Eighteen years after it was published, “Dark Alliance,” the San Jose Mercury News’s bombshell investigation into links between the cocaine trade, Nicaragua’s Contra rebels, and African American neighborhoods in California, remains one of the most explosive and controversial exposés in American journalism.
The 20,000-word series enraged black communities, prompted Congressional hearings, and became one of the first major national security stories in history to blow up online. It also sparked an aggressive backlash from the nation’s most powerful media outlets, which devoted considerable resources to discredit author Gary Webb’s reporting. Their efforts succeeded, costing Webb his career. On December 10, 2004, the journalist was found dead in his apartment, having ended his eight-year downfall with two .38-caliber bullets to the head.
These days, Webb is being cast in a more sympathetic light. He’s portrayed heroically in a major motion picture set to premiere nationwide next month. And documents newly released by the CIA provide fresh context to the “Dark Alliance” saga — information that paints an ugly portrait of the mainstream media at the time.
On September 18, the agency released a trove of documents spanning three decades of secret government operations. Culled from the agency’s in-house journal, Studies in Intelligence, the materials include a previously unreleased six-page article titled “Managing a Nightmare: CIA Public Affairs and the Drug Conspiracy Story.” Looking back on the weeks immediately following the publication of “Dark Alliance,” the document offers a unique window into the CIA’s internal reaction to what it called “a genuine public relations crisis” while revealing just how little the agency ultimately had to do to swiftly extinguish the public outcry. Thanks in part to what author Nicholas Dujmovic, a CIA Directorate of Intelligence staffer at the time of publication, describes as “a ground base of already productive relations with journalists,” the CIA’s Public Affairs officers watched with relief as the largest newspapers in the country rescued the agency from disaster, and, in the process, destroyed the reputation of an aggressive, award-winning reporter.
(Dujmovic’s name was redacted in the released version of the CIA document, but was included in a footnote in a 2010 article in the Journal of Intelligence. Dujmovic confirmed his authorship to The Intercept.)
Webb’s troubles began in August 1996, when his employer, the San Jose Mercury News, published a groundbreaking, three-part investigation he had worked on for more than a year. Carrying the full title “Dark Alliance: The Story Behind the Crack Explosion,” Webb’s series reported that in addition to waging a proxy war for the U.S. government against Nicaragua’s revolutionary Sandinista government in the 1980s, elements of the CIA-backed Contra rebels were also involved in trafficking cocaine to the U.S. in order to fund their counter-revolutionary campaign. The secret flow of drugs and money, Webb reported, had a direct link to the subsequent explosion of crack cocaine abuse that had devastated California’s most vulnerable African American neighborhoods.
Derided by some as conspiracy theory and heralded by others as investigative reporting at its finest, Webb’s series spread through extensive talk radio coverage and global availability via the internet, which at the time was still a novel way to promote national news.
Though “Dark Alliance” would eventually morph into a personal crisis for Webb, it was initially a PR disaster for the CIA. In “Managing a Nightmare,” Dujmovic minced no words in describing the potentially devastating effect of the series on the agency’s image:
The charges could hardly be worse. A widely read newspaper series leads many Americans to believe CIA is guilty of at least complicity, if not conspiracy, in the outbreak of crack cocaine in America’s cities. In more extreme versions of the story circulating on talk radio and the internet, the Agency was the instrument of a consistent strategy by the US Government to destroy the black community and keep black Americans from advancing. Denunciations of CIA–reminiscent of the 1970s–abound. Investigations are demanded and initiated. The Congress gets involved.
Dujmovic acknowledged that Webb “did not state outright that CIA ran the drug trade or even knew about it.” In fact, the agency’s central complaint, according to the document, was over the graphics that accompanied the series, which suggested a link between the CIA and the crack scare, and Webb’s description of the Contras as “the CIA’s army” (despite the fact that the Contras were quite literally an armed, militant group not-so-secretly supported by the U.S., at war with the government of Nicaragua).
Dujmovic complained that Webb’s series “appeared with no warning,” remarking that, for all his journalistic credentials, “he apparently could not come up with a widely available and well-known telephone number for CIA Public Affairs.” This was probably because Webb “was uninterested in anything the Agency might have to say that would diminish the impact of his series,” he wrote. (Webb later said that he did contact the CIA but that the agency would not return his calls; efforts to obtain CIA comment were not mentioned in the “Dark Alliance” series).
Dujmovic also pointed out that much of what was reported in “Dark Alliance” was not new. Indeed, in 1985, more than a decade before the series was published, Associated Press journalists Robert Parry and Brian Barger found that Contra groups had “engaged in cocaine trafficking, in part to help finance their war against Nicaragua.” In a move that foreshadowed Webb’s experience, the Reagan White House launched “a concerted behind-the-scenes campaign to besmirch the professionalism of Parry and Barger and to discredit all reporting on the contras and drugs,” according to a 1997 article by Peter Kornbluh for the Columbia Journalism Review. “Whether the campaign was the cause or not, coverage was minimal.”
Neverthess, a special senate subcommittee, chaired by then-senator John Kerry, investigated the AP’s findings and, in 1989, released a 1,166-page report on covert U.S. operations throughout Latin America and the Caribbean (summary here). It found “considerable evidence” that the Contras were linked to running drugs and guns — and that the U.S. government knew about it.
From the subcommittee report:
On the basis of this evidence, it is clear that individuals who provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking, the supply network of the Contras was used by drug trafficking organizations, and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers. In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter.
The chief of the CIA’s Central America Task Force was also quoted as saying, “With respect to (drug trafficking) by the Resistance Forces…it is not a couple of people. It is a lot of people.”
Despite such damning assessments, the subcommittee report received scant attention from the country’s major newspapers. Seven years later, Webb would be the one to pick up the story. His articles distinguished themselves from the AP’s reporting in part by connecting an issue that seemed distant to many U.S. readers — drug trafficking in Central America — to a deeply-felt domestic story, the impact of crack cocaine in California’s urban, African American communities.
“Dark Alliance” focused on the lives of three men involved in shipping cocaine to the U.S.: Ricky “Freeway” Ross, a legendary L.A. drug dealer; Oscar Danilo Blandón Reyes, considered by the U.S. government to be Nicaragua’s biggest cocaine dealer living in the United States; and Meneses Cantarero, a powerful Nicaraguan player who had allegedly recruited Blandón to sell drugs in support of the counter-revolution. The series examined the relationship between the men, their impact on the drug market in California and elsewhere, and the disproportionate sentencing of African Americans under crack cocaine laws.
And while its content was not all new, the series marked the beginning of something that was: an in-depth investigation published outside the traditional mainstream media outlets and successfully promoted on the internet. More than a decade before Wikileaks and Edward Snowden, Webb showcased the power and reach of online journalism. Key documents were hosted on the San Jose Mercury News website, with hyperlinks, wiretap recordings and follow-up stories. The series was widely discussed on African American talk radio stations; on some days attracting more than one million readers to the newspaper’s website. As Webb later remarked, “you don’t have be The New York Times or The Washington Post to bust a national story anymore.”
But newspapers like the Times and the Post seemed to spend far more time trying to poke holes in the series than in following up on the underreported scandal at its heart, the involvement of U.S.-backed proxy forces in international drug trafficking. The Los Angeles Times was especially aggressive. Scooped in its own backyard, the California paper assigned no fewer than 17 reporters to pick apart Webb’s reporting. While employees denied an outright effort to attack the Mercury News, one of the 17 referred to it as the “get Gary Webb team.” Another said at the time, “We’re going to take away that guy’s Pulitzer,” according to Kornbluh’s CJR piece. Within two months of the publication of “Dark Alliance,” the L.A. Times devoted more words to dismantling its competitor’s breakout hit than comprised the series itself.
The CIA watched these developments closely, collaborating where it could with outlets who wanted to challenge Webb’s reporting. Media inquiries had started almost immediately following the publication of “Dark Alliance,” and Dujmovic in “Managing a Nightmare” cites the CIA’s success in discouraging “one major news affiliate” from covering the story. He also boasts that the agency effectively departed from its own longstanding policies in order to discredit the series. “For example, in order to help a journalist working on a story that would undermine the Mercury News allegations, Public Affairs was able to deny any affiliation of a particular individual — which is a rare exception to the general policy that CIA does not comment on any individual’s alleged CIA ties.”
The document chronicles the shift in public opinion as it moved in favor of the CIA, a trend that began about a month and a half after the series was published. “That third week in September was a turning point in media coverage of this story,” Dujmovic wrote, citing “[r]espected columnists, including prominent blacks,” along with the New York Daily News, the Baltimore Sun, The Weekly Standard and the Washington Post. The agency supplied the press, “as well as former Agency officials, who were themselves representing the Agency in interviews with the media,” with “these more balanced stories,” Dujmovic wrote. The Washington Post proved particularly useful. “Because of the Post‘s national reputation, its articles especially were picked up by other papers, helping to create what the Associated Press called a ‘firestorm of reaction’ against the San Jose Mercury News.” Over the month that followed, critical media coverage of the series (“balanced reporting”) far outnumbered supportive stories, a trend the CIA credited to the Post, The New York Times, “and especially the Los Angeles Times.” Webb’s editors began to distance themselves from their reporter.
By the end of October, two months after “Dark Alliance” was published, “the tone of the entire CIA-drug story had changed,” Dujmovic was pleased to report. “Most press coverage included, as a routine matter, the now-widespread criticism of the Mercury News allegations.”
“This success has to be in relative terms,” Dujmovic wrote, summing up the episode. “In the world of public relations, as in war, avoiding a rout in the face of hostile multitudes can be considered a success.”
There’s no question that “Dark Alliance” included flaws, which the CIA was able to exploit.
In his CJR piece, Kornbluh said the series was “problematically sourced” and criticized it for “repeatedly promised evidence that, on close reading, it did not deliver.” It failed to definitively connect the story’s key players to the CIA, he noted, and there were inconsistencies in Webb’s timeline of events.
