"The Dark Alliance" Declassified (by Lauren Harper 4-7-15 Unredacted/The National Security Archive)

[bobthedrummer]

"In 1996 San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb published an explosive three-part series, 'The Dark Alliance', on the connection between the genesis of the crack cocaine epidemic in California and across the U.S., to the contras, the CIA-run and Reagan-backed guerilla army operating out of Nicaragua..."

https://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/the-dark-alliance-declassified

Discuss.

on edit: corrected punctuation

[bobthedrummer]

1. If you follow US intelligence community history there have always been elements "pushing" drugs and

poisons for a variety of reasons. Certainly the profit motive alone is a powerful incentive. Below is a link to Ryan Devereaux's 9-25-14 The Intercept article
Managing A Nightmare: How The CIA Watched Over The Destruction Of Gary Webb
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb

Today rural SW Wisconsin, where I reside, has an unprecedented heroin problem. Times and things change-but Gary Webb was onto the truth about a few things. Unaccountability using "national security" as a shield for criminals over time has led to contemporary drug "epidemics" and worse imo.

Below are a couple of related links to support my "opinion".

Afghanistan: Drug Trafficking and the 2014 Transition pdf (Congressional Research Service report by Liana Rosen and Kenneth Katzman relaeased 5-9-14 (Federation of American Scientists archive)
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R43540.pdf

The Spoils of War: Afghanistan's Multibillion Dollar Heroin Trade/Washington's Hidden Agenda:Restore the Drug Trade
(Prof. Michel Chossudovsky 1-7-15 Global Research)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-spoils-of-war-afghanistan-s-multibillion-dollar-heroin-trade/91

"The Dark Alliance" is bigger than ever, isn't it?

[bobthedrummer]

2. Oliver North "suggested" using drug networks to finance the Contra's (hardly original) to his boss

Admiral John (Total Information Awareness) Poindexter, liar to the people-at least that is the consensus. What a horrible, unaccountable continuum of crime and evil.

Not to mention Iran (in this post) nor the mercenaries.

The Oliver North File (National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book 113)
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm

Here is just a portion about Adm. Poindexter's life (History Commons).
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=john_poindexter

I can't imagine what Gary Webb was discovering-can you???

[Mnemosyne]

3. Thanks Bob. K&R nt

[bobthedrummer]

4. There was Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize winner investigative journalist and more

Gary Webb Was Right (Marc Levin 10-24-14 Huffington Post article)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-levin/gary-webb-was-right_b_6024530.html

Gary Webb (Spartacus Educational entry)
http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKwebbG.htm

There was Barry Seal too

Barry Seal Murder In Baton Rouge 25 Years Ago Helped Expose Iran-Contra Debacle (Tom Aswell 2-14-11 Louisiana Voice)
http://louisianavoice.com/2011/02/14/603

Anyone besides Daniel Hopsicker keeping track of the current intelligence community dope movements?
http://www.madcowprod.com

Your thoughts on this alliance are encouraged.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Thanks for these links to study. We can truly use them. n/t

[bobthedrummer]

6. Allegations of CIA drug trafficking, the Wikipedia entry, takes those DUers that have posted about

the founding of the BFEE down a dark memory lane.

Allegations of CIA drug trafficking (Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking

Allegations!?!!!

[bobthedrummer]

7. Let's take a look at some other supportive articles

Wally Hilliard Business Partner Farhad Azima/A Drug Smuggling Gun-running CIA Pal (back in the glory days of BCCI , the Shah, etc some articles by Daniel Hopsicker and various news outlets)
http://www.madcowprod.com/azima2.htm

The CIA and the Art of the "Un-Cover-Up" (Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair 10-17-14 Counterpunch)
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/17/the-cia-the-press-and-the-hunt-for-smoking-guns

Discuss...

[Judi Lynn]

8. What a shame the 17 LA Times reporters had no more respect for righteousness than the Iran-Contra

criminals still running loose. Humanity lost, while their perverseness ran right over the best interests of the human race.

