Over in this thread I said:
Sua Sponte then said:
Incorrect. The CIA has been involved in the crack trade. This is an immoral use of the power they have. It’s messed up and it is true. Here’s some reading for you:
[url=“http://www.consortiumnews.com/consor29.html”]
Interesting
How nice to not have to report drug smuggling
Suspicious relationships
All sorts of fun links on the bottom of this page
Disinformation always does a great job on this stuff
Enjoy.
DaLovin’ Dj
Posting a bunch of links is hardly an argument. If you have some evidence to support your position, quote it and say where it came from. You can hardly expect Sua Sponte to read through a bunch of website simply on the possibility that they might have something to say.
Sorry, DJ, but I think you’re going to have to do better than that.
I was prepared to believe you, but those links you posted are, to put it kindly, not particularly convincing. They are full of unsubstantiated supposition and hearsay.
A statement by a lawyer defending a crack dealer who intends to try to get his client off by blaming the CIA?
A term paper that uses the word “supposibly”?
Where’s Floirda?
I’m not really a big fan of the government in general, or the CIA in particular, but you have not made much of a case here.
I have no doubt that CIA had contacts with people who were involved in the drug trade, and little doubt that CIA deliberately looked away so that they wouldn’t see evidence of drug trafficking. We can debate the legality and morality of an agency which is not a police agency ignoring evidence of crimes, if you wish.
But that is a long way from involvement. There is simply no evidence that CIA was involved in the drug trade, as in purchasing, selling, transporting, etc., etc. And none of your links come close to providing any such evidence. Heck, the best your first link could do was assert that “It is altogether feasible then to suggest that the CIA and these contra rebels were in someway connected during this drug explosion while trying to fund this war.” Ooh, damning.
Sua
You’ve gone and done it now, dalovindj. Started a thread of great interest to me when I have homework to do and a big presentation tomorrow.
**
Unfortunately it goes well beyond this “look the other way” scenario. The CIA actively interfered with DEA and Customs investigations into Contra drug smuggling. Barry Seal, one of the most notorious drug traffickers in US history, was on the CIA payroll.
Careful, now. The “crack” part of this argument is disputable. However, that the CIA has been involved in the cocaine trade – obviously a link in the chain of crack production – is well documented. Here is a more reputable source.
As for the other links, its a mixed bag to be sure. But that’s what you get when the mainstream, corporate media refuses to do their job. Their record of “investigating” these allegations has been pathetic. I defy anyone to compare Gary Webb’s original investigation into CIA-Contra-Cocaine connection with the later “rebuttals” from the New York Times, Washington Post, and LA Times, etc. The Post, for instance, assigned their knockdown piece to Walter Pincus – a man who has bragged about working for the CIA in the 60s helping to infiltrate student groups. Yeah, there’s someone I expect to show journalistic objectivity.
That’s all I have time for at the moment, will return.
Beware of advocates decrying their opponents’ purported lack of objectivity. 9 times out of 10, that means they have no good evidence supporting their own position.
And you do realize that there’s a big difference between having a drug smuggler on the payroll and being involved in the cocaine trade, right Ace? By your proposed standard, probably every big company in America is dealing drugs.
Beware of sweeping generalizations from 9 out of 10 lawyers. Actually, it’s funny you bring this up, because most of the “advocates” for the CIA follow the same strategy – they attack the objectivity/credibility of witnesses. “He’s a petty drug dealer, you can’t believe a word he says!” As one disgruntled DEA officer said, you can’t expect to find many Jesuit priests at the site of drug transfer.
This gave me a chuckle, thanks. You obviously don’t know much about Barry Seal. According to some investigators he was the nation’s single biggest drug trafficker in the early eighties. A letter from the Louisiana attorney general to US AG Ed Meese in 1986 (well after he joined up with the CIA) alleged that Seal had smuggled between $3 and 5 billion worth of drugs into the US. His name should be imprinted in public consciousness just like Escobar, Lehder, the Medellin Cartel and so forth. The fact that it’s not is further testament to media whitewash of this issue.
If every big company had a Barry Seal on its payroll, there’d be an inch of white powder on the ground from New York to California.
[Calvin]
“Circumstantial evidence, that’s all you’ve got!”
[/Calvin]
So what? The proposition you’re trying to support is that the CIA was involved in cocaine smuggling. To me, that requires, at the minimum, that you provide credible evidence the agency controlled or knowingly assisted in drug smuggling activities, not that it associated with unsavory characters.
Definitions time:
When I was in high school, I worked for a pool repair company. My foreman sold cocaine on the side. On occasion he’d tell me to drive the truck to an address, where he would get out and then come back a few minutes later. Obviously, he was making a deal.
Was I “involved” in the drug trade?
Sua
Sua
IANAL, but I would think that if the cops arrested him while he was making a delivery and they saw you driving him there, you would be charged as an accomplice. I know that in Canada you would be charged, it happened to a friend of mine.
Sure, I’d be arrested, and possibly charged, but I’d beat it - I was on company time following the orders of my supervisor. And that’s the point - I wasn’t involved in trading drugs. Like the CIA and the contras, we may debate my moral position of having knowledge of illegal events and not stopping/reporting it.
Hell, Sua, you were underage and not involved. You weren’t using and had no direct knowledge of the guys actions. Not only would you beat a charge in a hot second, it’s entirely likely you wouldn’t be charged at all.
Spua
In the UK your actions might well lead to a charge of ‘taking drug traffiking into your concern’.In other words you had cause to believe that your actions formed part of the facilitation of a drug dealing offence and you did not make this known to the police.
You had reasonable suspicions, after all you knew he was dealing drugs, and being on company time and under direction of the main perp is no defence.
Your defence would have to run along the lines of something like complete niaivety or genuine fear of retribution, both of which might not be easy to prove, but your knowledge of this individuals activities could be proven by talking to folk in the company, your friends, parents, whatever.
I had a prisoner labouring in my workshop who got 7 years on that charge, the house he was living in was used for drug taking, though the house was not his, he was a lodger and he took no part in the drug dealing, but he was proven to be aware of what was going on.
That is one 'ell of a nasty law, casdave. The closest one gets in the US (at least in jurisdictions I am aware of) is obstruction of justice, and that would only come about if the police asked me about my foreman’s activities and I lied or refused to respond.
In this case, I probably would have gotten off on the fear of retribution defense. My foreman was a semi-professional body builder, and the thought did cross my mind at the time that, even if I wanted to turn him in (which I honestly didn’t - I liked the guy), he would bend me like a pretzel if I did so.
Sua