The CIA’s Shadow: Contras, Drugs and Lies
By the mid-80s, a series of official and journalistic investigations that assured the involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with the Nicaraguan Contra and cocaine trafficking, came to light. This studies claimed that the government of Ronald Reagan, US President at the time, had illegally helped an army of counterrevolutionary mercenaries in Central America. However, and despite the conclusive evidence, the intelligence service executed a number of ruses to clear its name and even to victimize itself due to the "false accusations" (Ruiz, 2014). Firstly, and to fully understand the conflict, it is necessary to know that The Contras were a clandestine army of the CIA formed in 1981 who …show more content…
The Columbia Journalism Review also said that "it was basically public pressure that forced the media to deal with allegations of Webb". This pressure was completely understandable considering that the role of the CIA in drug trafficking is an old and well-documented case, due to their repetitive method of operation: fund anti communist factions in strategic locations to US and allow or encourage drug trafficking in those places . Moreover, the CIA involvement in heroin trafficking in the Golden Triangle Asia has been known for decades (Martínez, 1996).
In any case, Webb’s accusations were misrepresented, reason why in his last major interview conducted just days before his death he explains himself by saying: “It's not a situation where the government or the CIA sat down and said ‘okay, let's invent crack and sell it in black neighborhoods and let's decimate black America’. It was a situation where we needed money for a covert operation. The quickest way to raise it is to sell cocaine and you guys go sell it somewhere. We don't want to know anything about it. And you had this bad luck of them doing it right around the time people were figuring out how to make …show more content…
What is more concerning is the acknowledgment that in spite of the premise that this government organism should be interested on the wellbeing of US citizens, their methods are questionable, and The Contras case is just one example of many other similar situations that the Agency has been involving into during its history.
Works Cited
Leen, J. “Gary Webb was no journalism hero, despite what ‘Kill the Messenger’ says”. The Washington Post. October 17, 2014. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gary-webb- was-no-journalism-hero-despite-what-kill-the-messenger-says/2014/10/17/026b7560-53c9-11e4-809b-8cc0a295c773_story.html.
Levin, M. “Gary Webb was right”. Huffington Post. October 24, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-levin/gary-webb-was-right_b_6024530.html.
Martínez, J. “La CIA y el crack”. El País. December 1, 1996. http://elpais.com/diario/1996/ 12/01/internacional/849394814_850215.html.
Ruiz, C. “La CIA y la droga: El precio de decir la verdad”. América Latina en movimiento. October 23, 2014.
By the mid-80s, a series of official and journalistic investigations that assured the involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with the Nicaraguan Contra and cocaine trafficking, came to light. This studies claimed that the government of Ronald Reagan, US President at the time, had illegally helped an army of counterrevolutionary mercenaries in Central America. However, and despite the conclusive evidence, the intelligence service executed a number of ruses to clear its name and even to victimize itself due to the "false accusations" (Ruiz, 2014). Firstly, and to fully understand the conflict, it is necessary to know that The Contras were a clandestine army of the CIA formed in 1981 who …show more content…
The Columbia Journalism Review also said that "it was basically public pressure that forced the media to deal with allegations of Webb". This pressure was completely understandable considering that the role of the CIA in drug trafficking is an old and well-documented case, due to their repetitive method of operation: fund anti communist factions in strategic locations to US and allow or encourage drug trafficking in those places . Moreover, the CIA involvement in heroin trafficking in the Golden Triangle Asia has been known for decades (Martínez, 1996).
In any case, Webb’s accusations were misrepresented, reason why in his last major interview conducted just days before his death he explains himself by saying: “It's not a situation where the government or the CIA sat down and said ‘okay, let's invent crack and sell it in black neighborhoods and let's decimate black America’. It was a situation where we needed money for a covert operation. The quickest way to raise it is to sell cocaine and you guys go sell it somewhere. We don't want to know anything about it. And you had this bad luck of them doing it right around the time people were figuring out how to make …show more content…
What is more concerning is the acknowledgment that in spite of the premise that this government organism should be interested on the wellbeing of US citizens, their methods are questionable, and The Contras case is just one example of many other similar situations that the Agency has been involving into during its history.
Works Cited
Leen, J. “Gary Webb was no journalism hero, despite what ‘Kill the Messenger’ says”. The Washington Post. October 17, 2014. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gary-webb- was-no-journalism-hero-despite-what-kill-the-messenger-says/2014/10/17/026b7560-53c9-11e4-809b-8cc0a295c773_story.html.
Levin, M. “Gary Webb was right”. Huffington Post. October 24, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-levin/gary-webb-was-right_b_6024530.html.
Martínez, J. “La CIA y el crack”. El País. December 1, 1996. http://elpais.com/diario/1996/ 12/01/internacional/849394814_850215.html.
Ruiz, C. “La CIA y la droga: El precio de decir la verdad”. América Latina en movimiento. October 23, 2014.