the book is that because of the gravity and nature of the charges against the Reagan administration, it was imperative that every detail be well documented. The main resources are court records retrieved from the many indictments, etc. As a result, getting through the book is slow and tedious. But it is well worth the extra time. | | Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by Seven Stories Press Cloak and Dagger US Government style | | Gary Webb uncovered a secret government backed scheme to flood the Black and Latino/Hispanic communities with cocaine and crack in the 1990's. He worked as a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News. He was contacted by an informant. He is drawn in first by the fact that he is in every sense an investigative reporter.More and more the speculation becomes fact and the facts spun into a web of truth that this government can not deny.The real and the real real is that Gary Webb was harrassed by the government to the point where he could take no more. He took his own life. THIS IS A TRUE STORY.THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU WHEN YOU KNOW TOO MUCH.DARK ALLIANCE is intrigue at its best. The characters and the consequences are are realistic because they ARE real.THIS REALLY DID HAPPEN. | | Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by Seven Stories Press CIA Case Officer from Central American Era Validates This Book | I am probably the only reviewer who was a clandestine case officer (three back to back tours), who participated in the Central American follies as both a field officer and a desk officer at CIA HQS, who is also very broadly read.
With great sadness, I must conclude that this book is truthful, accurate, and explosive.
The book lacks some context, for example, the liberal Saudi funding for the Contras that was provided to the National Security Council (NSC) as a back-door courtesy.
There are three core lessons in this book, supported by many books, some of which I list at the end of this review:
1) The US Government cannot be trusted by the people. The White House, the NSC, the CIA, even the Justice Department, and the Members of Congress associated with the Administration's party, are all liars. They use "national security" as a pretext for dealing drugs and screwing over the American people.
2) CIA has come to the end of its useful life. I remain proud to have been a clandestine case officer, but I see now that I was part of the "fake" CIA going through the motions, while extremely evil deeds were taking place in more limited channels.
3) In the eyes of the Nicaraguan, Guatemalan, and Honduran people, among many others, the US Government, as represented by the CIA and the dark side Ambassadors who are partisan appointees rather than true diplomats, is evil. It consorts with dictators, condones torture, helps loot the commonwealths of others, runs drugs, launders money, and is generally the bully on the block.
I have numerous notes on the book, and will list just a few here that are important "nuggets" from this great work:
1) The CIA connection to the crack pandemic could be the crime of the century. It certainly destroys the government's moral legitimacy in the eyes of the people.
2) The fact that entrepreneur Ricky Ross went to jail for life, while his supplier, Nicaraguan Blandon, was constantly protected by CIA and the Department of Justice, is a travesty.
3) Nicaragua, under Somoza, was the US Government's local enforcer, and CIA was his most important liaison element. As long as we consort with 44 dictators (see Ambassador Palmer's "The Real Axis of Evil," we should expect to be reviled by the broader populations.
4) I believe that beginning with Henry Kissinger, the NSC and the CIA have had a "eugenics" policy that considers the low-income blacks to be "expendable" as well as a nuisance, and hence worthy of being targeted as a market for drugs to pull out what income they do have.
5) I believe that CIA was unwitting of the implications of crack, but that Congress was not. The book compellingly describes the testimony provided to Congress in 1979 and again in 1982, about the forthcoming implications of making a cocaine derivative affordable by the lowest income people in our Nation.
6) The Administration and Congress, in close partnership with the "mainstream media," consistently lied, slandered witnesses to the truth, and generally made it impossible for the truth to be "heard."
7) The ignorance of the CIA managers about the "ground truth" in Nicaragua and Honduras, and their willingness to carry out evil on command from the White House, without actually understanding the context, the true feelings of the people, or even the hugely detrimental strategic import of what they were about to do to Los Angeles, simply blow me away. We need to start court-martialling government employees for being stupid on the people's payroll.
8) CIA officers should not be allowed to issue visas. When they are under official cover they are assigned duty officer positions, and the duty officer traditionally has access to the visa stamp safe for emergencies (because the real visa officers are too lazy to be called in for an emergency).
9) I recently supported a movie on Ricky Ross, one that immediately won three awards in 2006 for best feature-length documentary, and I have to say, on the basis of this book, that Rick Ross was clearly not a gang member; was a tennis star and all-around good guy, was trying to make school grades; was disciplined, professional, and entrepreneurial. He did not create the cocaine, he did not smuggle it into the country, he simply acted on the opportunity presented to him by the US Government and its agent Blandon.