But Kornbluh also uncovered problems with the retaliatory reports described as “balanced” by the CIA. In the case of the L.A. Times, he wrote, the paper “stumbled into some of the same problems of hyperbole, selectivity, and credibility that it was attempting to expose” while ignoring declassified evidence (also neglected by the New York Times and the Washington Post) that lent credibility to Webb’s thesis. “Clearly, there was room to advance the contra/drug/CIA story rather than simply denounce it,” Kornbluh wrote.
The Mercury News was partially responsible “for the sometimes distorted public furor the stories generated,” Kornbluh said, but also achieved “something that neither the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, nor The New York Times had been willing or able to do — revisit a significant story that had been inexplicably abandoned by the mainstream press, report a new dimension to it, and thus put it back on the national agenda where it belongs.”
In October, the story of Gary Webb will reach a national moviegoing audience, likely reviving old questions about his reporting and the outrage it ignited. Director Michael Cuesta’s film, Kill the Messenger, stars Jeremy Renner as the hard-charging investigative reporter and borrows its title from a 2006 biography written by award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou, who worked as a consultant on the script.
Discussing the newly disclosed “Managing a Nightmare” document, Schou says it squares with what he found while doing his own reporting. Rather than some dastardly, covert plot to destroy (or, as some went so far as to suggest, murder) Webb, Schou posits that the journalist was ultimately undone by the petty jealousies of the modern media world. The CIA “didn’t really need to lift a finger to try to ruin Gary Webb’s credibility,” Schou told The Intercept. “They just sat there and watched these journalists go after Gary like a bunch of piranhas.”
“They must have been delighted over at Langley, the way this all unfolded,” Schou added.
At least one journalist who helped lead the campaign to discredit Webb, feels remorse for what he did. As Schou reported for L.A. Weekly, in a 2013 radio interview L.A. Times reporter Jesse Katz recalled the episode, saying, “As an L.A. Times reporter, we saw this series in the San Jose Mercury News and kind of wonder[ed] how legit it was and kind of put it under a microscope. And we did it in a way that most of us who were involved in it, I think, would look back on that and say it was overkill. We had this huge team of people at the L.A. Times and kind of piled on to one lone muckraker up in Northern California.”
Schou, too, readily concedes there were problems with Webb’s reporting, but maintains that the most important components of his investigation stood up to scrutiny, only to be buried under the attacks from the nation’s biggest papers.
“I think it’s fair to take a look at the story objectively and say that it could have been better edited, it could have been packaged better, it would have been less inflammatory. And sure, maybe Gary could have, like, actually put in the story somewhere ‘I called the CIA X-amount of times and they didn’t respond.’ That wasn’t in there,” he said. “But these are all kind of minor things compared to the bigger picture, which is that he documented for the first time in the history of U.S. media how CIA complicity with Central American drug traffickers had actually impacted the sale of drugs north of the border in a very detailed, accurate story. And that’s, I think, the take-away here.”
As for Webb’s tragic death, Schou is certain it was a direct consequence of the smear campaign against him.
“As much as it’s true that he suffered from a clinical depression for years and years — and even before ‘Dark Alliance’ to a certain extent — it’s impossible to view what happened to him without understanding the death of his career as a result of this story,” he explained. “It was really the central defining event of his career and of his life.”
“Once you take away a journalist’s credibility, that’s all they have,” Schou says. “He was never able to recover from that.”
In “Managing a Nightmare,” Dujmovic attributed the initial outcry over the “Dark Alliance” series to “societal shortcomings” that are not present in the spy agency.
“As a personal post-script, I would submit that ultimately the CIA-drug story says a lot more about American society on the eve of the millennium that [sic] it does about either the CIA or the media,” he wrote. “We live in somewhat coarse and emotional times–when large numbers of Americans do not adhere to the same standards of logic, evidence, or even civil discourse as those practiced by members of the CIA community.”
Webb obviously saw things differently. He reflected on his fall from grace in the 2002 book, Into the Buzzsaw. Prior to “Dark Alliance,” Webb said, “I was winning awards, getting raises, lecturing college classes, appearing on TV shows, and judging journalism contests.”
“And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. The reason I’d enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn’t been, as I’d assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job,” Webb wrote. “The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn’t written anything important enough to suppress.”
Photo: Webb: Bob Berg/Getty Images; Kill the Messenger: Chuck Zlotnick/Focus Features; Contras: Bill Gentile/Corbis
Boomerang 101, 404, 901……….SPA plume monitor timing…………End of Year Carry-over squeeze……..McClatchy web mirror tag…
In light of the states desire to reign in all journalists and whistleblowers who dare to question the secret agenda’s of the state with the chance of prison or assassination this film and of course article comes at an important time.
This has “GOT!” to be the best article I’ve read all year.., There’s no way the distribution to every major city could have gotten to the extremes it has gotten without inside help… That goes for illegal immigration saturating every state in the country without someone looking the other way…
Vernon Jordan’s house! I finally remembered. That was not even my experience, so I needed some time to recall bro’s. WTF? Who gets that drunk? Obviously this isn’t credible, but so many folks in DC were doing blow so they could drink longer, I wouldn’t be surprised if Clinton did, too. But crack? Only a savage would do that drug…right, blowjobs? DC royalty is above all “that.”
It makes me sick how sick they are to imprison a nation for emulating them.
Really glad to see this important story bumped for a new generation. The terrible way media organizations treated Gary Webb is a national scandal! Keep up the great work.
2 bullets in the head? Can someone actually put 2 billets in his head without some help
Yes. Please see posts and ancillary research showing this to be true, but rare. Additional factual evidence is available to confirm this on the web and public library’s.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb/#comment-79184
Do you believe everything you read in the media?
No. I believe the best evidence available, and change my views when that changes. Don’t you?
As an example, most links shown and that I’ve read are not from media sources, which overall are not known for their rigorous research acumen.
“If others tell us something we make assumptions, and if they don’t tell us something we make assumptions to fulfill our need to know and to replace the need to communicate. Even if we hear something and we don’t understand we make assumptions about what it means and then believe the assumptions. We make all sorts of assumptions because we don’t have the courage to ask questions.”
Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
Thanks for your profanity and cute quotes. The one thing you have not done for all of your ridiculous posturing is own up to the statistical fact that 2 shots to the head with a .38 is a statistical freak occurrence, but which you seem to have no problem believing in. I leave you to your own delusions, but clear thinking people will be able to sort this out.
“The one thing you have not done for all of your ridiculous posturing is own up to the statistical fact that 2 shots to the head with a .38 is a statistical freak occurrence”
Oh, but it’s not me who needs to own up to what the facts and best evidence are. Those are not posited by me – it’s presented by experts which you have yet to seriously rebut.
Regarding the profanity, don’t take it personal, as the responses are meant for all of the maladroit claimants on here that consider fiction before facts.
Regarding the cute quotes – you’re welcome.
Yours and others entire modus operandi is to complain ad hominemly and ad nauseumly and bitterly that the facts don’t fit your fiction – which has been noted before as your problem to solve, hence the adult-language, “grow-up” reference.
In other words, your barking up the wrong tree here. Find better evidence that fits this specific situation and bring it back for all of us to peruse. Or not. It is, after all, your choice.
“And yet, will we ever come to an end of discussion and talk if we think we must always reply to replies? For replies come from those who either cannot understand what is said to them, or are so stubborn and contentious that they refuse to give in even if they do understand.” – Augustine of Hippo, City of God
Multiple gunshot suicides are rare. The vast majority of them involve shots to the torso, followed by a second shot to a different location (logically). A very small minority of multiple gunshot suicides involve 2 shots to the head. It’s hard to get statistics because most of the statistics are in academic journals locked behind paywalls. But one study has 2 head shot suicides as 3% of the total multiple gunshot suicides they could find. (They found 160+ clear cases to study — this when gunshot suicides in the US average around 16,000/year). Most of the double headshot cases resulted from a small caliber weapon, a partial misfire, or a combination of the two. Gary Webb’s wound were from a .38 caliber weapon. Clearly this belongs in the “freak occurrence” zone, and for anybody capable of clear thinking and statistical analysis, should prompt a search for a more likely explanation. Multiple gunshot suicides are so rare that even in the torso shot cases, that homicide is generally presumed by authorities. Some prefer to live in a vacuum, free from circumstantial evidence and common sense. They refuse to use their brain until the authorities who probably committed the crime investigate themselves and provide incriminating evidence against themselves. It’s like finding a charred body at the base of high tension power lines on a clear blue day and saying we have to presume it was a lightning strike unless the power company says it was an electrocution.
FrancesLott – have you contacted the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office regarding this? If not, here is their contact info:
http://www.coroner.saccounty.net/Pages/Contact-Us.aspx
Looking forward to hearing back from you on what specifically you find out after speaking to them about this matter, as well as after you have had an opportunity to read the autopsy report yourself, which you can request via their website.
Again – seriously looking for any and all evidentiary information (not anecdotal information) pointing to Mr. Webb’s death not being a suicide.
And if your cash-strapped and really serious about getting to the bottom of this dilemma, consider using the crowdfunding resources available these days to help you get the answers:
http://www.gofundme.com/
In the mean time, some public info regarding Mr. Webb’s death:
“If you can’t believe in miracles, then believe in yourself. When you want something bad enough, let that drive push you to make it happen. Sometimes you’ll run into brick walls that are put there to test you. Find a way around them and stay focused on your dream. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Isabel Lopez, Isabel’s Hand-Me-Down Dreams
It is highly likely that Danny Casolaro and Gary Webb were killed by the same expert CIA hit team—I am not convinced by the Sacramento coroners office report. They seem to often suggest that a person in handcuffs in the back of a police car for example is able to shoot himself in the chest twice. Such gullibility when taking testimony from police officers who kill with deadly force is commonplace.
