Pubdate: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 Source: San Francisco Bay View, The (CA) Copyright: 2004 The San Francisco Bay View Contact: http://www.sfbayview.com Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1030 Author: Junious Ricardo Stanton Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/gary+webb FASCIST SMEARS AGAINST GARY WEBB CONTINUE EVEN IN DEATH "Even after the CIA's inspector general issued his findings in 1998, the major newspapers could not muster the talent or the courage to explain those extraordinary government admissions to the American people. Nor did the big newspapers apologize for their unfair treatment of Gary Webb. Foreshadowing the media incompetence that would fail to challenge George W. Bush's case for war with Iraq five years later, the major news organizations effectively hid the CIA's confession from the American people. "The New York Times and the Washington Post never got much past the CIA's 'executive summary,' which tried to put the best spin on Inspector General Frederick Hitz's findings. The Los Angeles Times never even wrote a story after the final volume of the CIA's report was published, though Webb's initial story had focused on contra-connected cocaine shipments to South-Central Los Angeles." - Robert Parry, Consortium News News of former journalist Gary Webb's death began to circulate on the Internet Sunday. Most reports stated the cause of death was "suicide" from a gunshot wound to the head. Pardon my skepticism, but this sounds fishy to me, especially with the note taped to his front door etc., but that's another issue. Gary Webb broke the story of CIA's involvement in smuggling drugs into the country, using the money from the drugs as part of a scheme to pay for the illegal support of Reagan's ideological war in Nicaragua. There is no doubt the CIA was/is involved in drug smuggling and had a direct impact on the devastation the introduction of the new form of cocaine, crack, would have on the inner cities of AmeriKKKa. Webb's series, which later was made into a book called "Dark Alliance," was the catalyst that woke Black folks up and gave us a tangible explanation of how this plague was unleashed on our communities. Once the series broke, word spread and Black elected officials and community activists demanded an investigation. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, whose district is in Los Angles where Webb documented the impact of the crack cocaine epidemic, demanded an investigation by the Inspector General's Office. The government complied, doing their usual whitewash and suppression of the facts. Meanwhile, the mainstream media did a hatchet job on Webb. Under a relentless assault led by the New York Times, the Washington Post and the L.A. Times, Webb's editor at the San Jose Mercury News, which was owned by the Knight Rider national newspaper chain, demoted him. With a national campaign of disinformation and vilification leveled at him, Webb succumbed to their onslaught of criticism, obfuscation and innuendo. Quiet as it's kept, Webb just dusted the surface. If he had been able to dig deeper, he would have found the trail of imported drugs leading to several key importation spots; one was the notorious Mena Airfield in Arkansas during the time one William Jefferson Clinton was governor. Webb never mentioned Clinton or Lt. Col. Oliver North, George H.W. Bush's man on the National Security Council, who was deeply and integrally involved with the Contra drugs and weapons apparatus. In a subsequent article carried by the Executive Intelligence Review News Service, Edward Spannaus stated, "The Seal records confirm what is already well-known: that Mena was being used to fly weapons into Central America, and that drugs were brought back on the return flights. All of the numerous efforts to investigate the Mena operation during the Reagan and Bush administrations were blocked on 'national security' grounds. "These dirty operations were run out of Bush's office under the nominal authority of National Security Decision Directives Nos. 2 and 3, issued early in the Reagan administration. Out of these came the Special Situation Group (SSG), headed by the Vice President; and then came the Crisis Pre-Planning Group, an inter-agency coordinating body whose staff coordinator was Oliver North. "Under NSDD-2 and NSDD-3, George Bush was in charge of the entire 'secret government' apparatus - which not only ran covert operations overseas, but also against U.S. citizens at home. This was the true story of 'Iran-Contra,' which was never investigated either by Congress or by Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh. Now, with new evidence about Mena circulating, and in the aftermath of North's failed Senate campaign, there is a climate building which could finally result in the first full investigation of the crimes of George Bush and his flunky, Oliver North." Since the last thing the cockroaches want is the light turned on them, they demonized and vilified Webb in their controlled press, which had the effect of neutralizing all his fine research and work. Now that Webb is dead - and we don't know the full circumstance of how he died - - the corporate mind control apparatus is still demonizing him. The corporate mind control apparatus is sending a clear message: this is what happens to people who don't tow the line, nonconformists who tell the truth rather than lie on cue in service of the New World Order. By vilifying Webb, they are saying, "We will dog you and ruin your reputation while you are alive, and we will dog you when you die!" We should expect nothing less from the psychopathic elites who run this country. The Bush family are key players in the ongoing criminalization of the U.S. The federal government's sanction of slavery was the original sin; the bogus War on Terrorism is its current embodiment. Bush and Co. are rigging the game so their active roles won't be publicized. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin