Dear TSB: The difference between a book and "the news" is that "the news" can be easily
erased. You can't erase a book. And if it is well documented with facts and people who were
actually involved it can be pretty much indisputable. THE DARK ALLIANCE by Gary Webb
is such a book. I read it because I'm trying to better understand the drug business.
I want to start with a quiz. Things I never knew til I read this book. They are also things you
would never have learned from the original news story that prompted the book.
- Iran-Contra made Oliver North famous. Do you know what agency he worked out of during that episode? (NSC)
- What was he accused of in 1996 by a story in the San Jose Mercury News? Using a Nicaraguan drug ring based in San Francisco to distribute crack cocaine in LA to buy guns for the Contras.
- Who investigated this story exhaustively and found that there was no CIA wrongdoing in the whole matter?? (THE CIA!... i mean if you can't trust the cia who can you trust?)Most of the facts of Webb's story were not contested but it was turned into a question of whether Webb was trying to defame the credibility of the USG... and make it look like they didn't care about poor black people. They succeeded and the story went away..... for 2 years.
- Declassified papers from what Senate Hearing helped clinched Webb's story as true? (Iran-Contra)
- Why haven't you probably heard about it? (Our media is a joke! They are totally in the bagfor our fearless leaders.. who by the way haven't much changed since the 1980's and 90's)
But TSB: The best part about this book for me was reading about how Freeway Ricky Ross of south LA
created a completely new drug marketing scheme in 1983 that caused all that "Crips and Bloods" stuff
and established the model for today's drug distribution networks in this country. One young businessman
with no education and a unique product was able to outsmart all the government agencies (CIA, DEA,
LAPD, LA COUNTY SHERRIFF) for 13 years until they turned on him and put him away for life.
It is a real page turner with lots of double crosses, a huge cast of characters, murders, plane loads of cocaine landing in San Francisco (no problem) etc. I bet you would be impressed with the documentation and
much more familiar with most of the players than I am. lilGWB
You can read the documentation - including North's notebooks - yourself in the GWU National Security Archive.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/nsaebb2.htm
I have never been much impressed by conspiracy theories, since they don't resemble anything I've ever seen in government agencies. Occam's Razor is our best friend here. For example, Rick Ross (whose first arrest for selling cocaine predates the beginning of USG support for the Contras, or even the formation of the Contras as we normally understand that term) was a piker compared to some other drug dealers, including ones, like NYC's Frank Johnson, whom no one accuses of being other than self-made.
Outside of the movies, I can't suspend disbelief enough for most conspiracy theories to make sense.