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Who'd You Rather Read, Gary Webb or Judy Miller?

On occasion of the tenth anniversary of "Dark Alliance," the San Jose Mercury News series on CIA-contra-crack connections that set off more major-newspaper handwringing than perhaps anything this side of the Bush-Iraq-WMD fiasco, Nick Schou of the alternative OC Weekly has an op-ed in the LA Times that's worth reading. Doesn't matter whether you're still puzzling over why exactly every major paper in the country saw fit to "debunk" claims Webb had not actually made, or whether you've never heard of the guy; the point is that Webb (whose reporting, as Eric Umansky noted in this space, was in significant regards confirmed by the government itself) was guilty of hyperbole, but not of credulity or subservience. He had the facts, and he made more of them than he should have. But as Schou points out:

Contrary to the wholly discredited reporting on Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction by New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Webb was the only victim of his mistakes. Nobody else died because of his work, and no one, either at the CIA or the Mercury News, is known to have lost so much as a paycheck.

Webb shot himself in late 2004, his career and personal life having come unraveled in the wake of "Dark Alliance." We could use the likes of him right now.

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Or, he was "suicided" by someone because he knew too much.

Posted by: scott on 08/18/06 at 12:42 PM

Along similar lines please read http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/081606_burning_bridge.shtml. Another truth-journalist banished by the fury of mainstreamness and the US government. Webb is missed, and now so too, Ruppert.

Posted by: Peggy on 08/18/06 at 1:07 PM

The last link "broke" - please try for it here.

Posted by: Peggy on 08/18/06 at 1:40 PM

Is it broke or was it "broked"?
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/

Posted by: Reality Bites on 08/18/06 at 4:52 PM

Close friends of Gary publish Narco news http://www.narconews.com/
mostly Latin America political reporting
very excellent. check it out

Posted by: honkyis@charter.net on 08/18/06 at 7:35 PM

Webb's reporting strongly suggested a willful use of drug dealers by the CIA. His book after all was called Dark Alliance. Every investigation since then disprove that inference and still the diehards persist. Those who believe the LA Times, New York Times and Washington Post are in on the cover up in an effort to bolster the Reagan Administration are living on a different planet.

Posted by: Menlo Bob on 08/19/06 at 9:15 PM

Gary Webb REALLY wanted to commit suicide, he shot himself twice in the head. They said it was unusual but not unprecedented. Yeah, I am sure it happened the last time a murder was made to look like suicide.
ps the word you want for the link is broken. It is not broke or broked

Posted by: Melissa on 08/20/06 at 6:26 PM

Gary Webb was not wrong on any material fact. Why does the left try to defend him by "admitting" he stretched the truth a little ("hyperbole").
As Alexander Cockburn has shown, Webb was accurate in every material charge he made.
Even the CIA's Inspector General validated his main charges, and, indeed went beyond them.
Why is it so difficult for people to overlook the actual facts of the story?

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Who'd You Rather Read, Gary Webb or Judy Miller?

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