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Iran Contra - The CIA's role in Bringing Crack to America
The CIA Contra scandal has been around for 30 years now, and to this day, it has been one of the biggest U.S. political scandals in the history of the country.
It has also been more than 18 years since famed journalist; the late Gary Webb rocked both the world and the CIA with his, “Dark Alliance” newspaper series and later book which looked into the connections between the CIA, the crack-cocaine rise main in African-American neighbourhoods within Los Angeles and the Nicaraguan Contra fighters.
The video below is the trailer for, "Freeway: Crack in the System" a documentary depicting the drug trade as well as the Iran Contra scandal:
So what exactly happened?
Officially deemed the, “Iran-Contra Affair” after its “completion” was a political scandal which involved the United States government illegally funding many rebel groups in Nicaragua in order to help them overthrow the Nicaraguan government at the time.
How did they accomplish this?
The U.S. government would manufacture untraceable weapons and ship them to Nicaragua, where they would be distributed to the Contras in exchange for tons of cocaine which they would ship on return flights to the U.S. and then distribute amongst the public. They would then use the millions gained from the drug market to fund the Contras in their war.
Who is Gary Webb and what is his connection to all this?
Gary Webb was an investigative reporter for the San Jose Mercury News in California and had uncovered that the CIA was helping to fund the Contras and was behind the 1980s crack epidemic, which prompted a number of federal investigations involving the CIA, FBI and more.
In addition to this, his ‘Dark Alliance’ series looked into the deep side of things, looking into how the CIA took part in the trade of drugs within the inner city through the use of notorious kingpin, Freeway Rick Ross (not the one you’re probably thinking of), who allegedly, “in the course of his rise, prosecutors estimate that Ross exported several tons of cocaine to New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and made more than $600 million in the process.”
On December 10 2004, Webb was found dead in his home with two gunshot wounds to the head, a death which was later stated to be a suicide.
To put it bluntly, the U.S. government, traded weapons that they had manufactured in exchange for drugs, rerouted the drugs at a U.S. airbase that would later be shipped into the country and distributed amongst the public in order to make money to fund an illegal war (bear in mind this is before the deal with Iran which sets off a whole bunch of other issues).
A film entitled, "Kill the Messenger" was released in 2014, depicting Webb's struggle with trying to get the truth out. Take a look at the trailer below:
