Oklahoma Observer –
I have had the pleasure of contributing to the Oklahoma Observer for several years. Known as Oklahoma’s “Independent Journal of Commentary” the Observer provides a venue holding to the dicta of H.L. Menken, “Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
The Observer provides a platform for many writers who thoughts, ideas and insights might never see print (or most recently blog). Observer writers offer an unrestrained commentary about state officials, government action and policy on several levels.
Often times we find colleagues in the mainstream media share those views but are constrained by “policy” from taking issues front on. Observer writers are a crusty but articulate lot. I am proud to be among their number.
WIRED –
WIRED Magazine premiered in 1993 among the stories in that first issue was an investigation of what has become known as “The INSLAW Affair” or as others call it, “The Octopus.” This story detailed the fight between a little know Washington D.C. computer firm, INSLAW and the U.S. Department of Justice, the and self-serving elements within the administration of President Ronald Reagan to profit from the theft of a software program known as PROMIS.
In 1987 D.C. Bankruptcy Judge George Bason ruled, in a written opinion, that DOJ and the administration had conspired to steal PROMIS from INSLAW, “Through trickery, fraud and deceit.” He awarded INSLAW $6.8 million dollars say the government had made deliberate effort to bankrupt the company in order to put the PROMIS program up for public auction in order for it to be purchased by friends of the administration for the purpose of being resold to various intelligence agencies.
More than just a computer program PROMIS was one of the first programs to merge various other tracking programs: of people, bank accounts, intelligence information, military spare parts sales, arms sales and drug trafficking. It could be used to track malefactors, dissidents and political opponents.
It has been called the Octopus because the tentacles of the INSLAW Affair reached into so many sectors of global intelligence and crime that it became virtually impossible for any one person to track. The story also details the life and death of one man who did attempt to find all the answers, Danny Casolero.
INSLAW was never allowed to collect the money Judge Bason awarded and Casolero’s death remains a mystery to this day.
ABA Journal –
In December 1989 the United States invaded the sovereign nation of Panama in what was called, “Operation Just Cause.” The purpose was to arrest General Manuel Antonio Noriega, known in Panama as “Maximum Leader.” The U.S. under President George Hubert Walker Bush claimed Noriega was a drug dealer infecting American life with tons of cocaine.
What came to light after the invasion was that while Noriega may well have trafficked in cocaine he was also working hand-in-glove with luminaries of the Bush and previous Reagan administrations and their intelligence man in Central America. Noriega, it was learned had been praised by the Central Intelligence Agency and active with the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Noriega had also worked with many of the functionaries of the Iran Contra affair, including Col Oliver North.
This story, April 1990 provides and index of many of many names which would re-appear from time to time in other government activities, some very public others only emerged from the shadows through the efforts of journalists who took risk, both professional and personal , to get these stories to the American people.
ABA Journal – The Abello Conspiracy
Jose Rafael Abelllo Silva, 35, a Colombian national was arrested on a the streets of Bogota in October, 1989, on a 1987 federal drug conspiracy warrant and extradited to Tulsa, OK. He was convicted on two counts of drug conspiracy and sentenced to thirty years in a federal prison.
Federal prosecutors claimed he was a major player in the Colombian cocaine trade and that his trial was, “one of the most significant narcotics prosecutions in the country.”
Abello claimed he was a wealthy cattle rancher, automobile importer and part-time bullfighter nicknamed “El Mono.” He further claimed he was a victim of a jailed Colombian intent of escaping punishment and a federal prosecutor intent on showing progress in the Bush administration’s fight against drug dealers.
This is the story of that investigation, arrest and conviction and the questions about that period of American history and it’s conduct of justice. Readers may recognize elements of this story that bleed over into the current conduct of arrests and prosecutions of detainees at the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba.
Most of the players in this story have either died, served sentences in federal prison or retired from public life, a few remain active within various levels of the government. Abello has been released and lives with his family in Colombia.
ABA Journal – Reasonable Doubts
This the story of Adolph Munson a poorly educated itinerate semi-literate cook and labor who was tried, convicted and sentenced to death in Clinton, OK, for the 1984 killing of a convenience store clerk.
ABAJ publisher Gary Hengstler said in the prologue, “ The focus is on the ability of an appointed trial counsel to defend an accused in a capital case with fewer investigatory resources available than those provided the state….This article is about a case that embodies many of the aspects of what needs to be corrected at the trial level in too many capital cases.”
Satellite to Munson’s story is that of Dr. Ralph Erdman a Texas pathologist who became known for not just faking autopsy results but engineering them to achieve conviction, including at least one Texas death penalty case.
Munson was retired and acquitted, Erdman was convicted of fraud in an unrelated Texas case. Erdman’s true identity and qualifications remain a mystery to this day.
In December 1993 ABAJ Publisher Gary Hengstler and I traveled to Israel and Tunisia for interviews with Israeli and Palestinian leaders about just what form a Palestinian judicial system might take under the newly signed “Oslo Accords” which were supposed to be at least the start of the end of the conflict between the Israeli government and the Palestinians living on the West Bank and Gaza. As history records that agreement has gone the way of so many agreements, dreams and hopes in the region.
I would point out; at that time there was no talk of an Al Qaeda movement, push for Sharia law or Islamic Brotherhood type movement. The discussions centered almost entirely on Palestinian self-rule.
But even as we interviewed Israelis and Palestinians in London, Israel and Tunisia we could see the Oslo agreement was falling apart. Israeli conservative leadership was vowing to abrogate Oslo and factions with the Palestinian Liberation Organization were voicing displeasure with the agreements made by and the leadership of their President Yasser Arafat.
Those whom we interviewed, including Arafat, voiced hope, in the streets the situation was different. History as we now know was not aligned with hope.
But, a review of those interviews provides insight as to how near and how far peace hover without ever without truly taking root.