FrancesLott – have you contacted the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office regarding this? If not, here is their contact info:
http://www.coroner.saccounty.net/Pages/Contact-Us.aspx
Looking forward to hearing back from you on what specifically you find out after speaking to them about this matter, as well as after you have had an opportunity to read the autopsy report yourself, which you can request via their website.
Again – seriously looking for any and all evidentiary information (not anecdotal information) pointing to Mr. Webb’s death not being a suicide.
And if you’re cash-strapped and really serious about getting to the bottom of this dilemma, consider using the crowd-funding resources available these days to help you get the answers:
gofundme (dot) com
In the mean time, some public info regarding Mr. Webb’s death:
“If you can’t believe in miracles, then believe in yourself. When you want something bad enough, let that drive push you to make it happen. Sometimes you’ll run into brick walls that are put there to test you. Find a way around them and stay focused on your dream. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Isabel Lopez, Isabel’s Hand-Me-Down Dreams
The evidence I have mentioned is not anectodal, but statistical and circumstantial. The coroner’s statement is misleading in that, while yes
“it has been done in the past” it is not a “distinct possibility,” but a remote possibility or freak occurrence. This must be weighed against the overwhelming circumstantial evidence that Webb mas a marked man by a powerful, murderous organization that could easily have the coroner write up whatever they suggest. Keep burying your head in the sand. You seem to be one of those credulous types that believe the fairy tales about this country. Political assassination occurs around the globe and throughout history, but not in the good old USA where there is the most money and power at stake. No, here it’s a gentleman’s game. Just don’t fly in a private plane, keep a gun in the house and watch out for the lone nuts. The rest of what you post if quite weak. Making funeral arrangements, financial and career difficulties, estate planning, etc. even taken together do not materially increase the statistical likelihood of suicide. The ex-wife’s statement may or may not be valuable. It’s hard to judge, but it seems like she’s saying he was depressed but never that he specifically indicated or said anything about suicide. The bit about his drivers license is plain stupid. Was it “laid out” as is so meaningfully implied or was it just sitting out. The death occurred in his own house where he lived alone. Good thing they had the drivers license, or it may have taken months to identify the body. You forgot to mention he supposedly “shot himself TWICE in the head with a 38 caliber pistol.” The first shot apparently entered above and behind his right ear and blew his jaw off and most of the left side of his face. He should have been a boxer to be able to take a hit like that and still think clearly and function.
Have you contacted the CIA to ask them about the possible assassination? If not, here’s their contact info: rhttps://www.cia.gov/contact-cia/index.html. Their response ought to settle the matter in your own mind. Keep believing in miracles and stay focused on your pre-digested narratives.
“You forgot to mention he supposedly shot himself TWICE in the head with a 38 caliber pistol”
Why would it need mentioning again what has already been stated and is uncontested by any evidence to the contrary? As was said before – if there is some, please provide it.
Again – seriously looking for any and all evidentiary information (not anecdotal information) pointing to Mr. Webb’s death not being a suicide.
And please look up the words “evidentiary” and “anecdotal” before answering.
This has nothing to do with believing in miracles, and everything to do with creating a narrative to provoke fear. What’s most troublesome is that, while we have those who apparently do get the proven fact that governments and its agencies can and do lie and kill its own citizens, either directly or indirectly, they are nevertheless unable to logically follow an argument and, in this instance, instead rely on rumors, not the best available evidence to make decisions.
In the end it is this disconnect and ignorance between what can be reasonably asserted in a situation given the evidence presented and not what some think has happened that is rotting the intellectual fabric of our society from within. This fantasy and propaganda poisons our media, clouds the reasoning of all too many on internet messaging forums such as this, creates conspiracies where none exist, fuels wars, terrorism, and counter-terrorism activities across the globe, and siphons off much needed resources for the greater part of the human race; all because of the simple fact that people are too lazy or too afraid to think for themselves and follow the evidence until it changes, and unfortunately, time-and-again either rely instead on a corrupt government or faulty reasoning to guide their way forward.
You can keep headed in that direction all you want – but from what history has shown, the methodology and outcomes suck when relying on fear rather than facts or the best evidence available – whether you’re a nation or a citizen.
In other words, wake the fuck up, get educated, and stop believing in things that are factually credulous until proven otherwise – because that thinking is no different than what the government has been spoon-feeding us regarding the NSA, CIA, and any number of other activities that have harmed citizens and violated our civil liberties.
“I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.” – George Orwell, 1984
Yup. Let me PUT it this SILLY way: Don’t feed the trolls.
FrancesLott
Yup. Let me PUT it this SILLY way: Don’t feed the trolls.
Interesting how this piece is completely based on a CIA document and soft-pedals every single instance of CIA involvement from the Contras, to the crack, to the attacks on Webb. There’s even praise for the CIA in it! One-third of the text is dedicated to quoting FOUR people on the various ways Webb’s reporting was flawed.
This piece is adversarial all right. To whom/what, is the question.
The gary Webb story gets far too little attention.
It perfectly encapsulates the violence, deceit and corruption of the State and the corporate media whores it depends upon.
Even Pacifica had two embedded intelligence agents, Larry Bensky and Dennis Bernstein who encouraged Gary Webb initially along with Daniel Sheehan of the Christic Institute who linked up with the guns for drugs which were going on in Governor Bill Clinton’s back yard airfield with the CIA airline, Southern Air Transport. Then when Walter Kurtz the chief CIA embed of the Post at the time gave them orders to drop the hammer on Webb they obliged in a truly coordinated fashion. It was obvious and ugly. Kerry tiptoed around the issue in the Iran Contra hearings and he is now Secretary of State, and Dennis Bernstein amazingly still holds his job at KPFA Pacifica in Berkeley.
It was a very painful, drawn out destruction of Gary Webb in the same order as the assassination of Danny Casolero a few years before. I am sure Maxine Watters is happy to see this coming to light even though the water is under the bridge and several impeccable journalists were either murdered or had their careers ruined.
wasn’t doyle mcmanus, a regular on PBS’ washington week, put in charge of the LA Times team that brought webb down? he clearly has prospered while webb moulders in a premature grave. wonder what he has to say for himself these days?
A very interesting write up here. Thanks for all the context. I remember hearing about this story (online of course) while I was in journalism school. Sadly, serious journalism no longer exists. I just recently went to some undergrad journalists at my alma mater about my telepathic ability and they didn’t even bite. I can picture all the yes-men in my classes who now work for major publications who would be just as glad to shut down an up-and-comer who didn’t come from money.
Yes. Same goes too for The Intercept.
Two .38 slugs to the head?
This rivals the Douglas Adams’ suicide victim in one of his Dirk Gently detective stories, where the suicide victim’s head was found on a spinning record turntable.
The CIA should have let the DEA know but they stood idly by. It doesn’t matter that most of the cocaine came from Columbia, instead of Nicaragua. If Congress wanted the Contras funded then they wouldn’t have banned funding to the Contras. And the CIAs response after having been exposed for their wrongdoing was to break their protocol and deny that one of the people in the story had a CIA connection. The LA Times and the Washington Post should have spent more time investigating the claims themselves than worrying about what editing issues there were with a story from a reporter from a small town newspaper. I bet you most small town newspapers with small budgets have similar problems in many of their stories. That is the difference between the journalistic minor leagues and the major leagues.
Major newspapers are just going in the wrong direction. Gone are the days when Washington Post reporters exposed scandals like Watergate and the NY Times published the pentagon papers. In today’s world, the New York Times sat on the story about “the program” (in 2005 where the government under the Bush administration was listening to phone calls without a warrant) until they were shamed into doing so when one of the reporters went to publish the story independently.
Best articLe abOut the Cia not trafficKING drugs. MY COMMENT – iS ABOUT deveroux and webb’s great reporting NOT whether or not it was A SUICIDE.
please do a story on his “suicide”
might be interesting for context
Multiple gunshot suicides are rare. Multiple gunshot to the head suicides are extremely rare. And most of those are due to a small caliber weapon and/or firearm malfunction. People’s common sense skepticism on this is correct. Just because it is “possible,” doesn’t mean it’s not a freak occurrence. And you have to weigh the odds of a freak occurrence against the odds of someone being suicided because he pissed off the foremost organization of assassination, torture, lies, and drug smuggling in the world. When mafia informer turns up dead in a freak accident, I suppose there are those who ignore the circumstances and say, “Golly, what a coincidence!” I would like to own a casino for these “coincidence theorists” to play at.
So, how did Noriega & the Bush family fit into it all ? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/27/manuel-noriega-us-friend-foe
There was a good article on this: “America’s Debt to Journalist Gary Webb”, Robert Parry, 2004
“Whatever the details of Webb’s death, American history owes him a huge debt. Though denigrated by much of the national news media, Webb’s contra-cocaine series prompted internal investigations by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department, probes that confirmed that scores of contra units and contra-connected individuals were implicated in the drug trade. The probes also showed that the Reagan-Bush administration frustrated investigations into those crimes for geopolitical reasons. . . ”
” . . .Unintentionally, Webb also exposed the cowardice and unprofessional behavior that had become the new trademarks of the major U.S. news media by the mid-1990s. The big news outlets were always hot on the trail of some titillating scandal – the O.J. Simpson case or the Monica Lewinsky scandal – but the major media could no longer grapple with serious crimes of state.”
Similar cases include Vietnam-era guns-for-opium arrangements with Hmong hill tribes As documented in “The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia,” Air America was a covertly CIA-owned outfit that recruited American civilian pilots to fly small planes in and out of Hmong mountain zones in Laos, to remote landing strips where guns and ammo would be unloaded and raw opium taken on board. I personally knew a Bay Area airplane insurance gut who learned to fly in the 1960s and whose friends were recruited for those jobs. The CIA must have morally justified it as part of the anti-Communist domino theory-inspired agenda.
