did the CIA Ship Cocaine?

[NWO Sentryman]

Okay, Apart from Gladio, this is obviously the most controversial section on CIA history.

did the CIA Ship cocaine?

 

[Caustic Logic]

Put in a blanket yes-no situation, I'd bet big $$$ the answer is yes they did, at some point, probably several. Self-financing operations... How regular was it, I don't know. Theories vary...

Mike Ruppert, Gary Webb for two different takes on the deep end. One alive, one dead now.

 

[oldhat]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/06/19/ED58466.DTL

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/archive/gunsdrugscia.html

And of course, there's Gary Webb's excellent "Dark Alliance" articles and book (no, I don't think he was murdered).

Two more recent examples:

http://boingboing.net/2008/09/05/update-on-cia-drug-p.html

http://boingboing.net/2008/11/21/new-report-cia-lied.html

 

[JoeyDonuts]

Take Mike Ruppert with about a pound of salt.

 

[Ignorantbystander]

Has anybody here read "The Big White Lie" by Michael Levine?
I read it some years ago. It is a pretty bizarre story about the CIA sabotaging the DEA for fighting communism and getting political ground in South America was more important then the war on drugs. He also mentions CIA involvement in drug trafficing. And druglords being protected by the CIA because of their influence in countries politics.
But I cannot tell if it's all true.

 

[jakesteele]

This came out a long time ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_America_(airline)#Drug_Smuggling

Drug Smuggling

According to The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, a 1972 study by historian Alfred W. McCoy, Air America transported opium and heroin on behalf of Hmong leader Vang Pao.[2] This allegation has been supported by former Laos CIA paramilitary Anthony Poshepny, former Air America pilots, and other people involved in the war. University of Georgia historian William M. Leary claims that this was done without the airline employees' direct knowledge and that the airline itself did not trade in drugs.[3] The allegation of drug smuggling is disputed by many sources, including covert U.S. ground personnel who worked with the Hmong people. There are studies which refute the allegation, by Curtis Peebles and others[4]. Peebles mentions two of the foundational sources for the allegations, McCoy's The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia (which accused Air America of drug smuggling), and Prof. William Leary's investigation and interview of 300 people (which concluded that there was no evidence of Air America's involvement in drug smuggling). The Hollywood film Air America focused its anti-war message largely on depicting and expanding upon the drug smuggling allegations.

 

[Myron Proudfoot]

I suspect

I suspect it was more a case of them turning a blind eye when certain useful foreign parties engaged in drug dealing/smuggling.

 

[JoeyDonuts]

I suspect it was more a case of them turning a blind eye when certain useful foreign parties engaged in drug dealing/smuggling.

This.

 

[Nosi]

I suspect it was more a case of them turning a blind eye when certain useful foreign parties engaged in drug dealing/smuggling.

Definitely this.

 

[oldhat]

I suspect it was more a case of them turning a blind eye when certain useful foreign parties engaged in drug dealing/smuggling.

That's a...charitable way of looking at it.

Criminal courts usually call that sort of behavior "aiding and abetting."

 

[JoeyDonuts]

Criminal courts usually call that sort of behavior "aiding and abetting."

Figure out a way our criminal courts would have jurisdiction over those "foreign parties" and you might have a point.

 

[Nosi]

Figure out a way our criminal courts would have jurisdiction over those "foreign parties" and you might have a point.

That would be the "rub".

 

[JihadJane]

Yes, and they probably still do.

 

[Rolfe]

This is tangentially related to one of the Pan Am 103 CTs. That seems to assert that there was a drugs courier (Jafaar) on the plane, in addition to several CIA agents. That much seems to be true, I think. The CT part is that the drugs shipments were either known about or actively facilitated by the CIA, as part of a "drugs for hostages" deal organised by Oliver North.

It gets murkier after that, and I have trouble keeping the story straight, but it was presented in both The Maltese Double Cross and The Trail of the Octopus.

I have no idea what to believe in any of that. There are so many wildly improbably coincidences, so much obvious manipulation, and so much political double-dealing surrounding that whole affair, that it's very hard to sort fact from fiction. Nevertheless, a reasonable case has been made for the scenario.

Rolfe.

 

[JoeyDonuts]

Yes, and they probably still do.

Evidence?

*cue Mike Ruppert reference*

 

[Nosi]

All the CIA needs is plausible deniability and then it can do any matter of 'secret squirrel' it sees fit!

CIA Agent: "I didn't know that So & So had drugs on him or in his body bag or in the coffee can or any of a thousand other hidey holes in this aircraft I'm sitting in...some one else could have-must have slipped in the naughty!"

 

[JihadJane]

Evidence?

*cue Mike Ruppert reference*

Is that a "No", then?

 

[JoeyDonuts]

Is that a "No", then?

Don't you find it a little odd that Mr. Ruppert is the only person who claims to have seen this stuff going on?

Really? One witness to a smuggling operation that must have involved dozens of CIA agents?

 

[JihadJane]

Don't you find it a little odd that Mr. Ruppert is the only person who claims to have seen this stuff going on?

Really? One witness to a smuggling operation that must have involved dozens of CIA agents?

He's not.


And yes, how can all these secret agents possibly keep anything secret?

 

[Nosi]

He's not.


And yes, how can all these secret agents possibly keep anything secret?

They don't need to when they have the twin weapons of lawyers & plausible deniability...