Customer Reviews

Trail of the octopus: From Beirut to Lockerbie--inside the DIA

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Some readers may refuse to accept the facts as presented in this book because their psychology does not allow for their authority figures and government leaders to be as unimaginably corrupt as thousands of years of political history has taught us.
Notwithstanding this, Goddard and Coleman present the secret negotiations with terrorists of the Reagan/Bush era (which of course, continue today in the personage of George W.--see recent Pentagon scandal involving Feith/Ledeen and secret negotiations with so-called "Axis of Evil" member Iran) for what they are: disastrous foreign policy decisions with horrendous consequences.
The only way to get things like this published is through small, independent presses which inevitably are intimidated or threatened into retractions, expensive legal battles, and other forms of blackmail.

Note on co-author Coleman who one reviewer "accurately" referred to as a convicted liar: it is the most common technique used by intelligence agencies to get one of their own operatives convicted on small-time felony charges with frivolous outcomes in order to preserve what is called PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY. That way, if the operative ever talks about the disgusting and reprehensible acts they are asked to perform, they can be dismissed as "a convicted liar." Coleman's story is a sad one--available to be researched by anyone with an interest. Using the Freedom of Information Act one can research these things for themselves--there were numerous Congressional inquiries into some of the subjects covered in the book.

This book is a well-documented example of George Bush's longstanding policy of dealing with terrorists (particularly those who move massive amounts of drugs around the world) for narrow political objectives with disastrous consequences for US foreign policy. A must read. Also: Coverup of Convenience.
As long as the brainwashed can dismiss anything newsworthy not sponsored by GE or Fox as "conspiracy theory", then our leaders will continue to defraud our citizens and commit unspeakable acts.

This book shows the extent to which our 'Public Servants' go to cover their criminal enterprises. These cranks that attempt to dis-credit those who expose criminal activity by government employees as conspiracy freaks are they themselves complicite in these Federal crimes. Conspiracy or not, these people are a deeply infiltrated cancer in the US Government.

Trail is another excellent case study of the unlimited arrogance, deceit, and duplicity in Washington D.C. Its value is reflected in the price of used copies... and the efforts to kill public interest in the book. The hardest message to communicate is the extent of arrogance, deceit, and duplicity in our own government because we have been taught from an early age of how wonderful our elected leaders are. Well, the truth is out there, but you have to search to find it. Trail of the Octopus is an excellent example. Another very good book is the Boys on the Tracks. There is no end of good examples in the efforts to get the truth out respecting the government's abandonment of missing American POWs from the top on down. See Betrayed by Douglass, which has a listing of 25 plus other books and videos on this subject, all with a consistent message respecting the absence of honor and principles at the highest levels in our government.

December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by a bomb built into Toshiba radio cassette player. All 259 people on board were killed, along with 11 residents of the Scottish town.

The book tells the story of its co-author Lesier Coleman. Originally a journalist, in the mid-Eighties he began to work as a contract consultant for the DEA's Cyprus office. At that time Cyprus was the nerve center of efforts to monitor drug production in Lebanon. It was no ordinary assignment because Coleman was simultaneously employed by the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the ultra-secretive military spooks. According to Coleman, the DEA was desperate for information about Lebanon, but it also wanted to keep a discreet eye on the DEA and CIA, both of which it viewed with suspicion.

By the time Coleman arrived in Cyprus, the flow of drugs out of Lebanon was so great that the best the DEA could hope for was to monitor where it was going to in the US to catch the dealers there. In order to do this, he claims, he relied on a technique called controlled delivery. This involves an agent, or informant, carrying a specially marked bag containing drugs. The shipment is monitored by the DEA and, through cooperation with other countries, is allowed to pass through security and customs unhindered.

Trail Of The Octopus claims that the controlled deliveries provided the CIA with its fig leaf. Not only that, but the DEA allowed its network of informants to double as the CIA's eyes and ears in Lebanon. It was this mixing of roles, Coleman asserts, that proved fatal. The informants were not trained agents; worse still, he believes, some of them were reporting back to the Syrian backed terrorists. Security, thus, was a sham. Coleman insists that he tried to raise the issue with the head of the DEA Cyprus, Michael Hurley, but was ignored. Tension between the two men grow and Coleman eventually left the island in May 1988. Before departing, he claims to have warned Hurley, in a taped telephone conversation that the security situation was a disaster waiting to happen. Hurley has accused Coleman of editing in the phrase, and says that Coleman was sacked by the DEA for unsatisfactory behavior.

Despite his avowed prophecy, Coleman says that it was not until months after Lockerbie that he realised the disaster might be connected to drug-trafficking. He claims the realization was triggered by the discovery that Khalid Jafaar was among the victims. "The kid was one of those I saw coming through the office in Cyprus," he says, "I knew from the conversations around me in 1988 that he was involved in controlled deliveries -- there's no doubt in my mind about that at all." The DEA denies any connection with Jafaar.

Coleman was not the first to hint at the alternative version. In the days after the disaster rumors were rife that Jafaar had been duped into carrying the bomb. The rumors were fueled by the fact that large quantities of heroin were found among the debris. These finds were later denied by the British and American authorities.

In 1990 the ceiling fell in on Coleman's world. He was arrested by the FBI and charged with passport fraud. Although he admitted applying for a passport under the name Thomas Leavy, he maintains that he was acting under orders from the DIA, which he says, had just reactivated him for an undercover assignment. When he tried to call his DIA contact numbers, he says, the numbers were dead. Then the anonymous death treats started. Rather then waiting around for a trial, he decided to flee to Sweden. On arrival, he became the first American citizen to apply for political asylum since the Vietnam war.

Read this book if you are wondering how after CIA-USAID's Verbo Village Phoenix program burned Pat Robertson's and Gospel Outreach supporters by first running non-Verbo pastors and evangelists and missionaries out of Guatemala, then perpetrating a genocide in the name of Robertson and GO followers, Pat Robertson's Op Blessing could still in the 21st century be run by a Phoenix program vet like those running Verbo. While you are at it, watch a movie called Men With Guns about killing your neighbor to prove you are loyal to a hysterical witch-hunt

http://www.secret-history.us http://www.sitbot.net http://www.thugsanon.org http://www.thaihighland.com http://www.mibskinnyties.us http://www.noplanetb.org

You really had me going there, Don. Not since Sandra Bullock in 'The Net' has someone been at the centre of such a gigantic conspiracy to silence the individual. The information 'they' were trying so hard to suppress is that the persons responsible were the DIA and SYRIA. Er.....

This book was coauthored by a felon who admitted in open court he fabricated the information upon which the book was written. The information is inaccurate, wrong and false. Why any publisher would ever allow this trash to be published is beyond me.

... Evidence is a word that is seldom used with any accuracy in this book, yet another conspiracy theory written by someone who got no closer to the EVIDENCE than many of his fellow writers of conspiracies.
I would not recommend this book to anyone who has a genuine interest in the FACTS behind the act of atrocity.