You also have Afghanistan, both during the Soviet era when flooding the Soviet Union with heroin was considered good covert policy by the U.S., to the post 9/11 era when U.S. troops were ordered to let trucks packed with opium through security checkpoints, if they were owned by U.S.-friendly warlords. There are many more examples – since the end of WWII, the U.S. has been actively involved with drug and gun networks (and the associated banking interests, like the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, BCCI, or HSBC etc.). The proponents claim it was all OK since eventually the Soviet Union collapsed . . . but all that illegal drug and gun money is still laundered into the banking system today, and no bankers ever go to jail for it.
One point here is that legalization of drugs coupled to a public health approach to treatment (as with tobacco) would eliminate the whole covert business, reduce global violence, and would thus be opposed by government agencies like the CIA?
Gary Webb doesn’t know what he is talking about, but the Medellin Cartel’s top operatives in the USA most certainly DO know. To quote top importer George Jung, in his book/movie “Blow,” “If you did cocaine in LA in the ‘eighties, there’s an 80% chance it was ours.” That’s the Medellin Cartel’s; NOT the CIA’s. Can ya spot the difference…?
A bit of a straw man argument there – nobody claims the CIA (operating under executive directive) controls all global drug markets, just that it narrowly intervenes to protect certain drug traffikers from legal consequences when it suits the administration’s geopolitical goals. In this case, when Contra-linked drug couriers were arrested in the U.S., the CIA intervened to have them released because their actions were helping fund the anti-communist Contras and their activities in Nicaragua, Honduras, etc.
In the long run this is a stupid policy, just as funding anti-Soviet Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan was a stupid policy, which resulted in serious blowback.
Webb proved what he was talking about. You should read it. He documented the CIA and DEA complicity in and protection of the crack cocaine trade.
I don’t know anything about the article and contra.
There have been several recent examples of how individuals have had to go to the press and release information of questionable government agency practices. An individual who considered a decorated and loyal employee was attacked by the same agency he supported just because he wanted to right a perceived wrong. Another example was Edward Snowden. In each case they tried to manage it through the right channels and were turned down and told to leave it alone and ignore it or were mislead. The government in each case had the ability to quietly correct the issues and chose to defend and deny it. The question might be why can’t the government oversee itself in a more productive and objective way? Many times they create their own information crisis. As for the current press, they reported the Snowden reports and did so to inform citizens of wrong doing. An objective press is a cornerstone of a free society. If gov controls it they can sell anything. This is how the Nazis managed to gain support from its citizens and carry out their atrocities.
Well considering that Webb wrote his article in 1996 and that it covered a period before and after the height of Medellin cocaine importation I think you’re being a tad myopic.
It is clear, especially with the scandals erupting about how the US government has worked with Sinolea Cartel, how arms were sold to Mexican cartels and worse American banks knowingly laundered hundreds of millions of their cash althewhilst taking out their competitors, that the US government supports the sale of illict drugs as a means to fund and support groups who align to US interests.
How the hell would Jung know the actual quantity of coke trafficked into the US by other groups? What he maintained an imports registry?
Full information about Kill The Messenger is here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2291453
Robert Parry http://www.consortiumnews.com weighs in on this new development:
The CIA/MSM Contra-Cocaine Cover-up September 26, 2014
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/09/26/the-ciamsm-contra-cocaine-cover-up/
Gary Webb’s official Facebook page is here:
https://www.facebook.com/garywebbdarkalliance
Please stop by and thank the family of Gary Webb for his great sacrifice inbringing this story out.
It’s only recently dawned on me how sleazy the news media is, though I don’t know why I should be surprised: journalists are only people too. I wonder if any of the participants in that wretched dog pile that pushed Webb towards suicide ever paused to reflect on their contribution to his demise, and whether they might have experienced even a tiny little pang of guilt, or shame.
“ever paused to reflect”
No. They hurry on & don’t look back to see what they have trampled down. Or there are even some who applaud themselves to be on the winners’ side. Those are the people who bring humanity down.
In addition to this how can you get a second shot in your head after the first?
Gina, in response to your question about the second shot to the head, look towards the bottom of this comment thread for explanations. It sounds impossible, but it is possible.
“Journalists are only people too.” Are they?
Ryan truly misses the mark on this state department / CIA lackey piece. Many of us are very much aware of CIA and organized crime partnerships. It’s a well known fact that the CIA was and still is deeply involved in the narcotics industries.
Couldn’t agree more. In fact, Ryan Devereux looks a lot like controlled opposition.
Re: The Journalist who Fell from Grace with the Media, don’t miss the companion piece of Robert Parry, “The CIA/MSM Contra-Cocaine Cover-up” @:
http://consortiumnews.com
As a reader of several metro dailies including the LA and NY Times, I have often wondered considering the tenor of the stories whether a reporter or assistant editor, specifically of the LA Times (when it was the Chandler flagship), was not a pipeline for stories favorable to the CIA or an issue it favored.
I would wonder, “how could this reporter get this info/leak unless s/he has some sympathetic source in the spook community?
Considering the reputedly bloated, secret budgets of most intelligence agencies, it would not surprise me if some “petty cash” may be set aside for those “necessary occasions.”
Mr. Webb, you are fondly remembered.
Be well.
Devereaux’s word “knowing” as in CIA knew the Contras who the US Govt was supporting were involved in selling drugs for money is Not appropriate given that Reagan admitted the CIA “protected” Contra drug dealers. A magazine like The Intercept is going to have problems (with me) if I perceive it carrying water for the CIA. My reading of this article tells me there is water being carried for the CIA. Playing with words as to ameliorate serious covert criminal behavior by any Govt agency will put The Intercept into being No better than the New Yo-Yo Times et al but I think it has already cast its clandestine die but the good news is I am only one.
I’m tried posting this link twice today on the Gary Webb stopry
and it has been censored twice
Up Against the Beast
http://www.whale.to/b/dowbenko.html
Whassup?
Is the Intercept another Intel black ops?
“The Intercept is going to have problems (with me) if I perceive it carrying water for the CIA.”
And me too. What I don’t get is how you consider what I see as a direct quote from literally decades ago from both the Senate subcommittee and the CIA that they “knew about this activity” as being anything close to The Intercept or Mr. Devereaux “carrying water” for the CIA.
– circa 1989
These are not Devereaux’s words, as you imply, they are the governments. If I’m mistaken, please enlighten me.
Also trying to figure out how that poster misread what is clearly a quotation, not Devereaux’s words.
Gary Webb’s case is not unknown in Media history in the area I work in using the web to found forgotten books. Many items of great importance to the public are suppressed totally but for a few hardcore Researchers.
The CIA had a Alpha Operation Mockingbird back in the 1950s to form a Close relationship to media for Public Relations cases like Gary.
Even before Public Relations was an industry Upton Sinclair wrote in a book called The Brass Check in 1919 that the Propaganda used during WWI was still going on. We have had no Media passed 1916,
Edward Bernays in his 1961 Edition of Crystallizing has in the Foward a good history of Propaganda and he states that betwenn 1865 and 1917 the Public was largely informed correctly by meda however I believe it is better to say 17th century to 1917 we had a free press but now we have Corporate Press pure and simple. It is no conspirarcy it is only how our System in the US grew over time. This is largely because we have no culture as Europe does so corporate power could take over a non exant culture.
Hey Anarchist – Upton SInclair’s “Brass Check” is one of the best books I’ve ever read on media!
Should be required reading, but very few people ever heard of it!
Sugar coat it. Barry Seal was one of the hundred associated with the story who was taken out by then govenor of Arkansas. mena Arkansas where the cia planes flew in.
Sugar coat the book. Clintons were involved as the cia planes were flown into Mena, Arkansas. Barry Seal was one of the 100’s dead after the Clintons cleaned house.
Rest in peace, Gary Webb. And Michael Ruppert, Michael Hastings, and the numerous other journos who perished under mysterious circumstances just before or during breaking a story centered on the CIA.
Forget the CIA PR. Read this for a more accurate portrayal of the facts —
Up Against the Beast: High-level Drug Running
http://www.whale.to/b/dowbenko.html
Webb’s series as sent out to the Mercury’s sister papers was seriously flawed. I read it eagerly and carefully, and from the outset aimed to play it well in the pages I was editing at the time. But his copy never backed up its broad generalities about links between the CIA and the ghetto cocaine trade. Once I’d read it all I knew that I shouldn’t publish it. Aside from competitive jealousy in Los Angeles, I am confident that in most papers, the series didn’t run because it didn’t stand up. The Columbia Journalism Review was right.
I think we all know that the CIA has abetted many kinds of scoundrels in many places, all in the name of a greater good as determined by the president and Congress, if not by Langley. But one can hardly blame any institution for mobilizing to track the kind of attack on itself that the Webb series represented. Institutions protect themselves as surely as animals in the forest do. What else is new?
“(…) no fewer than 17 reporters to pick apart Webb’s reporting. (…) one of the 17 referred to it as the “get Gary Webb team.” Another said at the time, “We’re going to take away that guy’s Pulitzer,” (…) Webb’s editors began to distance themselves from their reporter.”
17 followers in this case. World-wide masses. In this case FULLY AWARE of what they were doing.
Too many consider intriguing as “that’s how life is”, as if it belonged to the nature of life. NO, it doesn’t. It’s a mindset which only works when EMPATHY is SUFFOCATED, & that is done in childhood. Education is THE means to recruit the sheeple. Mothers & fathers don’t contribute to this. As we see it’s lethal when these children are adults.
You highlight an important part of the story. The editors who abandoned him have a lot to answer for. When you’ve hired a reporter to do a job, you owe it to him or her to fully support –barring unethical or criminal behavior– the work produced. Those who abuse power depend on cowards to help them pick off their prey.
“Those who abuse power depend on COWARDS to help them pick off their prey.” (emphasis added)
Yup. It’s the problem of the unquestioning followers, who constitute an even bigger problem because of their numbers. Intrigue & conspiracy are the basis of dictatorship. & the ones in power have no shame to turn the tables & label protestors with “conspiracy”.