10) There is a connection between CIA, the private sector prison managers in the US, and prisoners. This needs a more careful look.
11) Clinton's bodyguards (many of whom have died mysteriously since then) were fully witting of Bill and Hillary Clinton's full engagement in drug smuggling into the US via Arkansas, and CIA's related nefarious activities.
12) CIA not only provided post-arrest white washes for its drug dealers, but they also orchestrated tip-offs on planned raids.
13) Both local police departments, especially in California, and the US Government, appear to have a standard "loot and release" program where drug dealers caught with very large amounts of cash (multiple millions) are instantly freed in return for a quit claim on the money.
14) CIA Operations Officers (clandestine case officers) lied not just to the FBI and Justice, but to their own CIA lawyers.
15) DEA in Costa Rica was dirtier than most, skimming cash and protecting drug transports.
The book ends with a revelation and an observation.
The revelation: just prior to both the Contra drug deals and the CIA's ramping up in Afghanistan, which now provides 80% of the world's heroin under US administration, the CIA and Justice concluded a Memorandum of Understanding that gave CIA carte blanche in the drug business.. The author says this smacked of premeditation, and I agree.
The observation: here is a quote from page 452: " ...the real danger the CIA has always presented--unbridled criminal stupidity, clouded in a blanked of national security."
Shame on us all. It's time to clean house.
Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth'
The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade
Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, Updated edition
The Big White Lie: The Deep Cover Operation That Exposed the CIA Sabotage of the Drug War : An Undercover Odyssey
Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb
The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA
From BCCI to ISI: The Saga of Entrapment Continues
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025
Fog Facts : Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin (Nation Books)
| | Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by Seven Stories Press Product Description | Dark Alliance is a book that should be fiction, whose characters seem to come straight out of central casting: the international drug lord, Norwin Meneses; the Contra cocaine broker with an MBA in marketing, Danilo Blandon; and the illiterate teenager from the inner city who rises to become the king of crack, "Freeway" Ricky Ross. But unfortunately, these characters are real and their stories are true.
In August 1996, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb stunned the world with a series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News reporting the results of his year-long investigation into the roots of the crack cocaine epidemic in America, specifically in Los Angeles. The series, titled "Dark Alliance," revealed that for the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to Los Angeles street gangs and funneled millions in drug profits to the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras.
Now Gary Webb has pushed his investigation even further in his book, Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Drawing from recently declassified documents, undercover DEA audio and videotapes that have never been publicly released, federal court testimony, and interviews, Webb demonstrates how our government knowingly allowed massive amounts of drugs and money to change hands at the expense of our communities. Congressional inquiries into these allegations are ongoing; results of the internal investigations by both the CIA and the Justice Department are pending. | | Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by Seven Stories Press Amazon.com | | In July 1995, San Jose Mercury-News reporter Gary Webb found the Big One--the blockbuster story every journalist secretly dreams about--without even looking for it. A simple phone call concerning an unexceptional pending drug trial turned into a massive conspiracy involving the Nicaraguan Contra rebels, L.A. and Bay Area crack cocaine dealers, and the Central Intelligence Agency. For several years during the 1980s, Webb discovered, Contra elements shuttled thousands of tons of cocaine into the United States, with the profits going toward the funding of Contra rebels attempting a counterrevolution in their Nicaraguan homeland. Even more chilling, Webb quickly realized, was that the massive drug-dealing operation had the implicit approval--and occasional outright support--of the CIA, the very organization entrusted to prevent illegal drugs from being brought into the United States. Within the pages of Dark Alliance, Webb produces a massive amount of evidence that suggests that such a scenario did take place, and more disturbing evidence that the powers that be that allowed such an alliance are still determined to ruthlessly guard their secrets. Webb's research is impeccable--names, dates, places, and dollar amounts gather and mount with every page, eventually building a towering wall of evidence in support of his theories. After the original series of articles ran in the Mercury-News in late 1996, both Webb and his paper were so severely criticized by political commentators, government officials, and other members of the press that his own newspaper decided it best not to stand behind the series, in effect apologizing for the assertions and disavowing his work. Webb quit the paper in disgust in November 1997. His book serves as both a complex memoir of the time of the Contras and an indictment of the current state of America's press; Dark Alliance is as necessary and valuable as it is horrifying and grim. --Tjames Madison |
| |
