How the CIA controls the news

[Douglas Caddy]

Last night, Sunday, July 30, Dr. Steven Greer appeared on Art Bell’s international radio show, coasttocoastam. While his talk was devoted primarily to the SETI project, he did relate that his Disclosure Project had obtained an important 1991 CIA document. The document on its page 6 states that the CIA’s Public Affairs Office, "PAO now has relationships with reporters from every major wire service, newspaper, news weekly, and television network in the nation. This has helped us turn some intelligence failure stories into intelligence success stories, and it has contributed to the accuracy of countless others. In many instances, we have persuaded reporters to postpone, change, hold, or even scrap stories that could have adversely affected national security interests or jeopardized sources and methods."

The CIA paper is dated 20 December 1991, during the administration of President George H. W. Bush (who was a former CIA Director), and was prepared for the then Director of Central Intelligence. To read the full document, go to the link below:

http://www.disclosureproject.org/

Also noteworthy are the remarks on the PBS’ Lehrer News Hour last Thursday, July 27, by Lawrence Pintak, director of the TV journalism program at the American University in Cairo. He's a former Middle East correspondent for CBS. His recent book is "Reflections in a Bloodshot Lens: America, Islam and the War of Ideas."

Mr. Pintak pointed out how the American public is denied access to major news broadcasts that are available in other parts of the world, including the Middle East, which raises the question of the role of the CIA in controlling what Americans see and hear.

Mr. Pintak stated, “ You cannot overemphasize the impact that images have. American television is sanitized. We don't see the real blood and gore of war.

“Now, it's a cultural thing, sure, but you turn on the television in the Arab world, you are seeing the disemboweled babies, you are seeing the burned children, you are seeing the pieces of flesh in the streets. And that has a visceral impact.

“Americans, we talk about this plethora of prisms now in the Arab world with this media revolution, but Americans in many ways still live in an information ghetto, because we are not seeing the images coming out of the Arab world.

“Arabs, if I stood at home in Cairo, I have 300-odd stations. I can watch Al-Jazeera. I can watch Al-Arabiya. I can watch Al-Manar. I can watch CNN, and the BBC, and FOX News, and MSNBC. So an Arab can surf across the spectrum. Americans can't.

“Jamal's [Dajani’s LinkTV, also a particpant on the News Hour program] wonderful project is a drop in the budget, as I'm sure he'll agree, 100,000 people seeing it on the Web a month, something like that. It's a step in the right direction. But in general, Americans don't see what Arabs see. And so we say, ‘Why do they hate us? Why don't they like what we're doing?’

Because we're not seeing the impact of what we're doing.”

To read Mr. Pintak’s remarks in full, go to:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-...isms_07-27.html

[J. William King]

As a young lad, I got into the hobby of shortwave listening. This was back in the mid-sixties while the cold war was still raging. I just found it very interesting to listen to Radio Moscow or Radio Havana and hear lots of the same stories I was hearing from CBS, NBC and ABC, but from a different slant. As an example:

CBS:

US troops today engaged the Viet Cong, driving them back and freeing the village from the communist insurgents.

Radio Moscow:

Freedom fighters from the north engaged imperialistic US troops today in an effort to keep them from conquering yet another village in their quest for domination.

Same story, different POV. You get the idea.

Today, I look at the online versions of news not only from CNN, but also Aljazeera.Net, The Times of India, Pravda, The Moscow Times, Xinhuanet, and several others. Everyone writes the news from their own POV, but by reading from several sources, you can usually tell what’s going on.

JWK

Edited July 31, 2006 by J. William King

[John Simkin]

Last night, Sunday, July 30, Dr. Steven Greer appeared on Art Bell’s international radio show, coasttocoastam. While his talk was devoted primarily to the SETI project, he did relate that his Disclosure Project had obtained an important 1991 CIA document. The document on its page 6 states that the CIA’s Public Affairs Office, "PAO now has relationships with reporters from every major wire service, newspaper, news weekly, and television network in the nation. This has helped us turn some intelligence failure stories into intelligence success stories, and it has contributed to the accuracy of countless others. In many instances, we have persuaded reporters to postpone, change, hold, or even scrap stories that could have adversely affected national security interests or jeopardized sources and methods."

Doug, thank you for this posting. It seems that Operation Mockingbird is alive and well.

I've been doing some international travel lately and I'm always surprised at what the news shows in European or Latin American countries. You could watch a Spanish language newscast on US cable stations and see more than you do on the US networks.