“Intrigue & conspiracy are the basis of dictatorship. & the ones in power have no shame to turn the tables & label protestors with “conspiracy”
Continuing the important points made by Morning’s Minion and Gina, it becomes even more troubling when those on this site and others who actually do realize there is a problem with our governments transparency remain almost willfully ignorant to the facts and best evidence available.
Sure, Mr. Webb may have been murdered by the CIA or their proxy, but until there is actual evidence to support the claim, it does no one any good to say that these, “as yet undisclosed ‘facts'” show that he was murdered, and that everyone who doesn’t believe these “as yet undisclosed ‘facts'” are a part of some conspiracy or are “carrying water” for the government.
In other words, this willful ignorance of what is known is just as damaging to a healthy society and will be “played” against its citizens by the government. Accurate information and education is the key here – and spreading as yet unproven information as facts is not helpful at all.
“Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”
– Bertrand Russell
Once again, conspiracy theory is conspiracy fact.
“On December 10, 2004, the journalist was found dead in his apartment, having ended his eight-year downfall with two .38-caliber bullets to the head.”
As Mike Wallace would’ve exclaimed, “C’mon!”
One .38 slug is sufficient to singularly dispatch a California black bear! How’d’e get a second shot ‘to the head’ off, after the first; in Any CASE?!
Whatabunch of Company hit!
My thoughts exactly!
All too true! The list is getting longer.
It would appear that it was a message from the hit. We can murder you, deliberately make the murder obvious, and still get it called suicide.
Yup. Strategy of intimidation.
& there are still enough people who explain it away. Maybe some sort of this mindset:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/26/deception-heart-john-brennans-non-denial-denial/
“We live in somewhat coarse and emotional times–when large numbers of Americans do not adhere to the same standards of logic, evidence, or even civil discourse as those practiced by members of the CIA community.” – The CIA, Secret Words of Wisdom™
You forgot cognitive dissonance, contempt for civil liberties and the rule of law, and self-righteousness.
It is the economy stupid, it keeps millions employed & generates profits for corporate America, the UK & Australia !
You can follow the money straight back to Congress & the Military Industrial Complex ! ! !
Time to start removing the corporate Congress from office & defunding the NSA to force them to comply with the law & impose jail time for non compliance under USC Title 18 Sec. 241 & 242 (Google it) .
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
Benito Mussolini
It is legal because we say it is legal regardless of what the Constitution or the Law requires, the very definition of Fascism
What is good for a political parties political self interest is not necessarily good for the country !
REMEMBER: POLITICIANS, BUREAUCRATS AND DIAPERS SHOULD BE CHANGED OFTEN AND FOR THE SAME REASON.
Disclaimer: Be advised it is possible, that this communication is being monitored by the
National Security Agency or GCHQ. I neither condone or support any such policy, by any Government authority that does not comply, as stipulated by the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Ollie North.
There were several people making these claims in the 1980’s. Please see this CSPAN video from LAPD Narcotics officer in a town hall meeting. http://youtu.be/292r5W-nSVU
Webb was indeed a very important figure, but for far more than this story purports, I humbly submit. He revealed how drugs first came into US cities, and who was responsible. This is the prequel to the drug war. We ought to remember that just years before Reagan, academics were discussing the end of drug use. Elite political officials sacrificed en masse, black communities, for the sake of funding proxy wars. And if that weren’t enough, it came back to throw all the victims in jail.
Drugs poured into American cities in the 70’s after the creation of DEA under Nixon. Nixon wanted an agency loyal to him and the CIA and FBI weren’t playing ball. DEA was created from BNDD, which had a reputation for corruption. US Treasury Customs Agents who used to work narcotics were told they would be arrested if they investigated any narcotics cases. That’s when drugs began to pour into the country. Now I’ve been told different stories, by different people. From what I heard, it was more turning a blind eye toward the smuggling in the 80’s. I heard guys walked through security without having their bags checked and the payoff in the 80’s for corruption was so huge, it was difficult to turn down by the most honest people. According to Robert Baer, the Saudi’s paid for the initial weapons shipments.
One thing wrong with this story. The big media didn’t go after this story out of jealousy. They wanted to protect the american brand.
Consult Micheal Hirsh of Politico
Webb revealed the mechanism by which neighborhoods across America are subjected to leveraged buyout, continually leaching the wealth of cities and towns, maintaining covert control and providing a bottomless source of covert dollars. He had to go. It’s really demoralizing to find this piece little or no better than one could find in a thousand other mainstream places. I was going to say The Intercept needs some thinkers, but, considering more carefully, I’d say The Intercept, like so many other news organizations, employs journalists who don’t want to get the same treatment Gary Webb did.
HOW has this investment of eyeprints improved my understanding? It has not. WHAT is teaching the kids? How to hew the company line while seeming to be capable of independent thought? Just what we need.
That’s a helluva statement. That there is perhaps some glimmer of decency and morality in the general population not embraced in the culture of the CIA is obviously considered by this CIA guy to be a shortcoming on the part of the American public.
Yes,that stood out to me also.As if their has been any logic to their WOT.sheesh.Civil discourse doesn’t make the MSM,only Zionist discourse,and there is the nexus of our dilemma.
For more info on CIA/Pentagon/Mob drug trafficking see
“Up Against the Beast: High-level Drug Running”
http://www.whale.to/b/dowbenko.html
If anybody believes anymore in the MSM then they must have a cauliflower for a brain
Interesting report. Some context might have been good, such as Peter Dale Scott’s exhaustive work linking CIA activity to drug trafficking over decades and around the world. Or for that matter, the ongoing connections that point to continued involvement, such as this by Daniel Hopsicker:
http://www.madcowprod.com/2014/09/12/mystery-aircraft-busted-in-australia-was-cia-plane/
For a watchable insight into this world, there’s no better study than a biography of Barry Seal- arguably the biggest drug smuggler in US history:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsU9_RhBmio
Michael Ruppert did reporting on the same flow of drugs into LA and lost his career with LAPD. He continued to investigate for years and they hounded him into suicide also.
Who is going to stand for all the honorable men, who fell from system pressure, that could have changed human course just in the last 100 years.
Royal Raymond Rife, Nikola Tesla, Wilhelm Reich, even Bill Hamilton (creator of PROMIS software), goes on this list, countless men we never heard about.
The oppression on the human race has to STOP!
and what about Paul Wilcher?
Ruppert committed suicide because he had a terminal case of cancer.
I’m sure that in about 10 years, it will emerge that the CIA has a gun that gives you cancer. They’ve already got a heart-attack-gun, after all
This article annoys me because the author knows that Gary Webb received two bullet wounds in the head and yet calls it a suicide–as if somehow science had determined that people do this all the time. At least have to courage to leave a parenthetical reference to the possibility that he was murdered.
Perhaps you should find a different word to challenge Ryan’s reporting with – than “courage.” The man stood with protestors in Ferguson for gas, being shot with a rubber bullet and arrest. Also, the number of pro-Gary Webb stories by any prominent journalists the last decade is still amazingly low, and since the Department of Justice never investigated the exposed CIA / drug cartel connections – its not really surprising so few reporters ever have, either. We should all have such courage.
“This article annoys me because the author knows that Gary Webb received two bullet wounds in the head and yet calls it a suicide
The author didn’t call death suicide, the medical examiner did. It’s not the reporters job to infer things not in evidence, as Mr. Webb pointedly explained to his editors here:
From Wikipedia:
Multiple gunshot suicides are rare, but possible. In one study of 138 gunshot suicides, 5 (3.6%) involved two shots to the head, the first of which missed the brain. A suicide with 4 gunshots to the head has been reported.
Here’s another source on multiple gunshot suicides:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2589288
With regard to the wish for a “parenthetical reference to the possibility that he was murdered;” it is apparently misunderstood exactly what fact-based and/or best evidence reporting is versus wishful thinking, as well as precisely what a parenthetical reference is.
I would suggest more reading and research on these issues, as the case is both timely and horrifying, in that this behavior of managing the media continues to this day.
“Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.” – Noam Chomsky, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda
All your links state that multiple gunshot suicides are “rare” or “very rare,” especially multiple gunshots to the head. An abstract of another medical article says: “Multishot firearm suicides are relatively rare and suggest the possibility of homicide.” http://www.researchgate.net/publication/235785456_An_Unusual_Case_of_Multiple-Gunshot_Suicide_of_an_Alcohol-Intoxicated_Cancer_Sufferer_with_Prolonged_Physical_Activity. This is evidence. The fact that Gary Webb seriously provoked perhaps the world’s foremost organization committed to treachery, deceit and assassination is also strong circumstantial evidence, which would be admissible in any criminal trial. That Gary Webb put 2 bullets from a .38 into his own head is very long odds, at least 1 in 1,000 if not 1 in 100,000. In your study they reviewed 138 multiple gunshot suicides out of 16,000 cases annually in the U.S., and only 5 of those were multiple head shots, and most of the multiple head shots are with defective or small caliber weapons. I guess if a known mob informant turned up dead in a freak accident, you would say, “gosh, isn’t that something?! No need to investigate, though. Let’s just believe the coroner.” By the way, you must then assume that Robert F. Kennedy was killed by multiple assailants based on L.A. County Coroner Thomas Naguchi’s report. Or are you a committed “coincidence theorist?”
“are you a committed “coincidence theorist?”
No. I am committed the the facts and the best evidence available.
All of your “rebuttal” makes innuendos and suppositions appear to have the same credibility as facts and evidence, when they do not.
That the CIA has, directly or indirectly, killed others is a given – that they or their minions did so in this case is unproven.
So if you do have a theory with better evidence than provided already, I’ll certainly entertain that, but I’ll not be troubled with all of these maladroit attempts to plant tin-foil hats upon my head just so you and others here can feel more comfortable in your ignorance.
“To know that you do not know is the best.
To think you know when you do not is a disease.
