Talk:Dark Alliance (book)

Planned article revisions

This article was originally started to simplify the Gary Webb article. As discussed on the Gary Webb talk page, I am therefore moving the miscellaneous quotes and claims about the book from the Gary Webb page to here. I will also move reviews of the book from the Gary Webb page to here as well. One of these reviews, by Glenn Garvin, has been controversial on the Webb page, as it is very negative. Despite this, it is a well-known rebuttal to the book by a notable author in a national magazine, and as a question of balance cannot be omitted or slighted. Note in particular that it is not appropriate to add your own opinion about Garvin's article or Garvin himself onto this page. If you know of responses to Garvin's article from a reliable source, feel free to cite them here. If you want to write about Garvin the person, unless it is relevant to this review and the content is strictly NPOV, please do so elsewhere. Rgr09 (talk) 00:25, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Review section

The section devoted to reviews of the book needs significant expansion. The book was widely reviewed, but the section does not come close to reflecting this. The little content that does appear here has some major problems. I will add notes here as I remove/add items. Rgr09 (talk) 01:16, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I have now added Garvin's review. This is based on the original text from the Gary Webb page, minus the POV attempt to rebut Garvin. I also deleted two descriptions of reviews that were sourced to the front cover of the book. Front/back cover blurbs are never acceptable sources for reviews. Note again, if you have sources for a rebuttal of Garvin's review, please do add these, with a description of who wrote it, where it appeared, and a brief summary of the rebuttal. Please do not insert your own rebuttal, this is what NPOV is all about. Rgr09 (talk) 01:26, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Revised description of Corn's review. Original incorrectly identified Corn as working for the Washington Post, incorrectly attributed Corn's views to the Washington Post, and overall mischaracterized the content of the review. It is a mixed review, not a wholly positive one. Changed quotes to illustrate both positive and negative evaluations of the book.

Revised description of Adams's review. Original failed to identify Adams, failed to note the overall very negative content of the review, and failed to clarify the review's criticism of Webb's failure to check any of his claims with the CIA. Adams clearly does not believe Webb's claims that he tried to contact the CIA and they failed to return his call. Rgr09 (talk) 04:42, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Revised description of Garvin's review. Identified Garvin, introduced quote to show the highly negative nature of the review, noted that Garvin does not deny that individual Contras were involved in cocaine trade, but finds the testimony of the traffickers Webb focuses on self-serving, and Webb's treatment substantially overstated. Overall cleaned up and shortened summaries where possible. Rgr09 (talk) 09:47, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Cleaned up introduction

Cleaned up lead, simplified intro; deleted unnecessary count of footnotes, deleted strange link to german amazon for the "Firecracker Alternative Book Award." Both of these awards are rather obscure, any comments on notability? Rgr09 (talk) 07:53, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

External links

I removed several external links which are not relevant to the book. For people interested in the Dark Alliance series, there is already a note at the top directing them to the Gary Webb article, no need to duplicate all this information here. Many of the remaining external links also look very familiar. I intend to check and delete if they appear in the Gary Webb article. If you think they should stay, please explain why here. Rgr09 (talk) 08:11, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Other things to do

The description of the book's content in the intro is still unclear, as is the synopsis. May try and fix then after I finish book. I will add at least one more review summary, Michael Massing in Los Angeles Times. This was a mixed review, like Corn's. The article originally characterized both Corn and Massing reviews as positive. This is simply not true, both had significant reservations about the book. As time permits, will try looking for positive review (perhaps Peter Dale Scott?) and at least one review in an academic journal. Rgr09 (talk) 10:07, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

External links 2

It turns out the remaining external links are about a recently declassified article from Studies in Intelligence, the CIA house journal. The article dates back to 1997, and while interesting, it is irrelevant to the book Dark Alliance, which was not published until 1998. I have therefore deleted the links. If you feel they are relevant to Dark Alliance, please explain here before you reinstate them.

These links would be useful in the Gary Webb article, in fact there is already a link to the article on the Gary Webb page, but it is extremely poorly integrated into the article. External links are not a shortcut for avoiding the work of fitting information into the article. Rgr09 (talk) 14:48, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Synopsis

Revised some awkward wording in the the synopsis. Changed the description of Oscar Danilo Blandon to the one given in the book. Still reading book, may revise further. Rgr09 (talk) 03:41, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Publication dates

The article originally gave the publication date of the first edition as November 1998. This is obviously wrong, since the book was reviewed in the Baltimore Sun in June 1998. The Amazon page for the first edition says June 1, 1998, but Amazon is not a reliable source for publication information. For the revised edition, the publisher's website says January 1998. In general, publisher websites are not always reliable for this sort of detail either. Rather than waste any more time on this, I have just deleted November, since I fail to see the notability of this. However, as the article notes, the first edition was certainly published before the report of the Justice Department investigation into Webb's claims was issued (the second volume of the CIA report was out, but the unclassified version wasn't issued until October). The revised edition was published after both of these reports were issued, and discusses some (but not all) of their findings. As a result, the revised edition is about 30 pages longer than the first edition. Rgr09 (talk) 01:29, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Actual document