There is no doubt that you need to travel to discover the truth about the world. I thought the Soviet Union and China had good systems of government until I visited these countries. I also thought that the UK had a good welfare state and transport system until I visited other European countries.

I have also found my visits to the United States enlightening. Overall it is a better country than the one that is portrayed in Hollywood movies. However, your media was far worse than I expected.

Recent surveys show that young people all over the world are highly suspicious of the media and are more likely to get their news from the internet. This is a healthy development and in the long term will help to undermine the power of organizations like the CIA.

[John Simkin]

Thought you might be interested in this:

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/163437715.html

The US has a liberal media.

TRUTH:

This is a paranoid Republican myth.

Reality check: the US media is a mix of liberal, centrist and conservative voices. Also, the US media is largely owned by 10 corporations who frequently push pro-conservative agendas to the American public. Evidence:

1. Even Republican Pat Buchanan confessed, "For heaven sakes, we kid about the liberal media, but every Republican on earth does that." Neo-conservative pundit Bill Kristol also said, "I admit it: the liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."

2. A 2005 study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found that "coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media." Why? Partly because only four major corporate networks control American TV news-- up to 75% of the audience share. The "Big 10" media conglomerates who control the bulk of the entire US media are: AOL Time Warner, Disney, General Electric, News Corporation, Viacom, Vivendi, Sony, Bertelsmann, AT&T and Liberty Media. Yes, we have National Public Radio, but compare its public reach to that of Canada's CBC and the United Kingdom's BBC.

3. Eighty percent of all US newspapers are owned by corporate chains.

4. Liberals are virtually non-existent on talk radio stations nationwide. Rush and Dr. Laura, eat your hearts out.

5. Conservatives are very well accomodated for across FOX News, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, the New York Post, the American Spectator, the Weekly Standard, the Drudge Report, the National Review, etc. Even so-called "bastions of liberalism," e.g. the NY Times, MSNBC, WashPost and NPR make a concerted effort to be "fair and balanced" by bringing in right-wing views like those of David Brooks, Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, Charles Krauthammer and Cokie Roberts to have their say in these forums, respectively. This is in stark contrast to FOX News' claims to unbiased objectivity, which were easily demolished by Robert Greenwald in 2004.

6. Contrary to what some paranoid Republicans claim, most journalists are centrists, not liberals. A representative sample of 141 US journalists and bureau chiefs were asked in 1998, "On social issues, how would you characterize your political orientation?" Answers: Left 30%, Center 57%, Right 9%, Other 5% . Next question, same sample: "On economic issues, how would you characterize your political orientation? " Answers: Left 11%, Center 64%, Right 19%, Other 5%. Also, look at the total number of think tank citations in major newspapers, radio and TV transcripts: Conservative TTs: 7792, Centrist TTs: 6361, Liberal TTs: 1152.

7. Eric Alterman summarizes a 1999 research study from the academic journal Communications Research: "Four scholars examined the use of the 'liberal media' argument and discovered a fourfold increase in the number of Americans telling pollsters that they discerned a liberal bias in their news. But a review of the media's actual ideological content, collected and coded over a twelve-year period, offered no corroboration whatever for this view."

[Dawn Meredith]

Thought you might be interested in this:

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/163437715.html

The US has a liberal media.

TRUTH:

This is a paranoid Republican myth.

Reality check: the US media is a mix of liberal, centrist and conservative voices. Also, the US media is largely owned by 10 corporations who frequently push pro-conservative agendas to the American public. Evidence:

1. Even Republican Pat Buchanan confessed, "For heaven sakes, we kid about the liberal media, but every Republican on earth does that." Neo-conservative pundit Bill Kristol also said, "I admit it: the liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."

2. A 2005 study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found that "coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media." Why? Partly because only four major corporate networks control American TV news-- up to 75% of the audience share. The "Big 10" media conglomerates who control the bulk of the entire US media are: AOL Time Warner, Disney, General Electric, News Corporation, Viacom, Vivendi, Sony, Bertelsmann, AT&T and Liberty Media. Yes, we have National Public Radio, but compare its public reach to that of Canada's CBC and the United Kingdom's BBC.

3. Eighty percent of all US newspapers are owned by corporate chains.

4. Liberals are virtually non-existent on talk radio stations nationwide. Rush and Dr. Laura, eat your hearts out.

5. Conservatives are very well accomodated for across FOX News, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, the New York Post, the American Spectator, the Weekly Standard, the Drudge Report, the National Review, etc. Even so-called "bastions of liberalism," e.g. the NY Times, MSNBC, WashPost and NPR make a concerted effort to be "fair and balanced" by bringing in right-wing views like those of David Brooks, Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, Charles Krauthammer and Cokie Roberts to have their say in these forums, respectively. This is in stark contrast to FOX News' claims to unbiased objectivity, which were easily demolished by Robert Greenwald in 2004.