Recognizing this disease as a disease is to be free of it.”
– Lao Tzu
*to the facts….
I would love to bet against someone like you. You take million to one odds by default, and when 2 to 1 odds are staring you in the face you say, “prove it.” Your uber-rational posture is just that. Given the overwhelming circumstances of means, motive and opportunity pointing to the CIA combined with the freak circumstances of his death, a prima facia case can be made shifting the burden of proof to the defendent. There should have been a murder investigation, and deniers like yourself should have to put up evidence that the CIA didn’t do it. It is highly rational in this case to assume he was taken out by a vindictive criminal organization, the CIA, just as the mob would take out someone who crossed it or informed on it.
“I would love to bet against someone like you”
And thus the problem is elicited. You claim others make claims that they don’t make, you purport positions that, although possible, the best evidence doesn’t bear out, and you attempt to assign reasons for the actions of others based on odds and reasons that you simply make up to fill in the blanks of your multitudinous theories.
You and others here are the ones making the claim that the CIA or others murdered Mr. Webb, without providing a shred of real evidence to back up that claim. That’s not my problem – that’s yours.
I discount nothing, and welcome new evidence should it appear. What I dislike is maladroit attempts to make a case for something based, not on evidence that is the same for everyone, but on suppositions that, so far, no one has been able to corroborate.
“It is highly rational in this case to assume he was taken out by a vindictive criminal organization”
No it’s not – that’s irrational, for goodness sake.
This isn’t a poker game, this is reality. So until the “Murder She Wrote” arm-chair theorists get dealt some visceral data that supports these claims, which I welcome should they appear, it’s still the best evidence available todaywhich determines what that reality is.
“There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.” – Hippocrates
How do you know for certain that all five were not also murders?
“How do you know for certain that all five were not also murders?”
Because, like Mr. Webb when he was alive, as well as most scientists and reputable reporters, I only considered the best available evidence.
Or as Mr. Webb noted (a modified paraphrase) – “I didn’t take phantom murders into account.”
“This mindless tolerance, which places observable scientific facts, subject to proof, on the same level as unprovable supernatural fantasy, has played a major role in the resurgence of both anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism.” – Susan Jacoby, The Age of American Unreason
I hope Ms.Jacoby accused the Zionists of anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism in her tome.Somehow,something tells me different.I really hope I’m wrong about that,seriously,I’m at heart an optimist.
“I hope Ms.Jacoby accused the Zionists of anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism in her tome…” – The Maladroit Dahoit
Why not stop hoping and start doing? Read the writings of Ms. Jacoby and find out for yourself.
“No matter how much faculty of idle seeing a man has, the step from knowing to doing is rarely taken.” – Emerson
All your links state that multiple gunshot suicides are “rare” or “very rare,” especially multiple gunshots to the head. An abstract of another medical article says: “Multishot firearm suicides are relatively rare and suggest the possibility of homicide.” http://www.researchgate.net/publication/235785456_An_Unusual_Case_of_Multiple-Gunshot_Suicide_of_an_Alcohol-Intoxicated_Cancer_Sufferer_with_Prolonged_Physical_Activity.
This is evidence. The fact that Gary Webb seriously provoked perhaps the world’s foremost organization committed to treachery, deceit and assassination is also strong circumstantial evidence, which would be admissible in any criminal trial. That Gary Webb put 2 bullets from a .38 into his own head is very long odds, at least 1 in 1,000 if not 1 in 100,000. In your study they reviewed 138 multiple gunshot suicides out of 16,000 cases annually in the U.S., and only 5 of those were multiple head shots, and most of the multiple head shots are with defective or small caliber weapons. I guess if a known mob informant turned up dead in a freak accident, you would say, “gosh, isn’t that something?! No need to investigate, though.”
Another tidbit, in multiple shot suicides the “victim” nearly always chooses a different location to fire the additional shots than near the first location fearing that the second shot in a similar location would also fail. US states with large populations generally have 1 multiple gunshot suicide every other year so they are rather rare. When you further analyze them you find it virtually unheard of for double shots to the chin from a rifle the “victim” nearly always chose a new location. http://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=5322.0
Spokesmen for the investigative units of three different sheriff’s departments contacted stated that suicides seen with two shots to the head inflicted by a hand gun are extremely rare. Each man interviewed also said that they have heard of such cases but had never personally seen one. http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKwebbG.htm
http://www.corporations.org/media/
When Webb first broke this story, there were still a dozen or more major players in American media. Now there are five. I doubt most understand that 90% of the “news” media is controlled by Murdoch, Viacom, GE, & Disney. There used to be antitrust statutes disallowing media mergers that would exceed a certain percentage of coverage in a given US market, but dear old President Clinton signed a bill doing away with all that not so long after this story broke. Fox was on in the waiting room at the tire store yesterday. If they aren’t being run by Disney, they’ve hired a lot of ex-Disney help.
Michael Hastings’ death is also very suspicious.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/who-killed-michael-hastings/5355606
I grew up in an America distinct from the savagery of the Nazis and above the skulduggery of the Soviets. It was a nation that stood for truth, decency and compassion.
Sure, as I got older I learned about the 3/5ths amendment, the ugly brutality of slavery, the Trail of Tears, Wounded Knee, My Lai,, and a host of other atrocities — all anomalies which,, by acknowledging, we strive to better ourselves .
In Colorado (and elsewhere) gnomes try to wiitewash the history. They want to whitewash history because they want to keep their illusions; they want to live in an imaginary country where the flag and all their good feelings endure all evidence. Their patriotism, their “values”, their religion, their kindness when they write checks to Wounded Warrior or Save the Children. — all to sustain this childish illusion of a country of decency and honor (excusing a few hiccups like Hiroshima or Vietnam).
And what is this, but more of the same?
An agency of the US — a secret agency which employees journalists to distribute disinformation to the US public — ruins American lives to hide their slaughter of civilians in Nicaragua in the 80s, it profits from the suffering of Americans, while sustaining a vicious colonialist foreign policy training murder squads (one agency euphemistically called The School of the Americas but renamed with another euphemism because their ruthless policies couldn’t be hidden.), paying off dictators in various regimes around the world (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Nigeria, to name a few) and destroying those who would bring their crimes to light.
As the US terrorizes the rest of the world with flying robot bombs, corporate sponsored invasions of sovereign countries, and a military edifice dedicated to imposing its [general’s] will on the world while dismissing the unintended deaths (most of them in Iraq) as “collateral damage” — besides killing those poor souls, these whitewash words render them invisible, unimportant and disposable.
This sort of whitewash seems to mark the United States not as a nation of true, decent and honorable intentions at its core, but as a malignant criminal force dedicated to destroying all that threatens to reveal its reign of death and destruction little different from the Nazis or the Soviets.
Just better propaganda.
+1
Very well said and spot on. I would only add that since around 1980 the wrong types of people gained control of the country: plutocrats, oligarchs and people like Dick Cheney who have absolutely no integrity or decency. Reagan, the Bush war criminal syndicate, even Clinton was a lying, stinking sack of shit. And now we have AIPAC owning and running the government as we do Israel’s bidding in the Middle East. In short, the USA is now owned and operated by a bunch of corporate/deep state thugs who care not a shred about people of USA; they have hijacked the government and military and will use it as they see fit, to control the oil in middle east, break Russia apart and rob it, and basically fuck up any country which has oil, minerals etc. so they can then go in and rape it. Iraq actually turned out exactly as they wanted it: a weakened, failed state, divided into factions, and now they can get the oil. you may forget Saddam kicked the USA and UK out of the Iraq oil contracts as he (gasp!) wanted to keep Iraq oil for Iraqis, to improve their country, infrastructure, schools, etc. Well we sure put an end to that. Libya=ditto: kill Ghaddaffi, create failed state, stead the oil. Syria is the same. They’re now at it in Ukraine.
My sentiments exactly.
ht`mellow
“In Colorado (and elsewhere) gnomes try to wiitewash the history. They want to whitewash history because they want to keep their illusions; they want to live in an imaginary country where the flag and all their good feelings endure all evidence. Their patriotism, their “values”, their religion, their kindness when they write checks to Wounded Warrior or Save the Children. — all to sustain this childish illusion of a country of decency and honor (excusing a few hiccups like Hiroshima or Vietnam).”
Thought provoking. Thanks.
And there are those in CO who aren’t willing to admit that Hiroshima and slavery were black marks:
– See more at: http://www.cpr.org/news/story/jeffco-te … 6RYKE.dpuf
Dujmovic doesn’t see the truth. He’s conditioned to believe he’s the good guy. How would he sleep at night? His psychological defense mechanism projects the blame elsewhere. If there’s such a thing as Karma he will reap what he sowed.
Yeah, this is a CIA disinformation piece trying to spin the attack on Gary Webb. Remember, all, Operation Mockingbird, Allan Dulles in his memoirs and William Colby’s testimony in the 70’s. Even back then they bragged and admitted, respectively, that the CIA owned everybody in the western media worth owning. Don’t forget Michael Hastings either.
quote”Yeah, this is a CIA disinformation piece trying to spin the attack on Gary Webb.”unquote
Ditto. And, I’ve got $5 that says Catherine Austin Fitts agrees too.
http://www.dunwalke.com/resources/events.htm
If you want your eyes opened how this country really works, read her book. …
Dillon Read & Co. Inc. And the Aristocracy of Stock Profits
..and I guarantee you’ll never be the same.
U.S. mil-intel is still killing journalists, and not just their careers. Only now, it’s a slow kill via years of covert, debilitating, injurious celltower radio frequency radiation weapon attacks, vicious character assassination, and 24/7 community persecution by cop-protected “gangstalker” goons. How do I know? Because this journalist has lived it and reported it for the past decade and is now literally among thousands of “walking dead” victims of a heinous American genocide: see http://viclivingston.blogspot.com
Also…
“having ended his eight-year downfall with two .38-caliber bullets to the head.”
