LTTE: Undue criticism of Gary Webb

[Judi Lynn]

Undue criticism of Gary Webb
October 24


Gary Webb’s 1996 “Dark Alliance” stories for the San Jose Mercury News asserted that the CIA “looked the other way” as cocaine from Central America was imported into the United States, beginning in the Reagan years. Profits from the drugs helped fund the right-wing counterrevolution in Nicaragua, the stories alleged. The cocaine, Mr. Webb wrote, contributed to a crack epidemic in U.S. cities and a surge of black inmates into U.S. prisons. Mr. Webb was hounded from his job at the Mercury News and, arguably, to his death by suicide in 2004.

Now comes the film story of Mr. Webb’s reporting, “Kill the Messenger,” and, close behind, The Post’s Jeff Leen with “An amazing story that didn’t hold up” [Outlook, Oct. 19]. When Mr. Webb’s series ran in the Mercury News, Mr. Leen was working at the Miami Herald.

Mr. Leen wrote that Mr. Webb’s articles were characterized by “overblown claims and undernourished reporting,” a perspective expressed by major newspapers at the time, including The Post. But a 2006 Los Angeles Times article walked back that paper’s criticism of Mr. Webb, and even in 1996, The Post’s ombudsman wrote that The Post was overzealous in its efforts to discredit Mr. Webb.

Mr. Leen has shoveled more of the same old dirt on the story that Mr. Webb beat him to in the first place.

Jeff Epton, Washington

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/undue-criticism-of-gary-webb/2014/10/24/a1fddff8-5abf-11e4-9d6c-756a229d8b18_story.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. The Gary Webb Story: Still Killing the Messenger

The Gary Webb Story: Still Killing the Messenger
Posted: 10/20/2014 7:55 pm EDT Updated: 10/20/2014 7:59 pm EDT

Few things are better at getting the word out about a past injustice than a Hollywood movie and Kill the Messenger starring Jeremy Renner and directed by Michael Cuesta does so with depth and drama. For the first time the true story about the courageous investigative journalist, Gary Webb, is being told in movie theaters across the country where people can draw their own conclusions unhindered by the noise and static of establishment naysayers in the corporate media.

This powerful film uses an "entertainment" format to assess the compelling evidence that people tied to the Nicaraguan Contras, who President Ronald Reagan called "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers," were involved in bringing cocaine back to the United States at the dawn of the crack epidemic.

Writing for the San Jose Mercury-News, Gary Webb had traveled repeatedly to Central America and uncovered what appeared to be the story of the decade: people associated with a U.S.-backed mercenary army had become international drug traffickers. If "agents" or "assets" of the Central Intelligence Agency's war against Nicaragua were implicated, even indirectly, in importing one gram of cocaine to America's cities that should have set off alarm bells in the journalistic community and possibly won a Pulitzer Prize for Webb.

Instead, the mainstream press went after Webb in a coordinated smear campaign that ignored the potential abuses he had uncovered and effectively allied itself with the Contras. "Journalists" and editors from the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times, essentially toed the line of right-wing rags like the Washington Times by citing unnamed sources from the CIA and national security establishment to burnish the image of the Contras and their taskmasters.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/gary-webb-kill-the-messenger_b_6017820.html

[Judi Lynn]

2. A 'Worthless and Whiny' Attack on a Genuine Journalistic Hero

A 'Worthless and Whiny' Attack on a Genuine Journalistic Hero
By Peter Hart
Oct 21 2014

In 1996, in the wake of his explosive "Dark Alliance" series for the San Jose Mercury News (8/18-20/96), the Washington Post was one of the major newspapers to attack Gary Webb (FAIR Blog, 10/21/14).

It's 2014, and they're still at it.

Since the release of the film Kill the Messenger, there has been renewed focus on Webb's story, which documented how CIA-linked drug traffickers were supplying US drug dealers with cheap cocaine that helped fuel the crack epidemic in the 1980s. For the Post, this means it's time to argue once again that Webb got the story wrong.

This time around that task fell to Jeff Leen, an assistant managing editor at the paper. "An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof," he writes (10/17/14), and by that standard, he thinks Webb failed: "The Hollywood version of his story–a truth-teller persecuted by the cowardly and craven mainstream media–is pure fiction."

