"There's something happening here
What it is, ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Tellin' me, I got to beware" - Buffalo Springfield, 1966

SAN DIEGO (FTW) - A standing room only crowd of over 300 (on official
recount) turned out last night at San Diego State University to attend a
four hour presentation by retired DEA Agent Celerino Castillo and former
LAPD narcotics investigator Mike Ruppert, publisher of the internationally
recognized newsletter, "From The Wilderness." The theme for the presentation
was CIA/US Government complicity in the drug trade as it has evolved into a
major component in the current economy and what appears to be a headlong
race toward a U.S. led war in Colombia.

Reporters from San Diego newspapers and the FOX News TV affiliate attended
the lecture and FOX aired a three minute segment after the event which was,
according to former Senior U.S. Customs Inspector John Carman, "Unbelievably
positive. I've never seen anything like it."

Event organizers who worked very hard to promote the event were also
surprised by the strength and interest in the turnout. In spite of the
continuing distraction of the unresolved Presidential election, a crowd of
people extremely concerned about both the economy and the growing imminence
of direct US involvement in the decades long Colombian civil war stayed an
hour after the end of the event to question Castillo and Ruppert in depth.

"There was a noticeable change in the energy and attitude from previous
events we have done," said Castillo who has been an outspoken critic of CIA
and DEA corruption for more than ten years. "I think it's because of the
election, the realization that this all has to do with the economy and the
near certainty that Colombia is going to be another Vietnam." Castillo's
experience as a decorated Vietnam combat veteran carried weight with the
crowd whose ages ranged from late teens to mid-fifties.

During his portion of the presentation FTW Editor Ruppert displayed news
stories only days old emanating the outgoing Clinton Drug Czar. "The
pronouncements, this week, from Barry McCaffrey that Colombia is going to
become a bloody and prolonged, regional conflict have given greater
credibility to what we have been saying at FTW for nearly a year. The Fox
news crew arrived with an understanding already in their minds that there is
a relationship between Wall Street, war, the failed War on Drugs and 'coming
attractions' in Colombia. I have not experienced this energy or this
awareness before."

Whether this one event is a true indicator of a shifting consciousness
remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is that the emotional and
financial needs of the American political and economic system in the wake of
the election crisis point to a beating of the military drum within weeks, if
not days after the inauguration of a new President. As UC Professor Peter
Dale Scott, author of the CIA suppressed 1972 book "The War Conspiracy"
noted recently, "Things do change. This is the first case I know of where we
have an anti-war movement before we actually have a war."

FTW plans on re-publishing Scott's book, never before sold in America, in
the first quarter of 2001 and is currently moving ahead with that project at
"best possible speed" after delays last Fall. Said Ruppert, "There was a
reason why the CIA bought all 50,000 copies of Scott's book in 1972. Even
though it is a detailed behind-the-scenes examination of how the CIA and the
US Government "manufactured" a war in Vietnam, it is frightening how
accurately the book describes what is happening in Colombia at this very
moment."

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Mike Ruppert