Two? So after the first bullet was lodged in his brain, who helped him fire the second one?
First one supposedly went through his cheek. Wasn’t logged in his brain.
That would explain it. Assuming the one through his cheek was first and not second. Presumably the autopsy could establish which went first.
How does one miss his brain by holding the gun to his head?
Unless it was someone else trying to do the holding on an unwilling victim.
Kevin, this was already covered in another post here:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb/#comment-79184
Just because you are silly putty,doesn’t mean we all are.
“Just because you are silly putty,doesn’t mean we all are.” – The Maladroit Dahoit
Yes, I agree. And thankfully, yet regrettably, it’s reconfirmed here – day in and day out.
“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.” – Euripides, Bacchae
That CIA piece was a real piece of self serving propaganda
There were numerous examples of attempts to minimize CIA role in shaping press – and the stuff about not wanting to live in a society where CIA dictated press almost made me throw up.
It is not a serious piece of analytical work – a blend of preaching to the choir and a concerted effort to paint a false picture, in the likelihood that the document was released publicly.
Noam Chomsky’s critique of the media becomes more and more relevant every year. The CIA has grown more cunning over the years; they’ve allowed the establishment to do PR work for them and now the CIA controls the narrative at a safe distance. The Agency understands the scrutiny of time and doesn’t openly participate in sabotaging journalist; they just craft the story through Agency journalist placed in establishment press and machine starts grinding journalist into submission, obscurity or the grave. There isn’t anybody that has read Gary Webb’s work, that didn’t have an alternative agenda, that doesn’t believe the CIA wasn’t directly involved in cocaine trafficking to some level. This establishment media smear campaign against Webb wasn’t for the citizenry, they do not matter in grand scheme of things, it was a media hit job for intellectual and political classes, so that their inquires if any, would be guided by the sober well managed established media with little regard to any amount of truth those extreme leftie anti-American journalist like Gary Webb would reveal.
Thank you Intercept and this author for covering this story. It really asks more questions than it answers. Which is what good journalism is supposed to do.
One point though on a phrase used as a pejorative I was hoping not to see here: “Derided by some as conspiracy theory and heralded by others….”
Conspiracy theory. Can we take back our language please. Again, this was another propaganda assignment by our intelligence services.
Make sure “conspiracy theory” get’s used over and over as a hammer to, in part, discredit JFK researchers after the Warren Commission
failed to make it’s case. Now it’s easy to dump on anyone trying to think outside the box.
“…an ugly portrait of the mainstream media at the time.”
At the time?
Right. It’s all hunky dory now in the mainstream media. No corporate lapdogs or war-mongers or police state apologists these days, thank goodness. Nobody around these days who’ll take a story like this one and use it to take the heat off the CIA by emphasizing the quote that it was just petty journalistic jealousies that tore Webb apart, certainly nothing “dastardly.” Story “intercepted”! Let’s get back to sleep!
It is shameful that you refuse to give the CIA proper credit. Please read this article from 2004 in Counterpunch and choose whether ‘Watched Over’ or ‘Orchestrated’ is a more accurate description.
Please remember that ‘Studies in Intelligence’ is simply the propaganda the CIA feeds to its own underlings. They don’t advertise the full extent of their activities, even (or especially) in-house. Just because it is classified does not mean that it should be treated as gospel once it is released. Remember that we lie to ourselves more often than we lie to others.
Thanks for pointing this out. I think maybe writers for The Intercept too often overestimate their readers’ ability to detect nuance. For example, this article presents the media turning on Webb as making the CIA’s job of manipulating public opinion TOO DAMNED EASY for the Intelligence Agency, so of course the subtext of the piece is how weakly and grotesquely intimidated by the authoritarianism of government/military the mass media actually is. This point is unfortunately not highlighted, although it is obviously (in my view, at least) the central issue.
Socrates was one of the first to say “Question authority,” in order that the evil affliction of authoritarianism (abuse of power) be vanquished, but millennia have passed and his advice is still unheeded. Perhaps Einstein’s “Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth” is modern enough for today’s audience. One way or another free thinkers must encourage (sometimes with raw, blunt truth rather than hints) the end of blind obedience to what is ultimately merely militarist/corporatist power, if America as a whole is to see clearly and initiate actions responsibly.
Yes. The ‘nuance’ of pablum served up on melba toast indicates the respect for our digestive development.
What about those of us who are not vegans. We need meat. Less subtle story development with some balls as promised would help.
I’m sure they are. But this article included the importance of large media outlets fired up by jealousy or contempt about being “scooped” by a smaller venue and by one reporter: The Los Angeles Times was especially aggressive. Scooped in its own backyard, the California paper assigned no fewer than 17 reporters to pick apart Webb’s reporting. While employees denied an outright effort to attack the Mercury News, one of the 17 referred to it as the “get Gary Webb team.” Another said at the time, “We’re going to take away that guy’s Pulitzer,”
Well, thanks for quoting me. I was thinking of how the weaknesses of media figures were manipulated when I used the word “weakly,” as it (I hoped) conveyed both the submissive nature of the acquiescence as well as the lack of particular effort the Agency needed to apply.
The article’s thrust is in the willingly obedient fawning of the media toward authorities, in my view, and although manipulating human weaknesses played right into the Agency’s hands, I believe the more important point is that authoritarianism was in effect and not simply incidental. Weaknesses can be exploited, and insecure people can be easily moved by abusive authority to “scapegoat” someone, glad it isn’t them. I’ve seen this happen on all kinds of levels, all involving abuse of power.
Thanks for pointing out the multifaceted nature of the article, though. I felt a central point was underemphasized, and wished for more attitude.
How can one possibly separate out the usual petty professional jealousies from the CIA’s influence when so many “journalists” are owned by the CIA? And don’t forget the NSA and friends have long been spying on *everybody*. An incriminating photo dropped on an editor’s desk would certainly get their attention. There’s no reason to think that FBI/CIA/etc blackmail ended with J Edgar Hoover’s death.
There’s plenty of blame to go around for what happened to Mr Webb. It wasn’t the CIA that killed Mr Webb. It was the entire rotten-to-the-core “Establishment” that buried the story and destroyed Mr Webb. Since “everybody” is at fault, “no one” is guilty. I feel sad for his family, having to go through this all over again.
” One way or another free thinkers must encourage (sometimes with raw, blunt truth rather than hints) the end of blind obedience to what is ultimately merely militarist/corporatist power, if America as a whole is to see clearly and initiate actions responsibly.”
Merely? Reminds me that I often think that most of us have our masters, who have their masters, right on up the line. One way or another, yes, or many ways, and I do think that a critical mass is building, which we are certainly part of.
Sadly, the image of the Mercury News as a paper dedicated to telling the public the truth and speaking truth to power, was often overshadowed by the venal self-interest of the non-news executives. From working closely with them, I found they were dedicated to self-serving greed and careerism, with few exceptions. That was the Knight Ridder corporate culture, until Knight Ridder itself disintegrated in the wake of internal company whistleblowing and the collapse of the dot.com boom, with its long time financial executives abruptly disappearing, and Knight Ridder quickly dismembered and its parts sold off. While I was there, it was the general belief that Webb had been destroyed by speaking truth to power, betrayed by the greed-driven executives of his own paper. Having got to know them, that consensus was entirely believable.
“The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn’t written anything important enough to suppress.”
Chilling statement.
“As a personal post-script, I would submit that ultimately the CIA-drug story says a lot more about American society on the eve of the millennium that [sic] it does about either the CIA or the media,” he wrote. “We live in somewhat coarse and emotional times–when large numbers of Americans do not adhere to the same standards of logic, evidence, or even civil discourse as those practiced by members of the CIA community.”
I imagine that many if not most members of the CIA community have to tell themselves on a regular basis that they are morally and intellectually superior to the rest of us just to get out of bed in the morning. My guess is they are very ethnocentric, not unlike a religion whose members believe they are morally superior to non believers. How else would they live with all that innocent blood on their hands?
I’d like to see the internal memo on how Gary Webb was arranged to shoot himself in the head with a .38 caliber TWICE (Superman could do that.)
Meanwhile, here’s a parody of Obama’s speech to the United Nations yesterday…
http://ronaldthomaswest.com/2014/09/25/obamas-speech-to-skull-bones/
…speaking of agenda aligned with CIA (recalling Obama’s love for John Brennan’s kill list Tuesdays)
Daniel Hopsicker is all about CIA/drug running. When the spooks saw how barter (coke-ordnance) was a currency so hard to trace they never looked back.
http://www.madcowprod.com/2013/08/12/narco-jet-in-costa-rica-scandal-tied-to-iran-contra-figure/
As a sidebar, related to this as another kill-the-messenger story rising from Reagan’s war in Central America, there’s the matter of the 1981 massacre at El Mozote in El Salvador, and the sorry role the NYT, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal played in stifling the reporter, Raymond Bonner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Mozote_Massacre
Amazon lists some books on El Mozote but far as I know, no film as yet.
Also kind of related to this is the murder of DEA’s agent Enrique Camarena tortured and murdered by mexican druglords on orders from the CIA for discovering that the government allowed the introduction of drugs into the territory to support the contras financially back in 1985.
http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/10/15/inenglish/1381856701_704435.html
Really great! I was living in SF at the time and remember well the story coming out and then the reaction. I was a subscriber to the national edition of the NYT then (when the internet was young) and I could hardly believe the amount of derision they poured on Webb and the paper. I had known for some time that the NYT was very close to the CIA and could spot some of the obvious plants but this effort was huge. It seemed there was an article abusing him every day.
It was not until Susan Sontag died and the NYT vilified her relentlessly that I saw anything like it.