In 1996, in the wake of his explosive "Dark Alliance" series for the San Jose Mercury News (8/18-20/96), the Washington Post was one of the major newspapers to attack Gary Webb (FAIR Blog, 10/21/14).
But Leen's attempted takedown falls apart before it ever gets going, with this claim:

Webb's story made the extraordinary claim that the Central Intelligence Agency was responsible for the crack cocaine epidemic in America.

That is not true. Webb's report showed that a major crack dealer in California was working with suppliers linked to the CIA-backed Contras, who were waging a terrorist campaign in Nicaragua in the hopes of removing the left-wing Sandinista government. Some of the money from the drug trade went to supporting the Contras.

More:
http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/10/21/wash-post-webb/

[MisterP]

3. they pulled the same with Bonner and Danner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Mozote_massacre#Initial_reports_and_controversy
WSJ said they were "overly credulous" and "out on a limb," Time that they were probably asking for it, the detestable Reed Irvine that "Mr. Bonner had been worth a division to the communists in Central America"

[Judi Lynn]

4. Prime example of US corporate media's treatment of Latin American events.

Real journalists, like Bonner, Guillermoprieto, get abused by their employers, thrown out of jobs, and even worse, while congenital liars get hired to script horrendous whoppers to mislead the US population, forced to sponsor this hellish carnage with its hard-earned tax dollars.

Your link reveals so much material which needs to be examined for anyone seeking REAL information. So much to learn for all of us. Thank you.

[777man]

5. Several articles on KTM and Gary webb here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2291453

[Judi Lynn]

6. Thanks for posting this outstanding thread. So much great information.

Last edited Tue Nov 4, 2014, 05:40 PM - Edit history (1)

People really, really need to know what has happened here.

Your efforts on the thread are exceptional. You've compiled information which would take someone a very long time to run down. It's a leap forward for people who don't want to be kept in the dark.

[777man]

7. You are welcome

Judy, that is 20 years of research, in one place. I was there. I knew Gary, I met Ricky Ross and the others in the Dark Alliance story.

I have to tell you the following:

-Maxine waters fell strangely silent after 2000 and has not spoken on this topic since her husband became ambassador to the Bahamas and her district was given 1.5 billion in funding.
How they could silence such an outspoken and aggressive person as Waters scares me.
Maxine was under investigation by ethics chairman porter goss from 2009 to 2012. The same man who chaired the HPSCI contra-drug hearings and then buried it in June of 2000. Porter Goss became DCI AFTER the 1996-2000 hearings. He was DCI under Bush from 2002-2003.

- in 2004, the Boston Globe and other papers reported that Jackie Onassis intervened in the (1991)BCCI investigation and tried to have Senator kerry drop the matter. This is proof that the corruption is in both parties. Senator Kerry had to have Clark Clifford prosecuted on the state level (New York) because the US attorney refused to prosecute.
The anti Castro Cubans in Florida were the primary drug smugglers and were probably the ones behind the killing of JFK.
Why would Mrs Kennedy intervene to squash the investigation?

-The CIA is directly involved in drugs. Senator Kerry proved this and also proved that people ON the Government payroll trafficked drugs (He provided a list of names)
Noriega and Montesinos ran massive amounts of drugs. They were agents or assets of the CIA. In afgahnistan, the Karzai regime is propped up by drugs. The USA allows this and tells the DEA to only pursue Taliban drugs. The whitehouse and the CIA both tell the DEA to stay off the Karzai druglords.


-A recent radio show with 4 ex-DEA agents speaking about this and the Camarena murder ties to the CIA drew few listeneers. People need to wake up. The lead investigator in the Camarena murder admits that he ran into the CIA while trying to catch Camarena;s killers.


-I just saw an anecdotal story by a person who arranged a speech for John kerry in the early 90s to speak about the Contra drug issue. When asked why more waSN'T DONE, he said that there was a fear among the senators that the government could not handle another Watergate type scandal.

