Reply #14: Just saw another documentary "Damage Done" from my PVR off of Free Speech TV earlier...

[cascadiance]

It's a documentary where law enforcement folks, judges, etc. all say that the "prohibition" on drugs is totally screwed up and that we need a new set of laws that doesn't thrive on sending people to prison and the profits and corruption surrounding it.

http://www.nfb.ca/webextension/damage-done/home.php

One part of it had a former DEA agent, Cele Castillo, who was very well meaning when he started the job in trying to prevent big drug trafficking from getting up here to the states. But then he shows where he's documented the corruption of the Contras with the drug trade then, and that his reports he sent back to Washington were in effect flushed down "a black hole" instead of being heard.

http://www.nfb.ca/webextension/damage-done/cops/CeleCastillo.php



Edit: Note from this page there's a book that looks to be a good reference for this story. The comments below here reference Webb's work too in context.

http://www.amazon.com/Powderburns-Cocaine-Contras-Drug-War/dp/0889625786/

a comment:

Castillo, a former DEA field agent, stationed in Central America became an unwitting witness to the CIA's, Oliver North's, and the Reagan Administration's involvement in the smuggling of cocaine to fund the Contra army. Published years before the 1997 San Jose Mercury News/Gary Webb article, "Dark Alliance", about the CIA's role in bringing crack to the streets of America, Castillo provides a shocking but entirely credible story from the inside. Castillo, during the course of his field investigations into cocaine smuggling, inevitably ran into the CIA's cocaine network. A fly-drugs-up/fly-guns-down network operated by Oliver North, Richard Secord, and CIA front company Southern Air Transport out of the Ilopango airbase in El Salvador. He was repremanded time and time again by his DEA superiors for sticking his nose places it didn't belong. Warned off by claims he was endangering missions critical to our National Security. Yet, Castillo continued to file tell-all reports to the DEA in Washington. This is the story of the uncovering of these revelations, and one man's fight to expose the truth and bring these injustices to light. I highly recommend it.

Another comment:

The foreward, written by Michael Levine, encourages the reader to cancel all appointments for the next several hours as the reader will not be able to put this book down. Levine wasn't kidding. This book is about the life of Cele Castillo. It begins with Cele's childhood under the rule of a military father. Cele ends up being drafted for the Vietnam war and his experiences in Vietnam are so amazingly vivid that it's impossible to put this book down. The drug use in Vietnam was so rampant that this is where Cele learns that narcotics were much more of a threat to America than Communism as he vows to fight the illegal drug industry if he ever makes it out of Vietnam in one piece. Cele survives the jungle, the snipers, and even his first helicopter crash. He's hired by the DEA and assigned to work in New York. He works hard, risking his life many times to bust drug dealers and ends up working in Central America. As if a second helicopter crash and being the guy responsible for upsetting powerful drug lords weren't risky enough, Cele stumbles upon the CIA and Oliver North's involvement in the illegal drug industry & illegal gun running during the Iran-Contra scandal, which also involved Bush Sr. & the Reagan administration. North & his crew were selling over-priced weapons to Iran as well as selling tons of cocaine to American cities as they used all of those profits to buy massive amount of weapons that they flew in to the Contras. As the cash and weapons were flown into the Contras, cocaine was brought back to America under the protection of the US military and CIA. The airplanes & airplane hangars were all CIA and NSA owned, and the pilots (Barry Seal & others) were contracted by the CIA. The corruption and involvement of our own CIA in the illegal drug industry wasn't enough to make Cele give up, he kept fighting to make a dent in the illegal drug industry. He was warned to stay away from the operations of Oliver North and the CIA but he pressed on anyway. That's when his career suffered as an internal investigation was launched against him. As if death threats and surviving a plane crash (his 3rd crash) weren't enough, trumped-up charges were used against him to end his career at the DEA. Cele risked his life countless times, got tons of cocaine off the streets of America & traded his marriage for dedication to his career. Senator John Kerry's investigation went nowhere, Bush Sr. pardoned North's crew as they only got a slap on the wrist (probation) while the DEA rewarded Cele by ending his career.