#Write this down pablo escobar free#

I probably need to leave my description of the details of the book there, as i will only get it tangled. What is obvious is that the US was far more involved than legitimately authorised, they were morally well across lines (for example knowing about the kill squad called Los Pepes who claimed to operate as an independent vigilante organisation, when it was obvious the Colombian Police were feeding them information, and the US operatives were aware of this, and almost certainly knew that the leaders of that origination and financing was from the Cali cartel). It was a complex web of people and politics. I am happy to admit I cant write a simple explanation of each of the above American parties, how they interacted with the Colombian authorities, and who did what. I say ambiguous because typically the agreed scope it to either provide training or to provide expertise in surveillance, but clearly not to be taking part in missions / raids / executions (!). So Bush signed off on a heap on ambiguous requests for the US Embassy, DEA, CIA, NSA, Delta Force and an outfit called Centra Spike, who were a specialist digital surveillance team with high tech planes to use cellphone detection to trace the location of targets. To me this seems like America blaming Colombia for the American's who are buying drugs. George Bush has ramped up his war on drugs and has decided that stopping cocaine at the border, or going after people distributing within the States was not yielding results - he wanted to target the source. As the Colombian police prove ineffective, the more they open up politically to the option of assistance from the USA.

#Write this down pablo escobar free#

Between targetted assassinations and bribe money, Escobar remains relatively free to carry out his business. People who act against Escobar have a strange habit of winding up dead.

The second part of the book outlines the authorities actions to take Pablo down. It does talk about the ebb and flow of public support for Pablo - as he poured his ill gotten money into housing, sports fields and the like he was seen as a Robin Hood figure, but violent bombings and public executions turned many against him.

What we don't get is a wider picture of Escobar - the private zoo with the exotic animals, his car collections (other than when the authorities destroy them to taunt him), so not such a human picture. We hear about his lavish lifestyle, his predilection for teenage girls, the fact he is a marijuana smoker, but doesn't meddle in the cocaine that makes him his millions of dollars. While we get a thorough background of Escobar, we see it from a strictly criminal and political perspective. Then we learn about the Colombian police and then military tasked with capturing Escobar, and then the involvement of the USA. First we follow the life of Pablo Escobar - the man synonymous with cocaine trafficking - his upbringing, his family, his involvement in the drug trade and his role in the Medellin cartel, his short career in politics. This is a thorough and well researched book. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico - By Ginger Thompson July 2017 – National Geographic and ProPublica joined forces for this alarming report of a drug cartel outrage in the town of Allende, near the US border in Mexico - How the U.S. This is a book you will not want to put down, even knowing that the bad guy gets it in the end. It changed from seeing Escobar as a gangster to defining him as a threat to American security and ultimately waged war against him. What makes Pablo Escobar significant for more than his mere criminality is that his level of influence and terror led to a change in American policy. (It’s all better now, right?) There is a large cast of characters portrayed here Steve Jacoby, and American signals intelligence expert, Colonel Hugo Martinez, an incorruptible leader of Colombian police, and his son who was determined to contribute to the battle with Escobar, Mossir Busby, an American diplomat who was instrumental in gaining US involvement in tracking Escobar down. It is fast-paced, gripping, and gives one a feel for Colombia during the period when narco-terror ruled. It tells the tale of the rise and fall of, arguably, the greatest gangster (outside of government) of the 20th century. Killing Pablo, published in 2001, keeps that momentum going. This is great stuff! Bowden’s 1999 best-seller, Blackhawk Down, was a masterpiece of the genre.