-Gary Webb could have proven the Dark Alliance story by simply reporting on the story of Celerino Castillo III (DEA Ret.). Cele Castillo's story mentioned in the book Dark Alliance, but Gary did not pursue it as far as he should have. Castillo arrested people at Ilopongo, ( with drugs and cash)members of the Contras and drug smugglers. Cele Got as raw a deal as Gary webb did, maybe even worse. www.powderburns.org

Cele went to Vietnam, gave unquestioning loyalty to this country. He deserves better.
www.powderburns.org

[Judi Lynn]

8. Maxine Waters has undergone a real change, hasn't she? I remember her earlier self so well.

It was clear someone was after her, but assumed it was someone who hated Democrats and black activists.

Had read she was very deeply concerned with what Gary Webb had revealed. I guess they attempted to show her. What a shame. She was such a bright light.

You know what a joke it is to hear anyone has been the subject of a Porter Goss ethics investigation, considering. Someone must have felt someone wasn't evil enough!

Glad to see your reference to Montesinos. I had made a superficial effort to find info. regarding Montesinos and US connections but didn't have time to stick with it and dropped it.

It's so right people need to wake up. The most they ever hear is an occasional name or shallow reference to events, with very VERY little depth from the corporate media. It clearly is the objective to keep the general public shopping, as G.W. Bush advised, getting fired up over bogus news stories, living in fear, and never seeing through to any part of the deeper, underlying events going on.

Never heard of Celerino Castillo, will be interesting in learning about what happened there. Thank you for the info.

It is excellent learning you have been aware of these events so long. I'm sure you know how very, very few U.S. Americans have been remotely aware of any part of what has happened. It's not by coincidence, either.

It's all going to be known, in time, and that's the only right outcome. Hope there will be a good number of those people involved who will get burned when the truth is common knowledge.

[777man]

9. 1.5 Billion and an ambassadorship buys a lot of silence

I am pretty sure they used the carrot and stick method with her (Maxine). A combination of threats and rewards. It became apparent by 1999 that she had been compromised.



On Montesinos:
http://intelligenceref.blogspot.fr/2010/11/montesinos-vladimiro.html
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB72/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimiro_Montesinos
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/peru404/pmontesinos.html


--
I posted this in another thread:
Kerry went soft on the Contra Crack investigation

http://consortiumnews.com/2014/10/28/how-the-washington-press-turned-bad/
How the Washington Press Turned Bad
October 28, 2014



A reader wrote in response to Robert parry's article:
Ralph Walter Reed on October 29, 2014 at 1:11 am said:

In 1991 I helped bring then-Senator John Kerry to Hampshire College in Amherst for an event that was attended by about a hundred people. Near the end of the question and answer period I challenged him with a strong complaint about why the Senate investigation he oversaw into CIA involvement in cocaine smuggling during the time the Boland Amendment was in effect wasn’t more vigorously pursued and promoted given the risks and efforts of so many within and outside of the US government to mitigate the carnage in Central America, “waving the bloody shirt” a bit I’m afraid as I was peripherally involved when in the Air Force, and perhaps blindsiding him as I was the one chiefly responsible for organizing his talk. He became quite visibly distressed, and apologetically replied that “we felt that the country wouldn’t be served by another Watergate” so soon after the original.

Objectively, what might have happened if he had done his constitutional duty? Would the Soviet Union and Warsaw pact have muddled on with the real possibility of nuclear war? On the other hand the behavior of the Clinton White House in Europe, and that the State Department currently in Ukraine doesn’t make me feel like it was in the end justifiable to protect US institutions at the expense of its principles.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Regarding Maxine Waters, 1999 does sound about right for the time when it starting seeming

the wind had been taken from her sails. She became quieter and quieter, more withdrawn, actually. Sad.

Your Montesinos articles are all helpful, offering information necessary to understanding that slimy murderous cretin, and his master, Fujimori.

It's always fun to remember the day he "fainted" in court, hearing his verdict read:

[center][/center]
Robert Parry's article is excellent, throughout.

He has watched US American journalism plunge right down the drain in his own lifetime. Parry is a real journalist in a country which prides itself on its "free" press.

Thank you for these vital information injections.