Dark alliance
by Gary Webb · first published 1998
14mentions
3recommended by
13HN commenters
2011–2026first – last mentioned
23% recommend77% neutral
Gary Webb draws from thousands of pages of once-secret files from the CIA, DEA, and FBI, the L.A. Sheriff's Department, and recently declassified papers from the Iran-Contra investigation. Together with Nicaraguan journalist Georg Hodel, Webb interviewed former members of the Contra drug ring, as well as former federal prosecutors, CIA and DEA agents, and former Central American police officials. This book shows how the L.A. crack market flourished through a breathtaking combination of government negligence, greed, and criminal conduct. It also demonstrates that the U.S. goverment agencies,
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…Contras, the CIA-funded army of Iran-Contra fame. I love Planet Money, but I wish they'd gone a little deeper into his involvement with the contras. If you want to know more look into Gary Webb's series, Dark Alliance. The restored site is here: http://www.narconews.com/darkalliance/drugs/start.htm
on “A drug dealer on economists' theories about drug dealing ” ↗For interesting reads on the politics of cocaine, in addition to the mentioned story in Freakonomics, take a look at: Dark Alliance by Gary Webb: http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Alliance-Contras-Cocaine-Explosio... Snowblind: http://www.amazon.com/Snowblind-Brief-Career-Cocaine-Trade/d...
on “How the Plummeting Price of Cocaine Fueled the Nationwide Drop in Violent Crime” ↗If anyone is interested in the logistics of the cocaine trade I recommend the Dark Alliance book [1]. The book argues that when cocaine first appeared in the US it was not considered so dangerous or addictive and the authorities did not respond to it as a serious threat (at the time it was PCP…
on “Cocaine Is Evil” ↗…after first overturning the Taliban had the biggest increase ever in drug production ever when the CIA was running the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Alliance_(book) https://theintercept.com/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-m...
on “Suspected head of $21B crime syndicate may be world’s most innovative drug lord” ↗…of the 1990s, and then had his career destroyed in retaliation. The full Webb story is more complex than that; in fact, it's complicated enough that it's taught in journalism ethics courses. Webb's "Dark Alliance" story was important, but Webb prosecuted the story overzealously. The major news outlets of the time --- including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the LA Times --- unanimously tore the piece…
on “How the CIA Watched Over the Destruction of Gary Webb (2014)” ↗…read. [3] provides exhaustive coverage of the aftermath. Giordano's recount of Webb's memorial service just a month after the latter's suicide and his eulogy of sorts is especially moving [4]. 1. The Dark Alliance (http://www.mega.nu/ampp/webb.html) 2. San Jose Mercury News (https://longform.org/archive/publications/san-jose-mercury-n...) 3. Inside the Dark Alliance: Gary Webb on the CIA, the Contras, and the…
on “How the CIA Watched Over the Destruction of Gary Webb (2014)” ↗…student" routine. You might as well speak in riddles. I'm fairly certain your second example is Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley, although he was an American teaching at Georgetown. Your first might be Dark Alliance by Gary Webb (if one defines "distributor" very loosely), but I haven't a clue on the last two. They don't trigger anything in memory and the details are too vague for a fruitful search. Be a good sport…
on “An Artist Is Building a Parthenon of Banned Books” ↗…has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility." News coverage noted that there were widespread rumors on the Internet at the time that Webb had been killed as retribution for his 'Dark Alliance' series, published eight years before, but Webb's ex-wife Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had committed suicide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb#Death
on “CIA Concludes Russian Interference Aimed to Elect Trump” ↗…than it is for me. [0] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/10/30/prisoners_in_20... [1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining... [2] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gary-webb-dark-alliance_n_596...
Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion is a 1998 book by journalist Gary Webb. The book is based on "Dark Alliance", Webb's three-part investigative series published in the San Jose Mercury…
on “Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins” ↗…As the wikipedia article says, "The subject remains controversial." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_coca... > From August 18–20, 1996, the San Jose Mercury News published the Dark Alliance series by Gary Webb,[10][11] which claimed: > > For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled…
on “Black boys don’t need more discipline, they need mentors (2018)” ↗The US state uses drug money to fund covert operations, so we're never "winning" the war. See reporting by Gary Webb in the 1980s (Dark Alliance, later admitted by the CIA years after his suicide) or the amazing conversion of Afghanistan into the #1 opium hub under U.S. occupation (with pretty photos of U.S. soldiers guarding poppy fields).
on “The traffickers are winning the war on drugs” ↗…their leak would serve the common interest. Actual cases are usually ruled "suicides" or "accidents", but obviously aren't: Danny Casolaro (1991): "The Octopus" Investigation Gary Webb (2004): The "Dark Alliance" Expose Dr. David Kelly (2003): Iraq War WMD Leaker John P. Wheeler III (2010): Pentagon Insider ... there are many others. You only find what you look for.
on “US Military's Cyber Command Unit Grapples with Cluster of Deaths by Suicide” ↗The problem is that his journalism was not vindicated. It was supported after his death by the same people who supported it when it was first published. Maxine Waters made partisan hay out of Dark Alliance before the story was vetted by any other news paper (and more power to her! I don't like Waters, but I'm on her team politically). Too, Robert Parry defended the story immediately after it was published.…
on “How the CIA Watched Over the Destruction of Gary Webb (2014)” ↗