About that “trove”…
“404 Page Not Found” error when trying to access the following:
http://www.foia.cia.gov/collection/declassified-articles-studies-intelligence-cias-house-intelligence-journal
On the November 21, 1993 episode of the CBS news show 60 Minutes, a former head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) stated that the CIA had colluded with the Venezuelan National Guard to smuggle a ton of pure cocaine into the U.S. Maybe there is a reason why that testimony is not seen as credible (perhaps the head of the DEA was an anarchist hippie who frequently indulged in hallucinogenic drugs or something). It seems like that fact deserves a mention though – if only to discredit it for whatever reasons.
Perhaps we should just call the CIA the CYA and be done with it.
Excellent work Ryan!
“Webb’s troubles began in August 1996″
Coincidentally, the same year America’s “balanced reporting” cable news network started misinforming the nation en mass: Fox News.
The whole MSM are “balanced reporting”.To single out Fox reveals your naivety,or an agenda,possibly LGBT,as that and abortion? are the only apparent differences between the alleged liberal outlets and Faux phony conservatism.It’s all kabuki theater,as in divide and conquer.
“To single out Fox reveals your naivety,or an agenda,possibly LGBT,as that and abortion?” – The Maladroit Dahoit
To say that I “singled out FOX news” when I was simply stating that Webb’s troubles began (ironically) the same year that Fox started misinforming the nation en mass via cable “news” reveals, to be blunt, your stupidity; in that from this one statement of fact you presume anothers naivety, an undisclosed agenda possibly to do with LGBT or abortion issues, and as a result try to impress everyone with your remarkable mind-reading abilities.
“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.” – Harlan Ellison
From Wikipedia on Gary Webb:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb
“On October 8, 1998, CIA I.G. Hitz published Volume Two of his internal investigation. The report described how the Reagan-Bush administration had protected more than 50 Contras and other drug traffickers, and by so doing thwarted federal investigations into drug crimes. Hitz published evidence that drug trafficking and money laundering had made its way into Reagan’s National Security Council where Oliver North oversaw the operations of the Contras. According to the report, the Contra war took precedence over law enforcement. To that end, the internal investigation revealed that the CIA routinely withheld evidence of Contra crimes from the Justice Department, Congress and even the analytical division of the CIA itself. Further, the report confirmed Webb’s claims regarding the origins and the relationship of Contra fundraising and drug trafficking. The report also included information about CIA ties to other drug traffickers not discussed in the Webb series, including Moises Nunez and Ivan Gomez. More importantly, the internal CIA report documented a cover-up of evidence which had led to false intelligence assessments.”
We’re talking just a little over 15 years ago here that an internal investigation exonerated Webb’s claims, and only 3+ years before occupying Afghanistan. Nothing I can find was ever done to eliminate or prevent such admittedly anti-DEA criminal behavior from re-occurring, beyond this internal investigation, and so its no wonder the 2-Rules-of-Law Justice Department continues to ignore pretty much all government crime since.
Then again, the appearances created by the agency delivering monthly suitcases of cash to the Afghan leader Karzai, for years, while the opium trade in that USA occupied country experienced a great resurgence — is probably just an ugly coincidence.
how exactly does one double tap one’s self in the head?
“how exactly does one double tap one’s self in the head?
Like this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2589288
Or this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2589286
Or this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_gunshot_suicide
@sillyputty
The following pull quotes are from your links:
Each victim suffered 3-5 gunshot wounds. The most common site for the gunshot wounds of entrance was the precordial region, followed by the left chest, the head, and the abdomen. Gunshot wounds were RARELY localized exclusively to the head, whereas gunshot wounds scattered on different classic suicide body sites or all confined to the precordial region and the left chest were common.
Multiple gunshot suicides are RARE, but possible. In one study of 138 gunshot suicides, 5 (3.6%) involved TWO SHOTS TO THE HEAD, the first of which missed the brain.
In the first case, an amateurishly modified 8-mm blank revolver firing 6.35-mm- (.25)-caliber ammunition was used; in the second case, a rifle firing 5.6-mm (.22)-caliber ammunition with a reduced charge was used. In both cases, low-energy transfer to brain tissue by the initial bullets was due to low bullet energy or due to the bullets’ missing the brain or vital centers.
And this from the Sacramento Bee:
He [Gary Webb] had apparently laid out his driver’s license before taking his father’s .38-CALIBER PISTOL, which he kept in his nightstand, to shoot himself. http://dwb.sacbee.com/content/news/story/11772749p-12657577c.html
(all-caps all mine)
So, you are willing to take 1/1000 or 1/10,000 odds over the certainty of Gary Webb having seriously pissed off people who deceive and assasinate for a living? You must be one of those tin-foil hat wearing “coincidence theorists.”
“So, you are willing to take 1/1000 or 1/10,000 odds over the certainty of Gary Webb having seriously pissed off people who deceive and assasinate [sic] for a living??”
First of all, that premise is a false equivalency. The definition of that is here:
http://www.skepticalraptor.com/logicalfallacy_files/False_Equivalence.html
Secondly, I am committed to the facts and the best evidence available, not what “might” have happened.
That the CIA has, directly or indirectly, killed others is a given – that they or their minions did so in this case is unproven.
However, all of these “rebuttals” make innuendos and suppositions appear to have the same credibility as facts and evidence, when they do not.
So, if you do have a theory with better evidence than provided already, I’ll certainly entertain that, but I’ll not be troubled with all of these maladroit attempts to plant tin-foil hats upon my head just so you and others here can feel more comfortable in your ignorance.
“To know that you do not know is the best.
To think you know when you do not is a disease.
Recognizing this disease as a disease is to be free of it.”
– Lao Tzu
Brushing off Gary Webb’s death as suicide is highly suspect. He “shot himself” in the head… and after he did that, he shot himself in the head again again just to make sure. I understand his brother or some relative was told on the phone by Gary Webb something like “if something happens to me, don’t believe it to be suicide”, and the note is highly suspect too.
Yes, the mainstream press are a bunch of cannibalistic jackals which try to destroy their own when told to attack by their masters, but believing the official “death by suicide” thing is just sloppy journalism with all that’s known.
“believing the official “death by suicide” thing is just sloppy journalism with all that’s known”
Please explain, exactly and with links to support the claims “all that is known” about the real cause of Mr. Webb’s death.
That the CIA has, directly or indirectly, killed others is a given – that they or their minions did so in this case is unproven.
This site is replete with these “rebuttals” that make innuendos and suppositions that appear to have the same credibility as facts and evidence, when they do not.
So, if you do have a theory with better evidence than provided already, I’ll certainly entertain that, but I’ll not be troubled with all of these maladroit attempts to plant tin-foil hats upon my head just so you and others here can feel more comfortable in your ignorance.
“To know that you do not know is the best.
To think you know when you do not is a disease.
Recognizing this disease as a disease is to be free of it.”
– Lao Tzu
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/10/whistleblowers-are-weird.html
Wow…I hope the author of that piece is an unpaid intern.
As interesting as this is, I’m really not comfortable with this style of reporting, where attributing is obscured. This story seems to lean heavily on that earlier CJR story, but it’s not always clear where the facts in this story come from. The LA Times devoted 17 reporters to picking apart Webb’s story — okay, how do you know that? Was that in the CJR piece, and the CJR piece only? Did you interview former LA Times people? (Clearly you didn’t, otherwise that would be made clear in the story.)
The story also relies heavily on that internal CIA public affairs story, which in turn attributes its information to 19 newspaper stories, but the CIA story is the equivalent of an unreliable narrator. You’d want to double and triple check anything in that document, wouldn’t you? Thankfully, those claims are cataloged in Webb’s Wikipedia page, which is more transparent with attribution than your story is.
I’m not even saying I doubt the truth of this story. I’m saying it’s irritating, as a reader, to encounter this kind of journalism where attribution is somehow considered a taint on the writing or an interruption to the narrative flow. There are very good reasons why the best newspapers attribute every morsel of information.
Yes, perhaps you can let us know which are the “best newspapers” which “attribute every morsel of information” as you claim. As for me, I’ve never seen any such creature.
I think you are deluding yourself if you believe that fantasy, especially for a mainstream news outlet. Or maybe you think that “government spokesman, who wished to remain anonymous” or “Pentagon (CIA, State Dept. police) spokesmen” or various and numerous factoid factory talking heads all constitute valid attribution.
And the current US regime has been even more hostile and secretive than the very bad regimes of the recent past.
Yes there are “good reasons” why media outlets should do so, but very few large commercial outlets or self proclaimed neutral sources like NPR or AP ever do source their morsels of information in any real sense, especially on controversial subjects.
At least places like The // Intercept are careful to provide links and denote the basis for their reported facts and analysis. Try finding links on any NYT, WaPo, AP, CNN, Fox, et.al. story online. Never happens. Instead, we are supposed to blindly trust them to be reasonably honest. How many millions of deaths, trillions of dollars expended on failed military crusades are needed to demonstrate that mainstream journalism is mostly recycled propaganda or half truths twisted and repeated until the lies appear to be the truth?
The truth is often out there. But it takes work to uncover it. But all you do is gripe that someone else didn’t spend weeks on this piece, or cross examine every prior news account. And how, dear sir, is anyone supposed to vet anything that the CIA says? Or the NSA or FBI, DEA, etc.?
Yes, you are well aware of the “facts” swirling around the inside of your head…
So it was this guy Dujmovic who wrote this laughably silly paragraph.
“We live in somewhat coarse and emotional times–when large numbers of Americans do not adhere to the same standards of logic, evidence, or even civil discourse as those practiced by members of the CIA community.”
I saw that in Jonathan Schwarz’s blog. It’s stunning the way people inside this establishment bubble believe they are doing such noble work. This is the organization that routinely tortures, murders, drones, kills political leaders in faraway countries, and involved in every shady thing you can think about. And this nut thinks his organization practices civil discourse. Yup, the same civil discourse saddam’s henchmen and hitler’s henchmen practiced.
The same civil discourse Obama and his henchmen practise each time they sign off on a Tomahawk missile delivery or drone strike. Lets face it Collateral Damage is simply the West’s arrogance of who is important to live and who is not important when it comes to dying.