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Look, Regan was a hack, and a criminal but there's no evidence of the CIA selling crack, it's a conspiracy theory. John Kerry in 1986 tried to prove that it hap

by ch4s3 5y ago

Look, Regan was a hack, and a criminal but there's no evidence of the CIA selling crack, it's a conspiracy theory. John Kerry in 1986 tried to prove that it happened [1] but the committee never found evidence. They did point to funding of the Contras who in some cares were themselves involved in trafficking, but that's it. There's no solid evidence. You could point to the reporting by the San Jose Mercury, but it's mostly circumstantial. Now it could be sort of true if you squint and tilt your head, but it's far from conclusive and the narrative of "Reagan selling crack cocaine" is totally unsupported. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_Committee_report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_Committee_report edit - I'm more or less an anarchist and think that the state is evil, so a lot of what you're saying fits my priors really well. hat said, I think it's important to come armed with facts when criticizing power and the state. When we make overblown or false statements, it undermines the case.

g8oz 5y ago
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gary-webb-dark-alliance_n_5961748 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gary-webb-dark-alliance_n_596... “CIA did not inform Congress of all allegations or information it received indicating that Contra-related organizations or individuals were involved in drug trafficking,” the inspector general’s report found. “During the period in which the FY 1987 statutory prohibition was in effect, for example, no information has been found to indicate that CIA informed Congress of eight of the ten Contra-related individuals concerning whom CIA had received drug trafficking allegations or information.” This complicity of the CIA in drug trafficking is at the heart of Webb’s explosive expose — a point Webb makes himself in archival interview footage that appears in Levin’s documentary. “It’s not a situation where the government or the CIA sat down and said, ‘Okay, let’s invent crack, let’s sell it in black neighborhoods, let’s decimate black America,’” Webb says. “It was a situation where, ‘We need money for a covert operation, the quickest way to raise it is sell cocaine, you guys go sell it somewhere, we don’t want to know anything about it.’”

by ch4s3 5y ago

g8oz 5y ago

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gary-webb-dark-alliance_n_5961748 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gary-webb-dark-alliance_n_596... “CIA did not inform Congress of all allegations or information it received indicating that Contra-related organizations or individuals were involved in drug trafficking,” the inspector general’s report found. “During the period in which the FY 1987 statutory prohibition was in effect, for example, no information has been found to indicate that CIA informed Congress of eight of the ten Contra-related individuals concerning whom CIA had received drug trafficking allegations or information.” This complicity of the CIA in drug trafficking is at the heart of Webb’s explosive expose — a point Webb makes himself in archival interview footage that appears in Levin’s documentary. “It’s not a situation where the government or the CIA sat down and said, ‘Okay, let’s invent crack, let’s sell it in black neighborhoods, let’s decimate black America,’” Webb says. “It was a situation where, ‘We need money for a covert operation, the quickest way to raise it is sell cocaine, you guys go sell it somewhere, we don’t want to know anything about it.’”