Talk:CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking

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I have just added archive links to  on CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070203105932/http://www.commondreams.org:80/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views04/1213-31.htm to http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views04/1213-31.htm
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The article quotes the Kerry report as follows:
 Regarding CIA knowledge of these facts, the report said: "the CIA's Chief of the Central American Task Force went on to say: We knew that everybody around Pastora was involved in cocaine ... His staff and friends (redacted) they were drug smugglers or involved in drug smuggling."
This quote is from the top of p. 38 of the report. However, the article text citing the quote is wrong when it says "Regarding CIA knowledge of these facts the report said..." "These facts" refers to a series of claims in the article just above the quote. The quote, however, had nothing to do with this list. Out of context quotes such as this need fixing. The Kerry report itself has numerous similar problems, and because of this, the Report itself can be difficult to understand without looking back at original sources. For the time being, I have removed the report quote. Putting it back in requires stating the context of the quote. The context in which it appears is criticism of law enforcement and intelligence agencies' slow and/or inadequate response to allegations of contra drug smuggling. In the twisted context of the quote, the quote can easily be taken to mean that that the CIA is acknowledging its own failure to do anything about contra drug smuggling, for what sinister purposes the reader is left to infer on his or her own. In fact, the speaker in this quote, Alan Fiers, is defending the CIA response to claims of drug smuggling in Pastora's forces, which he says included reporting its information about the smuggling to the Justice Department and the Senate and House Intelligence committees, and dropping all support of Pastora, both military and humanitarian. Rgr09 (talk) 22:43, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quote from the Kerry report 

message: I altered the "Testimony of the CIA Inspector General" section for a variety of reasons. First off, the section was not clear (before) on the fact that narcotics violations were omitted from the list of crimes agents were required to report. Before it read like the agreement specifically said it was ok for agents to look the other way......that's not exactly the case. Secondly, I changed the line Only after Congressional funds were restored in 1986 was the agreement modified to require the CIA to stop paying agents who it believed were involved in the drug trade. to just After Congressional funds were restored in 1986...... The clear implication here (by Cockburn) is that the money was no longer needed so that's why the agreement changed. There is no proof of that and (by the way) a more RS than Cockburn would be nice here since it is clear he has a axe to grind here. And finally, I omitted mentioning the fact Smith was Reagan's attorney general. There is no need for that as it is unclear what role (if any) Reagan himself played in these discussions between the Justice Department and the CIA.Rja13ww33 (talk) 15:11, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I wound up changing the After Congressional funds were restored in 1986..... line. To just In 1986,..... We need a more RS saying point-blank the agreement was altered for this reason.Rja13ww33 (talk) 15:20, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: One of the sources cited in this section says this: According to Hitz, this policy was modified in 1986 when the agency was prohibited from paying U.S. dollars to any individual or company found to be involved in drug dealing. Note it says nothing about how this related to Congressional funding (for the Contras). The Only after Congressional funds were restored in 1986... seems to be taken directly from Cockburn's book 'Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press'.Rja13ww33 (talk) 16:36, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Altered Testimony of the CIA Inspector General Section 

message: The lead previously contained the following paragraph:
:Allegations of CIA drug trafficking are often connected to the war in Nicaragua and the Iran–Contra affair during the Reagan Administration. In 1986 a Contras' spokesman acknowledged that funds from sales of cocaine smuggled into the US had helped fund the Contra rebels, but said that the smuggling was not authorized by the US government or resistance leaders.
I have deleted this paragraph. First, it gives an incorrect source. A Contras spokesman did not say this. The reference is to an AP story, which reports on an executive branch statement provided to Texas Rep. Charles Stenholm, who had asked for comments on an earlier AP story. Second, the content of the paragraph is also incorrect. The executive branch statement nowhere says that "funds from sales of cocaine smuggled into the US" helped fund the Contras. The AP story does not say this either. This is instead a variant of the "guns down, drugs up" conspiracy theory pushed primarily by the Christic Institute. Very unacceptable to attribute this to the Contras, the Reagan administration, or AP! Third, an accurate description of the AP story and the executive branch statement is already given later in the article in the "FBI probe" section. 
For reference, the complete executive branch statement is available in the appendix of the Kerry report (here). It is discussed in the K. report on page 37. Rgr09 (talk) 01:34, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confused paragraph 