6. Contrary to what some paranoid Republicans claim, most journalists are centrists, not liberals. A representative sample of 141 US journalists and bureau chiefs were asked in 1998, "On social issues, how would you characterize your political orientation?" Answers: Left 30%, Center 57%, Right 9%, Other 5% . Next question, same sample: "On economic issues, how would you characterize your political orientation? " Answers: Left 11%, Center 64%, Right 19%, Other 5%. Also, look at the total number of think tank citations in major newspapers, radio and TV transcripts: Conservative TTs: 7792, Centrist TTs: 6361, Liberal TTs: 1152.

7. Eric Alterman summarizes a 1999 research study from the academic journal Communications Research: "Four scholars examined the use of the 'liberal media' argument and discovered a fourfold increase in the number of Americans telling pollsters that they discerned a liberal bias in their news. But a review of the media's actual ideological content, collected and coded over a twelve-year period, offered no corroboration whatever for this view."

Thank God they don't (yet) control C-Span. Last night I watched an incredible conference of 9-11 Scholars for truth. Hosted by Austin's own ALex Jones (infowars.com), it was an all star panel including our own Jim Fetzer, who was brilliant! Steven Jones, the Utah scintist and others I will have to look up after court. I hope c-span re-broadcasts this so I can tape it. I urge others to look for it.

For those who do not believe 9-11 was an inside job this conference is a must see.

Jim: Is there a video I can order? (I wall also check Alex' site).

Dawn

[Dawn Meredith]

Attorney Caddy: I see we have a common interest in radio: Coast to coast am. I listen every night.

I have some questions for you- after vacation-

but, since we're both coast to coast fans let me ask one:

Do you believe in the whole alien thing?

(I am totally serious!! I did not believe in aliens here til listening to this show and now...I am a skeptic, but also am often quite pusuaded by the people George has on.)

I got to hear Joan Mellen on coast to coast on n 11/22/05- back when I was TOTAL fan of hers. She does Garrison proud in AFTJ, but has some glaring inaccuracies as well.

Hope you are having a lovely August.

Dawn Meredith

[Douglas Caddy]

Sadly, though having the means to travel and to take advantage of the wealth of media sources [read alternative and foreign] today via internet or even cable/satellite most Americans avail themselves of neither. The media is controlled more than in any other major country. Fox, for example is just the neocon cheerleader channel; even the vaulted NYT is tightly controlled [never once had an article critical of nor questioning WC, for example - yet did nice bookreview of the Posner toiletpaper book]. Shows that have tried to peek behind the curtain...like Bill Moyer's show have been under pressure or shut down. Even this absolute falsehood of the 'liberal' media is a CIA spin IMO...it is clearly owned by, and run for the benefit of those far to the right of 'liberal'. The only thing liberal about the media is 'liberally' controlled. History is also controlled in America. Do I hear a mockingbird?.....

After reading the piece below from today's New York Times, I asked myself the question, "What role did the CIA agent(s) assigned to monitor news that might appear in the Times play in delaying publication of the disputed article in question until after the last election, thus assuring Bush's victory?"

August 13, 2006

The New York Times

The Public Editor

Eavesdropping and the Election: An Answer on the Question of Timing

By BYRON CALAME

THE NEW YORK TIMES’S Dec. 16 article that disclosed the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping has led to an important public debate about the once-secret program. And the decision to write about the program in the face of White House pressure deserved even more praise than I gave it in a January column, which focused on the paper’s inadequate explanation of why it had “delayed publication for a year.”

The article, written by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, has been honored with a Pulitzer and other journalistic prizes. But contradictory post-publication comments by Times editors and others about just how long the article was held have left me increasingly concerned about one key question: Did The Times mislead readers by stating that any delay in publication came after the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election?

In my January column, in which I refused to rely on anonymous sources, I noted that I was left “puzzled” by the election question. But I have now learned from Bill Keller, the executive editor, that The Times delayed publication of drafts of the eavesdropping article before the 2004 election. This revelation confirms what anonymous sources had told other publications such as The Los Angeles Times and The New York Observer in December.

