Letters to the Editor
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Paul Dirks
I don't know if you're checking this thread anymore, but I wanted to make a point or two about the one or two points you made.
First, I don't think it's a question of "if" the Democrats were hawking an Iraq war. In hindsight, Bill Clinton was certainly providing a stable structure on which to build GW Bush's war complaint--with legislation, rhetoric and actual military actions. Kerry was even worse; early as 1997, I caught one of these news shows where Kerry was literally claiming to be chomping at the bit to invade Iraq and depose Saddamm, if only slow-poke Clinton would let him. I can't remember the show; google intensely about that period and something along those lines for the claim and you'll no doubt find it.
This all being said: I do recall that Bush ran on what Ron Paulalways reminds us was a "humble foreign policy" in 2000; he was for the first year of his tenure, the anti-foreign policy president. The Republicans were the anti=war party of the 90's in a sense--at least in terms of boots on the ground. Check out the voluminous venom spewed at the Clinton Administration for his adventuring in Somalia and the Balkans. You could make a good case that votes for Bush were anti-war (or at least invasion) votes, seeing as the unusual number of military invasions that Bill Clinton presided over.
If you are a conspiracy minded person--and a conspiracy is just an organized plan kept in secret--it would seem clear that having worn out their welcome in the last decade or so with their own constituents, Democrats need to cut through the clutter. Enter Obama. I am certainly voting for him, and I have to admit it is mostly because he is black and wasn't involved in the Iraq war cowardice. For christ sake's there just doesn't seem to be any legitimate reason or criteria to vote for a president anymore.
But certainly, Obama's foreign policy doesn't seem like it will deviate much from the Clintonian nineties or the kind of stuff John Kerry was proposing. What if its all a shell game? Democrats and Republicans (and I'm talking about the elite guard, not the foot soldiers) taking turns at turning the lion's tail. Just saying. Just something to think about.
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What if its all a shell game?
Even if it is indeed a shell game, what's being said and what's being sold matters.
Take the quote from uppdate IV:
We must show our citizens -- and set an example to the world -- that laws cannot be ignored when it is inconvenient. Because in America -- no one is above the law. . . .
It's time to give our intelligence and law enforcement agencies the tools they need to track down and take out terrorists, while ensuring that their actions are subject to vigorous oversight that protects our freedom. So let me be perfectly clear: I have taught the Constitution, I understand the Constitution, and I will obey the Constitution when I am President of the United States.
Even if he's lying through his teeth, he's still putting a message out there that is true to American ideals, and if he manages to get elected while espousing those ideals, then that will A: speak well of typical Americans and B: create at least some pressure to continue to do the right thing.
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Mmm....
Pete b, I'd submit to you that rationality has as often been the cause -- and the servant -- of injustice as irrationality has. This, of course, is exactly what is wrong with Ayn Rand as a philosopher. I have to say that it's also the most glaringly obvious flaw in the pronouncements on human nature of libertarians of one flavor or another, and why I generally don't find the grand political abstractions they build on them of much practical value.
That said, what specifically did you find objectionable in my answers to Bucky's question?
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-- Ayn Rand
Brain Bleach!
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The staff
-Thanks
to Bystander, Jeanette and Gordon -- I knew that, at this blog, even a comment section request would produce what I was looking for, and probably should have asked earlier.-
I am sure the staff was more than delighted to be of service ;>
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Heh
Frank Lucas is popularly known for smuggling heroin from Vietnam[2] using the coffins of dead American servicemen, [3] a claim his South Asian supplier, Leslie "Ike" Atkinson denies. [4]
Is 'American Gangster' really all that 'true'?
Story Highlights
"American Gangster" based on the life of drug lord Frank Lucas
Several events in film, including shipping heroin in coffins, probably not true
Last week, DEA agents who investigated Lucas filed suit, claiming defamation
NEW YORK (AP) -- In "American Gangster," which is "based on a true story," Denzel Washington -- as the '70s drug lord Frank Lucas -- confidently marches deep into the jungles of Southeast Asia as the Vietnam War rages in the background. He is looking for drugs.
Later, we see police break open the caskets of Vietnam casualties flown back to the States, searching for the heroin Lucas has audaciously hidden beneath the corpses. Then Lucas is shown as the dope dealer-turned-reformer as he exposes legions of corrupt police.
Except none of the above ever happened.
The Harlem kingpin's infamous "cadaver connection" -- a pipeline of top-grade Southeast Asia heroin smuggled in GI caskets -- has always been at the center of his considerable and enduring mythology.
