A book review by Chuck Parker
This book is really three stories in one. Firstly, it is an expose of the CIA involvement with the Contras in Nicaragua. They set up a huge cocaine smuggling ring to finance their war against the popular Sandinista movement, which came to power in the revolution of 1979. Secondly, it is the story of the spread of crack cocaine in the Black communities of Los Angeles during the 1980’s, which resulted from this smuggling. Finally, it is the story of how the major media attacked the author to try to suppress these first two shocking stories.
This cocaine trade caused widespread destruction to the neighborhoods of L.A., which included not only addiction, crime, and gang warfare, but also the imprisonment of many thousands of small dealers and people arrested for simple possession. Meanwhile the millionaire cocaine smugglers, who enjoyed the protection of the CIA, walked away free men, and the trade went on unimpeded.
It would not be the first time that harm comes to the American people when our government attacks the people of other countries. We all know veterans who have returned home from foreign wars disabled, or people who have suffered and died because of cuts to healthcare and other programs which were caused by the billions of dollars spent to finance those wars. However, in this instance, the damage was swift and direct—our government at the highest levels teamed up with criminals and terrorists to bring massive amounts of crack cocaine into our communities while cynically promoting a “war on drugs.”
This book also exposes how phony the government’s “war on terror” is, because the CIA employed known terrorists as Contra’s in this war. Many Central American people fled to the U.S. to escape the violence. So we see an example of how one of the roots of the so-called “immigration problem” is this use of force to impose the will of big corporations on the small countries of Central America. Whether we live in a community plagued by illegal drugs, or a community where undocumented Latino workers fear deportation to the countries they had to flee because of the wars and violent crime that our government brought there, the solution for all of us lies in a united struggle for justice.
The author, Gary Webb, was viciously attacked by the corporate media, which even led to his death in 2004. We owe it to his courage and integrity, to reject the politics of fear. Politics which has been used in both the ‘War on Drugs,” and the “War on Terror” to win public support for criminal wars in Central America, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and to justify the imprisonment of thousands of young Black men in America. This book helps to expose these frauds for what they really are: a War on Freedom.