A number of readers critical of the Bush administration have remained particularly suspicious of the article’s assertion that the publication delay dated back only “a year” to Dec. 16, 2004. They contend that pre-election disclosure of the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping could have changed the outcome of the election.

Since the Times article appeared, I have grown increasingly intrigued by changes in the way the delay has been described in the paper and in comments by Mr. Keller. A background paragraph in a follow-up article on Dec. 31 said, “The administration first learned that The New York Times had obtained information about the secret eavesdropping program more than a year ago.” Mr. Keller also began using the “more than a year” language.

My decision to take another look at the extent of the delay came after reading Mr. Keller’s response to an online question in April during “Talk to the Newsroom,” a feature on nytimes.com. Eric Sullivan, from Waunakee, Wis., commented: “I’d like to know why you sat on the N.S.A. story. You probably changed the course of an election and likely history to come.”

Mr. Keller’s rather matter-of-fact acceptance of Mr. Sullivan’s presumptions caught my eye: “Whether publishing earlier would have influenced the 2004 election is, I think, hard to say. Judging from the public reaction to the N.S.A. eavesdropping reflected in various polls, one could ask whether earlier disclosure might have helped President Bush more than hurt.”

Mr. Keller, who wouldn’t answer any questions for my January column, recently agreed to an interview about the delay, although he saw it as “old business.” But he had some new things to say about the delay and the election.

Internal discussions about drafts of the article had been “dragging on for weeks” before the Nov. 2 election, Mr. Keller acknowledged. That process had included talks with the Bush administration. He said a fresh draft was the subject of internal deliberations “less than a week” before the election.

“The climactic discussion about whether to publish was right on the eve of the election,” Mr. Keller said. The pre-election discussions included Jill Abramson, a managing editor; Philip Taubman, the chief of the Washington bureau; Rebecca Corbett, the editor handling the story, and often Mr. Risen. Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, was briefed, but Mr. Keller said the final decision to hold the story was his.

Mr. Keller declined to explain in detail his pre-election decision to hold the article, citing obligations to preserve the confidentiality of sources. He has repeatedly indicated that a major reason for the publication delays was the administration’s claim that everyone involved was satisfied with the program’s legality. Later, he has said, it became clear that questions about the program’s legality “loomed larger within the government than we had previously understood.”

But last week Mr. Keller e-mailed me a description of how that picture had changed by December 2005, and it cast some new light on the pre-election situation for me. It implied that the paper’s pre-election sources hadn’t been sufficiently “well-placed and credible” to convince him that questions about the program’s legality and oversight were serious enough to make it “responsible to publish.” But by December, he wrote, “We now had some new people who could in no way be characterized as disgruntled bureaucrats or war-on-terror doves saying we should publish. That was a big deal.”

Holding a fresh draft of the story just days before the election also was an issue of fairness, Mr. Keller said. I agree that candidates affected by a negative article deserve to have time — several days to a week — to get their response disseminated before voters head to the polls.

So why did the Dec. 16 article say The Times had “delayed publication for a year,” specifically ruling out the possibility that the story had been held prior to the Nov. 2 election? “It was probably inelegant wording,” Mr. Keller said, who added later, “I don’t know what was in my head at the time.”

Were the wording and the sensitivity of the election-day timing issue discussed internally? “I don’t remember,” Mr. Keller said in an interview. He does remember discussing that “I wanted to own up to holding it.” And The Times does deserve credit for disclosing that it had held the story.

It was more than inelegant, however, to report flatly that the delay had lasted “a year.” Characterizing it as “more than a year,” as Mr. Keller and others later did, would have been technically accurate. But that phrase would have represented a fuzziness that Times readers shouldn’t have to put up with when a hotly contested presidential election is involved.

Given the importance of this otherwise outstanding article on warrantless eavesdropping — and now the confirmation of pre-election decisions to delay publication — The Times owes it to readers to set the official record straight.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/opinion/...amp;oref=slogin

[Douglas Caddy]

[

Doug, thank you for this posting. It seems that Operation Mockingbird is alive and well.

[

The CIA-Contra-Crack Connection, 10 Years Later

Reporter Gary Webb was the victim of his own hyperbole, but he never got credit for what he got right.

By Nick Schou

NICK SCHOU is an editor for OC Weekly. His book, "Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb," will be published in October.

Los Angeles Times

August 18, 2006

TEN YEARS AGO today, one of the most controversial news articles of the 1990s quietly appeared on the front page of the San Jose Mercury News. Titled "Dark Alliance," the headline ran beneath the provocative image of a man smoking crack — superimposed on the official seal of the CIA.

The three-part series by reporter Gary Webb linked the CIA and Nicaragua's Contras to the crack cocaine epidemic that ripped through South Los Angeles in the 1980s.

Most of the nation's elite newspapers at first ignored the story. A public uproar, especially among urban African Americans, forced them to respond. What followed was one of the most bizarre, unseemly and ultimately tragic scandals in the annals of American journalism, one in which top news organizations closed ranks to debunk claims Webb never made, ridicule assertions that turned out to be true and ignore corroborating evidence when it came to light. The whole shameful cycle was repeated when Webb committed suicide in December 2004.

Many reporters besides Webb had sought to uncover the rumored connection between the CIA's anti-communism efforts in Central America and drug trafficking. "Dark Alliance" documented the first solid link between the agency and drug deals inside the U.S. by profiling the relationship between two Nicaraguan Contra sympathizers and narcotics suppliers, Danilo Blandon and Norwin Meneses, and L.A.'s biggest crack dealer, "Freeway" Ricky Ross.

Two years before Webb's series, the Los Angeles Times estimated that at its peak, Ross' "coast-to-coast conglomerate" was selling half a million crack rocks per day. "f there was one outlaw capitalist most responsible for flooding Los Angeles' streets with mass-marketed cocaine," the article stated, "his name was 'Freeway' Rick."

But after Webb's reporting tied Ross to the Nicaraguans and showed that they had CIA connections, The Times downgraded Ross' role to that of one "dominant figure" among many. It dedicated 17 reporters and 20,000 words to a three-day rebuttal to "Dark Alliance" that also included a lengthy musing on whether African Americans disproportionately believe in conspiracy theories.

All three major U.S. dailies, The Times included, debunked a claim that Webb actually never made — that the CIA deliberately unleashed the crack epidemic on black America. The controversy over this non-assertion obscured Webb's substantive points about the CIA knowingly doing business south of the border with Nicaraguans involved in the drug trade up north.

The Washington Post titled one of its stories "Conspiracy Theories Can Often Ring True; History Feeds Blacks' Mistrust." The New York Times chipped in with a scathing critique of Webb's entire career, suggesting that he was a reckless reporter prone to getting his facts wrong.

"That article included virtually none of the good things Gary did," said Webb's former Cleveland Plain Dealer colleague, Walt Bogdanich, now a New York Times editor. "It didn't include the success he achieved or the wrongs he righted — and they were considerable. It wasn't fair, and it made him out to be a freak."

There is no denying that the papers were right on one serious count — "Dark Alliance" contained major flaws of hyperbole that were both encouraged and ignored by his editors, who saw the story as a chance to win a Pulitzer Prize, according to Mercury News staffers I interviewed.

Webb asserted, improbably, that the Blandon-Meneses-Ross drug ring opened "the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles," helping to "spark a crack explosion in urban America." The story offered no evidence to support such sweeping conclusions, a fatal error that would ultimately destroy Webb, if not his editors.

At first, the Mercury News defended the series, but after nine months, Executive Editor Jerry Ceppos wrote a half-apologetic letter to readers that defended "Dark Alliance" while acknowledging obvious mistakes. Webb privately (and accurately) predicted the mea culpa would universally be misperceived as a total retraction, and he publicly accused the paper of cowardice. In return, he was banished to a remote bureau in Cupertino, Calif.; he resigned a few months later.

Meanwhile, spurred on by Webb's story, the CIA conducted an internal investigation that acknowledged in March 1998 that the agency had covered up Contra drug trafficking for more than a decade. Although the Washington Post and New York Times covered the report — which confirmed key chunks of Webb's allegations — the L.A. Times ignored it for four months, and largely portrayed it as disproving the "Dark Alliance" series. "We dropped the ball on that story," said Doyle McManus, the paper's Washington bureau chief, who helped supervise its response to "Dark Alliance."

Unable to find suitable employment, a bewildered Webb left journalism, endured a difficult divorce and battled growing depression and financial despair. But even his suicide failed to dull the media's contempt for "Dark Alliance." The L.A. Times and the New York Times published brief obituaries dismissing Webb as the author of "discredited" stories linking the CIA to Southern California drug sales.

Unlike the media pariahs who came after "Dark Alliance" — most notably fabulists Stephen Glass of the New Republic and Jayson Blair of the New York Times — Webb didn't invent facts. Contrary to the wholly discredited reporting on Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction by New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Webb was the only victim of his mistakes. Nobody else died because of his work, and no one, either at the CIA or the Mercury News, is known to have lost so much as a paycheck. The editors involved with the story, including Managing Editor David Yarnold, survived the scandal to receive generous promotions.

History will tell if Webb receives the credit he's due for prodding the CIA to acknowledge its shameful collaboration with drug dealers. Meanwhile, the journalistic establishment is only beginning to recognize that the controversy over "Dark Alliance" had more to do with poor editing than bad reporting.

"In some ways, Gary got too much blame," said L.A. Times Managing Editor Leo Wolinsky. "He did exactly what you expect from a great investigative reporter."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...-opinion-center

[John Dolva]

"...included a lengthy musing on whether African Americans disproportionately believe in conspiracy theories."

Douglas, this looks like a 'fingerprint' of people of interest in other matters. Do you have a name of author/source?

[Dawn Meredith]

"...included a lengthy musing on whether African Americans disproportionately believe in conspiracy theories."

Douglas, this looks like a 'fingerprint' of people of interest in other matters. Do you have a name of author/source?

Both my husband- (also a criminan defense atty.)- and I discuss this with our black clients all the time. They all KNOW already that the government is responsible for all the crack. One little juvie girl a few years back responded by telling me that "CIA stands for 'crack in America' ". She was a pretty savvy 14 year old.

This article totally vindicates Gary Webb and the great work he did. Too bad it was not published before his tragic death. It might have prevented it.

Dawn

[John Dolva]

That's interesting Dawn. It reminds me of Malcolm X's responce to the assassination which I read as saying 'why be surprised?'.

My earliest memory of the assassination is seeing a black woman on TV, crying and saying 'why did THEY do it'.

I get the impression from this article that the comment there about conspiracy belief is meant as a derogatory thing aimed to cause division. There's such a large body of thought aimed at finding differences, and pseudo scientific explanations, ultimately creating a group of unthinking responses to explain away the root causes of discontent which are grounded in economic relationships.

In its worst manifestation justifications for supremacy thinking and ultimately eugenics and genocide. Family used to mean all. In a violently divided society, family shrinks.

"...after Webb's reporting tied Ross to the Nicaraguans and showed that they had CIA connections, The Times downgraded Ross' role to that of one "dominant figure" among many. It dedicated 17 reporters and 20,000 words to a three-day rebuttal to "Dark Alliance" that also included a lengthy musing on whether African Americans disproportionately believe in conspiracy theories.

All three major U.S. dailies, The Times included, debunked a claim that Webb actually never made — that the CIA deliberately unleashed the crack epidemic on black America. The controversy over this non-assertion obscured Webb's substantive points about the CIA knowingly doing business south of the border with Nicaraguans involved in the drug trade up north.

The Washington Post titled one of its stories "Conspiracy Theories Can Often Ring True; History Feeds Blacks' Mistrust." The New York Times chipped in with a scathing critique of Webb's entire career, suggesting that he was a reckless reporter prone to getting his facts wrong."

[Brendan Slattery]

Both my husband- (also a criminan defense atty.)- and I discuss this with our black clients all the time.

You have actual clients? Impossible.

They all KNOW already that the government is responsible for all the crack.

So that makes it true!

One little juvie girl a few years back responded by telling me that "CIA stands for 'crack in America' ". She was a pretty savvy 14 year old.

She needs to get off the pipe and get her ass back to school. You too.

This article totally vindicates Gary Webb and the great work he did. Too bad it was not published before his tragic death. It might have prevented it.

Clinically depressed, disgraced writers kill themselves all the time. No big loss.

[Brendan Slattery]

One less anti-American scumbag walking the Earth. Pity.

[Jack White]

One less anti-American scumbag walking the Earth. Pity.

Repeated requests to remove this scumbag have fallen on deaf ears, even

though he has never posted ANY research.

Jack

[Dawn Meredith]

One less anti-American scumbag walking the Earth. Pity.

Repeated requests to remove this scumbag have fallen on deaf ears, even

though he has never posted ANY research.

Jack

Jack:

He's only here to annoy us. Research? I doubt he can spell the word.

And yes BS I have more work than I need at the moment.

I wonder what I would get if I bothered to google you. Not enuf time to waste

on such a thing tho. Probably not even your real name or pic. You're really Lynn Foster

in drag. You might consider suicide. When it comes to you I am reminded of the late,

great Freddy Mercury in "Don' t Try Suicide" : " no body gives a damn". That about sums up

how you are viewed here.

Dawn