Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion 2nd Edition

This is essential reading for anyone interested in this topic. Gary Webb faced a storm of criticism for his three-part series, "Dark Alliance," in the San Jose Mercury Newspaper. Some of it was fair, but most of it wasn't. Several of Webb's critics were merely acting as gatekeepers. Also, much of the criticism focused on details that didn't negate the overall discovery of his work.
This book served as Webb's chance for a rebuttal. It is well-sourced and Webb thoroughly proved that the U.S. government was fully aware of Contras' drug trafficking. Our government also covered it up and helped them along the way.
Dark Alliance prompted an investigation by the CIA Inspector General, the Hitz report. According to most newspapers, the Hitz report "proved" that the CIA wasn't complicit in drug trafficking. However, the Hitz report is now public information and any independent-minded reader will see that the CIA, along with other US government agencies, were closely linked with several major drug traffickers.

This book was pretty interesting and enlightening. It is about an investigative reporter named Gary Webb who got involved in investigating a drug dealer who was affiliated with the CIA. Webb spoke about the deep corruption of the CIA, how they worked with drug dealers to financially support the Contras, and how this fueled the crack cocaine problem in L.A. He also went on about how the CIA and other government agencies would warn drug dealers before a raid and how they would let drug dealers with major crimes walk away with light sentences. Gary Webb’s writing is slightly complicated, but very interesting. All in all, this book was a fun book to read. (pl)

Gary Webb was a cautious and careful journalist who gradually became radicalized by his discoveries. Eventually, what he learned destroyed him. The attacks on Webb demonstrate how badly compromised the corporate media is in its relationship with the CIA and other elements of the federal government (Operation Mockingbird).

At one point, Webb recalled: "If we had met five years ago, you wouldn't have found a more staunch defender of the newspaper industry than me ... I was winning awards, getting raises, lecturing college classes, appearing on TV shows, and judging journalism contests. So how could I possibly agree with people like Noam Chomsky and Ben Bagdikian, who were claiming the system didn't work, that it was steered by powerful special interests and corporations, and existed to protect the power elite? And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. The reason I'd enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn't been, as I'd assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job ... The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress..."

Unfortunately, one of the best-kept secrets is that drug trafficking has been big business for the elites of the world for hundreds of years. The "war on drugs" is nothing but a sick joke.

Just so sad to learn what is happening in the world , nowadays. The New World Order is here and very active, bribing, killing, cheating and controlling the human masses.
Mr Webb is a hero and, unfortunately, this book took his life and the happiness of his family. A writer of courage, one of the few real men that still existed.
The corruption is everywhere and , specially, in the press, which is not free, anymore.
You need a lot of courage to read this book. Truth is hard to digest., do not read this book if you are depressed

I wish Gary were still with us to continue the story. Col James E Sabow both could have used a fearless investigative reporter like Gary. Ridiculed when he wrote the book much of the content has be verified. Following the crumbs also take a look at Compromised by Terry Reed and John Cummings, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade by Dr Alfred McCoy, and The Big White Lie by Michael Levine.

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.