Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America

I just ordered this for my roommate for a project he is doing at Appalachian State University. The only thing he had to say about the book was thanks so I guess it is serving his purpose!

I wouldn't say the book needs better editing. Some people may find the sheer amount of names and information presented to be cumbersome. I think the information could have been presented better by the authors, laying out facts and relationships between major parties involved such that the material is better digested by the casual reader. But this is my only criticism, otherwise this work is superb. It is also frightening. This is a well documented, scholarly work; there is nothing here to point the dismissing charge of `conspiracy theory'. There are nearly 100 pages of references, and a great amount of this is from congressional testimony during the Kerry commission. The book documents how the CIA permitted, and one could say sanctioned, drug smuggling to reward American allies during the Contra wars against Nicaragua. The CIA did not seem to care that the drugs were destined for the US. Where was the DEA in all of this? The DEA office in Honduras was closed down after a year of operations. They could do nothing so they closed the office down. Whatever investigation leads they had were connected to the CIA, so they just quietly moved away. The authors also suggest that the DEA had information about certain drug shipments, but just looked the other way. Meanwhile the Reagan administration, in order to bolster support for their illegal war, tried to misinform the American public by saying the Nicaraguans and Cubans were engaged in `narcoterrorism'. In classic doublespeak, Reagan told us that the evil communists were trying to peddle drugs on American streets in order to destroy us. What liars! They knew full well where the drugs were coming from. Reagan's poor memory came to his rescue, he should have been impeached. The authors suggest that using drug smuggling as an instrument of foreign policy seemed blase to Washington, like it was nothing shocking or new. For example, heroin smuggling was a major part of the reason for the involvement in Vietnam. So maybe oil isn't the reason for the current US involvement in Afghanistan. It just happens to be the biggest opium producing region in the world..

This book has all the possibilities of being an academic pot boiler. Divided into two parts, "Right-Wing Narcoterrorism, the CIA, and the Contras," and "Exposure and Cover-Up" and covering twelve chapters, including a glossary of terms, the book is one part investigative journalism and another academic treatise. In general, the book details the toleration or complicity of the American government with drug traffickers to protect the interests of national security or covert operations. The book has a number of advantages and disadvantages. First, while perhaps a moot point is that a considerable amount of discussion focuses on South America rather than on Central America as promised in the title. Second, and perhaps an editorial point, while there is a four-and-a- half page glossary of names and organizations at the back of the book, there is a sort of breathless spouting off of a succession of names and organizations in the book. This is distracting and tiresome for the reader. Third, even though there is a phenomenal amount of documentation (i.e., approximately 23 percent of the book (a total of 64 pages) is devoted to notes) and a 14-page index, the authors rely on the same basic sources, including Kerry's subcommittee report and american and mainstream newspaper and magazine coverage; few articles come from the spanish speaking press, and few interviews are conducted with sources. Fourth, while the book is highly descriptive and reads like a murder mystery, it is short on analysis, theory building or testing, and/or recommending policy changes. Regardless, this book is a disturbing and sobering necessity for those wishing to understand the so-called war on drugs in the United States and the reasons U.S. foreign policy in Latin America is problematic, a best.Jeffrey Ian Ross

Excellent book, responsibly written, clear and readable. The information in it is highly important if you want to understand what is going on. Just buying a second copy because my first got lent.

This incredible volume was one of the first things I read when I began researching the issue of Contra cocaine trafficking for the San Jose Mercury News in 1995. To call the experience an eye-opener is a major understatement. Cocaine Politics not only confirmed to me that the Contra-drug link was for real, but that it was just a small part of an even more insidious picture: a secret and practically invisible world where intelligence operatives and criminals collude, wreak havoc, and almost always escape prosecution and accountability. When a producer from Dateline NBC, which did a show about my Dark Alliance series, asked me for recommended reading material on this issue, I unhesitatingly recommended Cocaine Politics. His reaction afterwards was memorable: "This is the most amazing book I've ever read. How come I've never heard any of this stuff before?" The answer is pretty obvious once you read this book. If the American public ever got wind of this story, our country and our government would never be the same again.