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Nabaza.net-The MarketPlace - Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion
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List Price: $24.95
Our Price: $16.47
Your Save: $ 8.48 ( 34% )
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Manufacturer: Seven Stories Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 301
EAN: 9781888363937
ISBN: 1888363932
Label: Seven Stories Press
Manufacturer: Seven Stories Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 608
Publication Date: 2003-07-01
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Studio: Seven Stories Press
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Editorial Reviews:
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Dark Alliance is a book that should be fiction, whose characters seem to come straight out of central casting: the international drug lord, Norwin Meneses; the Contra cocaine broker with an MBA in marketing, Danilo Blandon; and the illiterate teenager from the inner city who rises to become the king of crack, "Freeway" Ricky Ross. But unfortunately, these characters are real and their stories are true.
In August 1996, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb stunned the world with a series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News reporting the results of his year-long investigation into the roots of the crack cocaine epidemic in America, specifically in Los Angeles. The series, titled "Dark Alliance," revealed that for the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to Los Angeles street gangs and funneled millions in drug profits to the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras.
Now Gary Webb has pushed his investigation even further in his book, Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Drawing from recently declassified documents, undercover DEA audio and videotapes that have never been publicly released, federal court testimony, and interviews, Webb demonstrates how our government knowingly allowed massive amounts of drugs and money to change hands at the expense of our communities. Congressional inquiries into these allegations are ongoing; results of the internal investigations by both the CIA and the Justice Department are pending.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable
Comment: This nation owes a debt of gratitude to Gary Webb. The same people responsible for Iran Contra are still among us.
Customer Rating:
Summary: My boyfriend likes it.
Comment: I did not purchase this product for myself, but my boyfriend really likes the book.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Provocative and compelling...
Comment: The book is packed with information on an intriguing and eye-opening subject matter. Gary Webb cites what appears to be legitimate references adding credibility to the story's claims. The abundance of information did become overwhelming at times. Although after completing the book I found myself thinking "Right, wrong or indifferent...It all makes perfect sense. There's nothing not to believe about it."
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very Good expose from Gary Webb
Comment: Mr Webb's book here ties in with Rodney
Stich's Flying the Unfriendly Skies and
Bo Gritz troika of bokks during this era!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Must read for all Americans
Comment: Every time the news reports a homicide even remotely connected to crack (and this would include most gang related murders, even to this day..), they should mention the international crack trade and its role. This will never happen, obviously, which is why we need people like the late Gary Webb in this country.
My only problem with the book, it goes into detail a bit too extensive for my attention span. But there's an obvious reason for this; the book is primarily written to back up his news story in which the mainstream press vilified him for, accusing him of unsubstantiated claims. The full circle detail is necessary. Fortunately, Webb is a good enough writer where even someone with no more than a high school education, like myself, can hang in there and read the entire book without resorting to skimming over paragraphs. Just when I start to say to myself, "alright, got it, we know these guys are contras, we know they're dope runners...what now?", the question is seemingly answered in the following paragraph. I don't know if a writer could have done a better job balancing the act of exhausting resources and laying all of them into full detail and making the book understandable to a lay person like me.
One of the most important books ever written on government corruption and its effect on it's citizenry. As you're reading this review, crack cocaine is still eating American inner cities alive. Rest in Peace, Gary Webb. And may your courageous reporting echo through this country as long as poor American communities suffer from this pandemic.
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