Friday 9th of December 2004 Gary Webb was found dead in an apartment. He was one of the last of those journalists that gave America its fame and credibility as the beacon of an intrepid, free and dauntless press. Who is left? Seymour Hesh, the old knight? Greg Palast, the expat in the UK? Only two?!?
When I was a kid, the Watergate scandal broke loose and my parents were enthusiastic, how two young reporters from the Washington Post brought down a corrupt Nixon government. Wasn't that the spirit of true democracy that had been missing in Germany and from which she still did not have enough? Those were the Americans many Germans looked up to and whom they envied for having guts, "Zivilcourage", as we call it here. Not any more.
The US press (95 % embedded) cooperatively engaged in repudiating this book instead of taking it as a starting point for own investigative research. The Washington Post, New York Times and L.A.Times took sides for the CIA and against Webb. Coping with the own government's past, or "Vergangenheitsbewältigung", does not seem to interest the US mainstream press any more. Right or wrong, my checkbook, ehm, country. I doubt you will find any European who would agree with the gossip about a liberal media conspiracy in the US. The US simply hasn't got any nationwide liberal media left! They acted towards Webb like they were saying: "We do not allow any scoop in the US that we did not produce ourselves, and, since we defend our government and secret services, we will ridicule you collectively." Shall those papers rott in peace.
Webb's book is not sensationalist, sometimes it is even a bit tedious. Webb worked himself to death to record the facts and cohesions as accurate as possible, not to make a quick buck, and you can tell it from the book. But if you do not expect complicated coherences to read like Readers Digest, this is one of the most important books of the last decade. The media's reaction seems to have damaged his faith more than he was willing to acknowledge, but contrary to the spin of the New York Times and others, this book establishes without doubt:
The CIA knew that its human assets who aided the Nicaraguan contras were dealing with drugs, and that their assets flew huge amounts of drugs INTO THE US.
For strange reasons this was not a matter of concern for the Agency. Webb does never say that the CIA deliberately created the crack epidemic to harm the black populace, as the mainstream press and enraged black activists have imputed Webb to have claimed.
But isn't it disquieting enough that ones own government agency cooperates with drug dealers to topple the government of a tiny foreign state and accept large drug transfers into ones own country as a "collateral damage"? If that is not worth reporting and getting the facts straight, I don't know what is. The US press totally failed here.
I am shure that a Hollywood movie will one day immortalise Garry Webb.
Until then every student of journalism, political science and contemporary history should read this book to appraise his achievements and the immense amount of work that sometimes is required to get closer to a truth, nobody wants to hear about. But they should also take to heart that one should not expect too much applause when one stands in the crowd, clearly sees that the emperor is naked and even has the audacity to say so. Be prepared to cope with the loneliness of a long distance runner.
3 points for style, 7 points for substance, divided by 2 = 5 points.
May he rest in peace, he will not be forgotten.
