And after allegations made by investigative journalist Gary Webb, the CIA issued a 1998 report citing the many “instances where CIA did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with individuals supporting the Contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug trafficking activity or take action to resolve the allegations.”
We can safely say, then, that a doctrine of profound and willful neglect for certain populations resulted in a flood of cocaine hitting the streets during Reagan’s Central American adventures. Ricky Ross (the real Ricky Ross) was selling, at his coast-to-coast empire’s height, a staggering half a million crack rocks per day, much of it from his Contra connects. Communities already left reeling and desperate from Reagan’s economic policies (Jay-Z: “[I’m a] product of Reaganomics.”) were then devastated by both the addictive power of the affordable high and the harrowing violence of its street-level distribution.
And yet a mythological aura still surrounds President Reagan, despite his callous disregard for millions of his own citizens. Once one investigates the Iran-Contra-cocaine affair, the reverence offered by so many to the late president begins to seem almost menacing, that his quasi-religious posthumous followers are willing to disregard, just as Reagan did, the incredible wake of disaster left behind his reckless adventurism.
Killer Mike- Reagan