I'm not sure how the actual document referred to here ended up not getting a link but http://www.narconews.com/darkalliance/ it the whole thing. If there's some reason that the CIA managed to make Narco News an unreliable source, then I understand. Otherwise, it's ridiculous not to include the link to the actual work. I say this because, a few years back, I know the narconews link was there and today it's not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.212.12.111 (talk) 17:07, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

This article did not exist "a few years back", and the edit history does not indicate that the aforementioned link about the Dark Alliance series has been in the article since it was created on July 8, 2014. Regardless, this article is about the book and linking to any unauthorized site that has a copy of it would violate WP:ELNEVER and WP:COPYVIO. - Location (talk) 17:36, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

The link you are referring to is a link to the newspaper series. This article is about the book, not about the newspaper series. For the newspaper series, see Gary Webb. Rgr09 (talk) 00:23, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Garvin Review

The description of Glenn Garvin's review of Dark Alliance was recently deleted without any discussion here, with some sharply POV comments on James Adams's review added as well. The deleting editor commented that he "removed Garvin "review" of book due to its completely off-topic anti-communist ranting & fact that "review" barely touches on major revelations in book." As noted above the review is a well-known rebuttal of DA by a notable author in a national magazine. Garvin was a reporter for the Washington Times and Miami Herald on South American affairs for almost 20 years, including five years as the Herald's Managua bureau chief. He wrote directly on the subjects covered in DA, and Webb himself cites Garvin's book on the Contras at least half a dozen times, using it as a source for basic facts such as the the formation of the FDN. Garvin's article is a direct response to some of Webb's claims; it is by no means off-topic and can't be omitted just because Garvin doesn't agree with Webb.

Wikipedia articles on books regularly include both positive and negative reviews to inform users of the range of opinion on the book, and while one might not agree with Garvin's review, that is not a reason for removing it. If there is controversy over a book review, it is makes sense to describe this, subject to Wikipedia requirements for notability and sourcing. Putting your own opinions in, however, is POV editing that should not stay. Rgr09 (talk) 16:13, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Second paragraph removed

The second paragraph of the article originally read

Webb's thesis is supported by the sworn testimony in a US courtroom of cocaine smuggler and Contra supporter Oscar Danilo Blandón and in interviews with Blandon's associate and fellow coke smuggler and Contra supporter Juan Norwin Meneses, as well as US Government documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). He also took much from the earlier reporting on the Iran–Contra affair by Robert Parry, whose footsteps he followed in his investigation for the piece.

This paragraph seems to have no basis other than an editor's opinions, and is not an accurate summary of the book's sources. Only one article by Parry (with a shared by-line with Brian Barger) is cited. FOIA material is not extensively used. Testimony from Blandon and Webb's one interview with Meneses in January 1996 are also far from being the main sources for the book. Given these problems I've deleted the paragraph. Rgr09 (talk) 20:02, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

I think the paragraph's intention could be salvaged by stating that the book's bulk of coverage is pretty much in line with the findings of both the Kerry Committee report as well as statements by former CIA agent David MacMichael toward The Independent in 1989, the 1997/1998 CIA report, and the Hitz testimony. Just like all these other sources, nowhere does Webb claim that the CIA wilfully, intentionally, or systematically supported the trafficking of crack cocaine into the US. What he does rather say is that the CIA turned a blind eye towards major drug trafficking that the agency was aware of, in order to intentionally allow the Contras by means of CIA neglicence to finance their war by whatever means possible, at a time when Congress was unwilling to directly finance the war that Reagan wanted. As noted by our article CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking, the Reagan administration even lifted the agency's requirement to report on drug trafficking activities within the USA for this purpose, a fact sourced within the article both to the Hitz testimony as well as the Washington Post.

By putting words into Webb's mouth, making it look like he claimed that the agency wilfully intended to cause a crack epidemic in the US, rather than that its main motivation was to allow the Contras by neglicence and turning a blind eye to finance their war by whatever means possible, with the crack epidemic as a by-product of this strategy, it was easy to paint him a rambling lunatic, when his actual claims are perfectly in line with the statements by all these other sources. --93.223.194.254 (talk) 23:50, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, with regards to the paragraph Rgr09 was referring to, he is quite correct that statement is completely baseless. (And not what Blandon actually testified to.) As far as Webb's claims go, he went beyond just claiming the CIA turned a blind eye to this in Dark Alliance (the book) by repeating such nonsense as Allen Rudd's story on George Bush and again making the same exaggerated claims that got him in trouble in the Dark Alliance series in the first place. And no, the reports you mentioned really didn't vindicate Webb as much as his fans want to believe it. Also worthy of mention is the DOJ report which takes on Ross's supposed seminal role in the introduction of crack in LA and demolishes it completely.Rja13ww33 (talk) 00:32, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

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Blandon ?

In the second paragraph under the Synopsis section, this Blandon person is mentioned by I guess is just a last name as

if they were ALREADY mentioned and the reader is supposed to already know who is being referred to, when Blandon was never mentioned before this.

71.184.253.237 (talk) 05:58, 25 September 2019 (UTC)