message: The article originally said:
:Webb's series led to three federal investigations, none of which found evidence of any conspiracy by the CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States.
This was changed to:
:Webb's series led to three federal investigations, all of which claimed to have found evidence of any conspiracy by the CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States.
The reason given in the edit summary is 'NPOV'. This revision is missing the negative, and was corrected to 
:Webb's series led to three federal investigations, all of which claimed to have found no evidence of any conspiracy by the CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States.
The wording here has been discussed before (see Lead changes above). I disagree with the use of the word 'claim' in the current version, which seems to express the suspicion that the investigations actually found evidence but suppressed it. If this is truly the meaning intended, a reliable source for that suspicion is needed. 
If the point of the changes is to say that the conclusions of the investigations were mere assertions, put forward against doubt or question, I feel that is actually more NPOV than the original. The formal conclusion of the investigations, which were lengthy and detailed, was no conspiracy. One may of course doubt the conclusion of the investigations was correct. If this is to be discussed in the article, please add a reliable source for the doubt. To reduce any ambiguity, I revised one more time, changing the word "found" to "concluded".  Whoops, I add my sig. Thanks for the reminder. Rgr09 (talk) 07:44, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree; we should not use loaded language to add unsourced doubt to statements per WP:CLAIM.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:26, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

text: I agree, too. ( Don't forget to sign.) - Location (talk) 05:10, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

text: Agreed Rgr09.Rja13ww33 (talk) 16:23, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  claim/find/conclude 

message: This seems to be the very definition of a conspiracy theory—"an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable"—so why isn't it explicitly called one? For example, the Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory article includes that descriptor in its title. There's a real problem in that the current name of this article falsely suggests that the CIA was involved in Contra cocaine trafficking—when the article is clear there's no evidence they were. To put it another way: imagine an article titled "CIA assassination of JFK". Numerous RS from mainstream news to scholarship have defined this as the conspiracy theory that it obviously is—and so it makes sense to me that we do the same here. I see that  and others have discussed this before, and would like to move forward with the name change. Thanks, and welcome any thoughts! Elle Kpyros (talk) 17:47, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm sorry I didn't see your earlier ping. The idea that the CIA was working with (i.e. conspiring with) Contra leaders, members, or supporters to raise funds via cocaine trafficking is indeed a conspiracy theory. For that, CIA-Contra cocaine trafficking conspiracy theory would be a more suitable title. Another option that conspiracists might find less objectionable is Allegations of CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking. The extent of the CIA's "involvement" is that it had received allegations that several dozen Contra-related individuals and one Contra organization were involved in drug trafficking, and that they acted inconsistently in handling that information and passing it along to other US Government entities. Hitz makes it clear that this inconsistency was not due to collusion with the Contras (or the "turning a blind eye" theory), but rather shortcomings in laws, policies, and guidelines detailing what CIA personnel were required to do with the allegations and information they received. A third options would be CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy as titled by the DOJ. All three options are more suitable than the current title. - Location (talk) 16:53, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  change name to include "conspiracy theory" 

message: A editor recently raised the issue of saying the 3 Federal probes into this cleared the agency. I plan to add a number of secondary RS sources to affirm that. (Right now it's a little PRIMARY.) Certainly some (including people like Gary Webb, Maxine Waters, etc) questioned that....and we can expand the discussion on that.....but to say the majority of RS characterized this as anything but clearing them isn't accurate.Rja13ww33 (talk) 20:57, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conclusion of no involvement 

message: Hello  Please read Wikipedia:Don't revert due solely to "no consensus". Reverting without a reason is inappropriate. My edit to follow WP:SDSHORT does have consensus across Wikipedia. Reverting to a short description which greatly exceeds 40 chars without stating a reason – to continue a conflict from other articles – is inappropriate. Invasive Spices (talk) 18 January 2023 (UTC)
:I didn't say there was "no consensus" in my edit summary. I just said you "Need to get consensus" for such a change in long-standing content.Rja13ww33 (talk) 19:25, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Short description