On Wed, 21 Aug 1996, Jim Ray wrote:
[I said]
Oh, I don't think it's impossible or even unlikely that at least some of the groups lumped together as "contras" were involved in drug smuggling, and I think it's reasonable to have different views regarding how much money was involved and who knew what when (my view is very little, and medium).
Anyone who says "very little" money is involved in any aspect of the cocaine importation trade definitely doesn't live in Miami.
The aspect of the cocaine trade in Miami that is tied up with a conspiracy to kidnap the mascot of the Miami Dolphins involves "very little" money. This is not to suggest that the cocaine importation trade as a whole involves "very little" money. The supposed Contra Connection -- which as originally made up was not supposed to involve Miami, by the way, but primarily CA, LA, and TX -- involves "very little" money relative to the Contra budget, and even less considering how little was supposed to have been passed on, and "very little" money relative to the total drug trade.
What I object to are conspiracy theories along the lines of:
1. The Reagan Administration used the Contras to smuggle crack to the US in a deliberate attempt at genocide against Black people. (I heard this a lot, though seldom in so many words, on KPFK in the mid-80's; the SJ Merc series certainly has this as a subtext.)
I never said that, and I object to calling something a "conspiracy theory" just because it's politically inconvenient.
Me too. Only wacky conspiracy theories should be called wacky conspiracy theories. No, you never suggested the above -- as I said, I heard it mostly on KPFK, a far-left, "Black Nationalist"-friendly radio station in Los Angeles associated with the Pacifica Foundation, in the mid-80's. It would be rather difficult to confuse them with you. :-) I include this example to indicate where the story originated.
2. Clinton was a CIA agent involved in the Contra drug-smuggling CaBaL.
He was governor of Arkansas when Reagan was President of the United States. Do the search I already gave you, and read the articles. mena /p cocaine
My academic advisor was Terry Karl, a rather sharp critic of the CIA and a specialist on Central America. I spent a decade on Latin American policy issues. I personally spoke with Mr. Calero at a (well-picketed) reception at Stanford in 1989. I had classmates from Nicaragua. Speculative rumor-mongering by Beltway journalists who can't even read Spanish doesn't impress me.
It is a major, bipartisan, Watergate-style but bigger scandal, and the strange bedfellows in the media who were doing a halfway decent job of covering it [The Wall Street Journal and "High Times" magazine(!)] have fallen strangely silent on the subject as the election approaches. Hmmmmm.
4. Anything where vague unsupported asserions are thrown out, followed by a Hmmmmm (sorry).
OK, looks like I have to say it again, and remember this is NOT me, it's those conspiracy theorists at CBS News, printed in that radical purveyor of vague unsupported asserions...The Wall Street Journal:
"The FAA, FBI, Customs, CIA, Justice, DEA and the IRS were all involved in Mena. They won't say how they were involved, but they will tell you there is nothing there." -- Bill Plante, CBS News Correspondent, & Michael Singer, Producer, CBS News, New York. [In Tuesday, May 3, 1994's Wall Street Journal letters to the editor section.] Look it up.
In other words, they deny it, so it must be true.
I am not a journalist, but it sometimes seems I have a better institutional memory than they do. This story was covered poorly, even though there was/is plenty there, because of politics and power masquerading as "national security." The story is there for journalists who want to risk covering it, but the trail is getting cold, and yes, some loons have latched onto it, due in part to the vacuum in "legitimate" media coverage.
This is backwards. The loons on the left started the story. In 1986, the press and academia investigated the story, and concluded there was really nothing to it. Even Chomsky, who welcomes any opportunity to "prove" a world conspiracy against leftists, rejected it (this is the same guy who bought the Allende assassination myth until shortly before Barricada and Mistral retracted it). Ten years later, another set of loons is trying to interest the press in a laundered story. A couple of CBS reporters were trolled, briefly.
[This will be my final word on this subject in this forum.] <sound of Perry cheering>
Likewise. -rich