But it turns out that the casket story is just that -- a myth. And after revelations that "American Gangster" fabricates Lucas' role in rooting out police corruption, the film's credibility could be damaged. "Gangster" earned just two Oscar nominations Tuesday -- one for supporting actress Ruby Dee and one for art direction; actors Washington and Russell Crowe and director Ridley Scott were shut out.
"Everybody always thought the caskets (carried heroin) -- even I thought it," says federal Judge Sterling Johnson Jr., who as special narcotics prosecutor was instrumental in Lucas' arrest and trial.
"The picture is 1 percent reality and 99 percent Hollywood," Johnson says. "Frank was illiterate, Frank was vicious, violent. Frank was everything Denzel Washington was not."
On Wednesday, several former Drug Enforcement Agents who investigated Lucas filed a class-action lawsuit against General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal claiming the film defames them and grossly misrepresents the truth. Produced by Brian Grazer and directed by Ridley Scott, the film has grossed more than $129 million at the box office and won largely positive reviews.
Johnson says Lucas wasn't capable of securing a drug connection from the infamous Golden Triangle. Instead, it was Leslie "Ike" Atkinson, a sometimes supplier for Lucas, who was recently released from prison after serving more than 30 years.
Atkinson has said he shipped drugs in furniture, not caskets.
"It is a total lie that's fueled by Frank Lucas for personal gain," Atkinson said by e-mail. "I never had anything to do with transporting heroin in coffins or cadavers."
Author and journalist Ron Chepesiuk is currently working on a biography of Atkinson and co-authored "Superfly: The True, Untold Story of Frank Lucas, American Gangster." He blames the media for allowing Lucas' story to go unchecked.
Chepesiuk says his research found no evidence or court records to substantiate the cadaver connection, "the biggest hoax in the history of the international drug trade."
The story of Lucas' supposed connection first flourished on the streets, and was widely spread in a 2000 New York magazine article by Mark Jacobson. His article was the basis for the movie.
"The magazine piece is a presentation of this guy's story and that's what he had to say," Jacobson says.
Even Lucas, now 77 and living in New Jersey, now claims he only smuggled heroin through coffins once. "I had a false-bottom coffin made."
New Jersey police detective Richard "Richie" Roberts (played by Russell Crowe) is elevated to Lucas' foil in the film. Though Roberts, now a defense attorney, did play a role in the prosecution of Lucas, on screen he's a composite of many detectives and prosecutors.
"They wanted a white boy," Lucas says of Roberts character.
Lucas is shown to turn informant, specifically against corrupt police officers. A legend at the end of the movie claims three-fourths of New York's Drug Enforcement Agency were convicted thanks to Lucas' cooperation.
On Wednesday, former DEA agents Jack Toal, Gregory Korniloff and Louis Diaz filed their lawsuit, represented by Dominic Amorosa, a prosecutor in the 1975 federal case against Lucas.
"(Lucas) was my informant for years," Toal says. "He never mentioned any crooked DEA agent or cop."
A DEA spokesman in Washington, Garrison Courtney, confirmed that no agents were ever charged with wrongdoing in the case.
A Universal Pictures spokesman, Michael Moses, has said the lawsuit is "entirely without merit" and that the film "does not defame these or any federal agents."
The day before the lawsuit was filed, a spokesperson for the studio gave a statement to The Associated Press stating: "Universal Pictures has every confidence that the material facts are conveyed truthfully in 'American Gangster,' from abundant research with direct sources and from the public record."
Grazer, who bought the story and shepherded the project for years, declined to be interviewed for this article.
Lucas can only recall informing on a police detective he called "Babyface," but denies informing on other gangsters or drug dealers: "I never testified on nobody," he said.
Prosecutors involved in the case have contradicted that. Roberts, who prosecuted the superseding indictment in New Jersey, says of Lucas' insistence that he didn't inform on fellow dealers: "Absolutely not. He gets mad every time I tell the truth." (Roberts and Lucas later became friends and Roberts is even the godfather to Lucas' youngest son.)
Toal says those Lucas informed on were "unanimously" criminals: "He never talked about a dirty cop or a DEA agent. He never gave up anybody like that. It was 100 percent drug dealers."
But Lucas' legend has only grown since "American Gangster" was released, leaving some -- like Roberts -- to wonder if they've helped glorify a villain.
"I'm glad this over," Roberts says. "I'll tell you that."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lucas_(drug_lord)#_note-cnn_2008