How can they stand themselves? Hideous, deformed, depraved people, they perverted the law, and murdered the truth.

What an ugly bunch running things so long. We deserve so much better than evil clowns.

[bobthedrummer]

9. CIA Report on Contras and Cocaine Volume II (NameBase) Know your history, people.

http://www.namebase.org/hitz.html

Duane Clarridge et.al

[yurbud]

10. this is why politicians change course on drug policy once they get to Washington

the illegal drug trade fattens the bottom lines of banks via money laundering, and some other rich assholes probably make money on production and transport as well.

Illegal drugs have a couple of advantages as a business: no taxes and no liability if your product kills your customers.

I sometimes suspect there's a class in business school that teaches MBA's how to weigh whether to do a given business above board or as a criminal enterprise.

Of course by the time they get to Wall Street, the two are one.

[Doctor_J]

11. another conspiracy that wasn't a theory

Robert Parry is under the bus for telling the truth about the president, but he's usually deadly accurate

[bobthedrummer]

13. Yep.

[bobthedrummer]

12. New Evidence of Contra-Cocaine Scandal (12-9-13 Robert Parry Consortium News)

"Since journalist Gary Webb died in 2004, the story that destroyed his life has slowly come into clearer focus, revealing how President Reagan's beloved Contras really were enmeshed in cocaine trafficking..."

http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/09/new-evidence-of-contra-cocaine-scandal

Add to this thread people.

[MinM]

14. Gary Webb on Kiki Camarena (audio)

Although the Kiki Camarena story was long before the issues Gary Webb investigated in the '90s he briefly touched on it in the interview below. Gary points out that DEA Agent Celerino Castillo suggested looking into the CIA's role in Camrena's death only to find himself on the outside looking in ...

Show #703
Original airdate: October 23, 2014
Guests: Jim DiEugenio / Gary Webb
Topics: Gary Webb / CTKA / Treefrog / Letters

Gary Webb (1:07:51) Real Media or MP3 download or YouTube Video

*Gary Webb with Len and Anita Langley on BOR Show #47, August 23, 2001
*Gary was a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News in California
*Drug asset forfeitures, cocaine, Crips and Bloods
*Some of the money was used to buy weapons for the Nicaraguan Contras
*"Freeway" Ricky Ross, the start of the crack epidemic, Dark Alliance: (Webb 1999)
*CIA was running the drugs into the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles
The group included an MBA in marketing, a weapons advisor, a macro-economist
*Norwin Meneses, they were untouched by law enforcement for many years
*A professional marketing operation, not a lot of moral examination
*Crack democratized cocaine, a cheaper unit cost, a bigger kick
*Dr. Robert Byck congressional testimony on the smoking of cocaine
*Increased prison sentences, not allowed to study it
*Political overtones to the crack market, Miami, Haiti
*An LAPD Rick Ross task force, civil rights violations
*CIA/Contra evidence disappeared, CIA/Meneses, operated fairly openly
*He could be blatant about it because he was a useful money launderer
*The Sandinista revolution, the Somozas, Reagan, a PR campaign
*"The moral equivalent of our founding fathers", [font color=blue]DEA Agent Celerino Castillo[/font]
*A DEA Investigation of CIA, these things get rooted in systems, they're protected
*Did Gary make a difference? Yes. In African-American society this is still an issue
*This story took off in 1996 on the world wide web, linked to source documents
*The backlash was enormous, the Washington Post, the newspaper's reputation
*CIA was allowed to investigate itself, cocaine brought in on freighters
*3 million dollars a day in crack sales, Dr. Hugo Spadafora
*Cocaine trafficking was the coin of the realm in Central America
*Memorandum of Understanding between the CIA and the Department of Justice
*Agencies were profiting from the Drug War
*Asset forfeiture, property confiscated without being charged

http://www.blackopradio.com/archives2014.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/110837983#post1

[bobthedrummer]

15. Thank you MinM

[bobthedrummer]

16. Kick for all the heroin from Afghanistan that the Masters of War deal