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Wow, it sounds like he got railed by the Reagan administration because he uncovered and reported that the govt. was shielding inner city drug dealers as a way t
by ericd 13y ago
Wow, it sounds like he got railed by the Reagan administration because he uncovered and reported that the govt. was shielding inner city drug dealers as a way to protect funding for Nicaraguan contras after Congress outlawed direct funding of the contras. That's pretty crazy.
- jebblue 13y agoI read, "Webb investigated Nicaraguans linked to the CIA-backed Contras who had smuggled cocaine into the U.S. Their smuggled cocaine was distributed as crack cocaine in Los Angeles, with the profits funneled back to the Contras.". So I guess there wasn't enough cocaine being flooded into this country from Columbia; we needed a complex plot involving the CIA, the Contras, the Nicaraguans, Los Angeles and a supremely risky money laundering scheme operating in reverse.
- ericd 13y agoDid you bother to read the wikipedia link I was commenting on? I've pasted the relevant part below. According to Webb, the CIA was aware of the cocaine transactions and the large shipments of drugs into the U.S. by Contra personnel. Webb charged that the Reagan administration shielded inner-city drug dealers from prosecution in order to raise money for the Contras, especially after Congress passed the Boland Amendment, which prohibited direct Contra funding. Webb's reporting generated fierce controversy, and the San Jose Mercury News backed away from the story, effectively ending Webb's career as a mainstream media journalist. In 2004, Webb was found dead from two gunshot wounds to the head, which the coroner's office judged a suicide. Though he was criticized and outcast from the mainstream journalism community, his reportage was eventually vindicated as many of his findings have since been validated: since Webb's death, both the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune have defended his "Dark Alliance" series. Journalist George Sanchez states that "the CIA's internal investigation by Inspector General Frederick Hitz vindicated much of Gary's reporting and observes that despite the campaign against Webb, "the government eventually admitted to more than Gary had initially reported" over the years.[1][better source needed]
- bonemachine 13y agoMore directly he got railed by his own employer -- the once highly respected San Jose Mercury News -- who was getting railed by conservative punditocracy (which at the time included the Reagan administration as a proper subset).