Agency-bank

On the advice of a friend who knows one of the "Cast Of Characters" (a "Yank In The Bank"), I ordered a used copy of this long out of print book. What an eye opener. It's amazing what a group of "former" senior military officers and spooks can get up to when allowed to run amok overseas. You name it and they got away with it. Even though some of the principals are dead, nobody has been held accountable for the myriad of crimes that have occurred abroad. With the lack of support rendered by the U.S. government (especially the F.B.I.), it makes one wonder how "former" some of the players really were. It's amazing how many of these same people reared their ugly heads years later during "Iran-Contra". Read the book and then decide for yourself.

As an Australian I was both surprised and gratified that an American journalist should want to trace the extraordinary history of the Nugan Hand Bank's Australian operations. This great document decribes the most cut-throat, heroin dealing, crime syndicate ever to have sullied our shores, and all under the covert auspices of the C.I.A. Kwitny's research is exhaustive and his even handed way of presenting his findings is exemplary of fine journalism. The implications hatched in this veritable can of worms will have net-sleuths busy for years tracing the myriad references to the numerous associates of Nugan Hand who vanished into the night only to surface again in the Irangate scandal. Essential reading for anyone trying to come to terms with the scourge of heroin, the world arms trade and those members of the U.S.'s covert agencies that spread misery in their own and other countries...Read it if you dare!

As the editor, I can tell you that my goal in writing this book is to get students of international affairs to start looking systematically at what happens when international organizations like the UN or the EU decide to directly engage local non-governmental organizations in the Third World. This phenomenon, while widespread, has only just begun to penetrate the awareness of most experts in the field, and they often don't even know which words to use, let alone ideas, to describe and explain what is happening. I brought together a number of people with quite different perspectives on the issue and had them each write their own piece, after which we met together at a conference and compared notes. What you will find is that, although we use very different terminology, we all ended up saying many of the same things, that UN efforts to build up local organizations from the outside are analogous to other things in international relations, from neo-colonialism to balance of power politics to development aid projects. In other words, we already have the analytical tools to understand most of what is going on. We are also ina position to predict that these efforts to strengthen "civil society" within Third World countries is probably going to largely backfire unless it is done very carefully with great sensitivity to local political and social conditions. Enjoy the book!