Dark Alliance

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Dark Alliance: CIA, Contras, and Crack Cocaine Explosion is a 1998 book by journalist Gary Webb. The book is based on the "Dark Alliance", a three-part Webb investigative series published in San Jose Mercury News in August 1996. The original series claims that, to help raise funds for efforts against the Nicaraguan National Liberation Government Sandinista Front Sandinista, the CIA supports the cocaine trade to the US by top members of the Nicaraguan Contra Rebel organization and allows the next cracking epidemic to spread in Los Angeles. The book extends the series and recounts media reactions to Webb's original newspaper exposure.

Dark Alliance was published in 1998 by Seven Stories Press, with an introduction by US Representative Maxine Waters. The revised edition was published in 1999. That same year the book won the Pen Pulsation Sensor Award and the Petrified Alternative Book Award. It serves as part of the foundation for Kill the Messenger , a 2014 movie based on the life of Webb.

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Synopsis

According to Webb, in the 1980s when the CIA used certain controls over Contra groups such as the FDN, the US Drug Enforcement Agency and Administration (DEA) granted amnesty to and placed an important bank for Contra advocates and fundraisers known to the US Government to become a cocaine smuggler. Then, on the orders of Oliver North, the Reagan Administration began using Contra drug money to support the anti-communist Nicaraguan rebel effort against the Sandinista government. The Sandinistas were hated by successive Democratic and Republican governments for the Sandinista Revolution of 1978-1979 (overthrow of US-backed brutal dictatorship by Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua) and for their support of the growing peasant and peasant revolution throughout Central and South America.

Blandon, a cocaine smuggler who founded the FDN branch in Los Angeles, is a major supplier to Freeway Ricky Ross. With access to cheap pure cocaine and ideas for cooking cocaine to crack, Ross formed a large drug network and fueled the popularity of cracks. In 1983, Ross bought 10 to 15 kilos of cocaine a week from CIA-backed Contra supporters, Blandon - according to Blandon. Meanwhile, Webb alleges, the CIA supports Contras supplying him with cocaine. Meanwhile, the US Department of Justice and its agencies - who are aware of drug trafficking operations connected with Contra from FDN supporters - thwarted local police investigations and blocked prosecution of cocaine traders associated with the Contra.

Webb also discusses his experience writing an expanded series of investigations of this book. He noted that the use of the Internet and the uploading of documents on which it was based "makes it possible to share [story files based] directly with your readers, if they care, they can read and hear exactly what you have read and heard, and make up their own minds It's an interactive interactive journalism, perhaps too interactive for some people. "The launch of the" Dark Alliance "series on the sophisticated website of San Jose Mercury News, complete with images and facsimiles from official US Government documentaries compiled by Webb and colleagues - his colleagues break new fields for journalism. and internet. Encarta encyclopedia Microsoft states that "Unlimited space from the Web allows Mercury News to move forward into new types of journalism... Web... let smart readers review source material and draw their own conclusions. This move, far beyond the traditional role of newspapers, attracts the attention and readers from around the world. "The number of visits or" hits "to the" Dark Alliance "site quickly rose to 500,000, then 800,000 and reached 1,000,000 per day - phenomenal for the stage early development of the modern Internet. In October 1996, two months after the release of the series, a Boston Globe reporter wrote "that story" throbbed through the black environment [LA] like a shock wave, provoking an amazing and ever-increasing rate. anger and anger. Radio-talk stations with a predominantly black-skinned audience are flooded with calls on the subject. Demonstrations, candle lighting ceremonies and city hall meetings became routine matters. And the people on the street are warmly discussing the topic. '"" Nevertheless, the media slowly turned against Webb and sought to discredit him. Especially, The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times. i> create an article that calls his argument unfounded. The Mercury News originally stood by Webb's reporting, but, in the midst of cancellation by other news sources, executive editor Jerry Ceppos published an apology for much of the series content in May 1997.

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Critical reception

The reviewers' opinions about the book vary. David Corn, Washington's editor for The Nation's magazine, reviews the book on The Washington Post . Corn had previously been critical of the series aspect of the newspaper "Dark Alliance", and he found that the book "reflects the positive and negative sides of the original series." He notes that Webb "deserves credit for pursuing an important part of recent history and forcing the CIA and the Department of Justice to investigate counter-drug relationships", but remains critical of some aspects of this book, observes that Webb's "threshold" on the down side ".

Michael Massing, an investigative reporter and associate editor of Columbia Journalism Review, reviewed the Dark Alliance at the Los Angeles Times. Massing found that Webb "seems to be on a strong ground in the argument that money from Nicaraguan merchants ends up in Contra's coffers," but observes that "the amount involved is questionable." He believed that Webb did not indicate that the CIA was involved in or approved of this activity, but pointed out that agency officials "heard the allegations... but did not intervene much." To claim that the CIA and Contras "helped spark a nation's cracking blast, Massing claimed" Webb Account is the most unsteady ", and that Webb's overall thesis" seems fantastic. "He is also critical of Webb's contact with Ross's Lawyer Ricky, Alan Fenster, as told in the Dark Alliance.

James Adams, Washington correspondent for the Sunday Times, wrote a very negative review for The New York Times. Adams was critical of Webb's "failure" to contact the CIA to "check for sources and guesses," and concluded that "For investigative journalists committed to exposing the truth, such a procedure is unacceptable." Both editors of San Jose Mercury News or publishers of these books should allow their authors to take a relaxed approach to a serious subject. "

One of the most negative reviews written by Glenn Garvin in the magazine Reason . Garvin, a reporter who served as Managua bureau chief for the Miami Herald, was critical of Webb's treatment of the source and evidence: "No subject is too big, too small, or too far for Webb to distort or fabricate , "Garvin claims. While Garvin said that "some contra pilots and their colleagues, especially on the so-called southern front" were involved with the narcotrafficker, he rejected Webb's account of counter-engagement with the cocaine trade, which he said "is almost entirely derived from the claims of some Nicaraguan traders facing long prison terms which used defense made by the CIA.According to Garvin, Webb substantially exaggerated both the importance of these dealers to the Contras and their actual role in the cocaine trade.

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References

Source of the article : Wikipedia