Operation Fast And Furious Should Undermine Current Political Leadership

By Semperpapa

This story has been going around for some time now, covered by some news outlets, CBS taking the lead surprisingly, but mostly ignored by the majority of the journalistic zoo. And for a good reason.

According to statements of ATF (Alcohol Tobacco and Firearm control) agents, the U.S. government has been engaging in a weapon operation called Fast and Furious.

Summarizing, Operation Fast and Furious was an operation aimed at allowing the smuggling of firearms from the United States into Mexico. A government-sponsored illegal operation conducted, allegedly, without any knowledge of the Mexican authorities.

The first question that comes to mind is obvious: why!?

According to some people connected with the ATF, the purpose was to have a limited number of American weapons make their way into Mexico and being tracked by American authorities for the purpose of seeking evidences against Mexican drug cartel criminals.

The problem, according to some concerned ATF agents, is that the number of weapons and authorizations for smuggling, got so out of hand that tracking became impossible. Meanwhile, thugs from these drug cartels roam the streets of Mexico, and the United States, with weapons, killing people and conducting their “business” undisturbed.

In a sad and sinister way, the operation did live to a certain level of expectations when last December, a Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry, was shot and killed well within the territorial United States in Arizona. The killing occurred when Terry and other agents were trying to apprehend suspected drug traffickers. The weapons used in the killing of agent Terry were traced back to the cache from Operation Fast and Furious.

When family members of Brian Terry expressed their high dissatisfaction over the lack of any competence on the part of Sec. Janet Napolitano of DHS, they were politely chastised by Napolitano for speaking out, dismissing the family’s knowledge of the elevated state of danger our Border Agents were forced to work in, mostly due to DHS/government policies.

Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry

To make thing even worst, US Special Agent Jamie Zapata was ambushed and killed in February 2011 inside Mexico.

ICE Special Agent Jamie Zapata

Officially, the weapon used in this killing was not traced to the operation, but the government silence is as good as an admission.

ATF agents have long expressed their concerns with the operation, but all their doubts have fallen on deaf ears with the high levels of their agency and of the government.

BP agent John Dodson is one of those who had major reservations about the tactics of Operation Fast and Furious, but was silenced by his supervisors. In a statement to the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington group, Dodson said that the firearms involved in the operation will continue to show up at crime scenes for years.

A total of about 2,000 weapons were allowed by the ATF to make their way into the hands of Mexican criminal elements. Initially, authorities would recover the weapons as the so called straw buyers, or low level members of criminal organizations, were apprehended. Field agents supported the recovery of the weapons at the first possible chance, but policy was changed by Mark Chait, assistant director of ATF field operations, who felt frustrated by the lack of impact the operation had had on the big actors of the Mexican drug cartel.

The result was that of the 2,000 weapons involved, only 800 were recovered, leaving 1,200 out on the streets of Mexico and the United States in the hands of criminals of various nature.

Lat fall, the Department of Justice expressed their dissatisfaction with the small number of high level arrests that the ATF operation had generated, which is about the same time when Mr. Chait changed the scope of the strategy.

The whole thing now has caught the attention of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Sen. Charles Grassley, highest ranking Republican, is calling for a thorough re-evaluation of the policy.

South of the border, Mexican officials are incensed by the actions of the United States government, stating that the Mexican government had no knowledge of the operation and calling for a joint U.S.-Mexican panel to investigate the matter.

Interestingly, it was Sec. of State Hillary Clinton in 2009 to claim the responsibility for the drug violence in Mexico to be shared by the United States for its gun policies, claim that was also made by President Obama.

Even if that is the case, which, by all accounts is a false claim, is establishing an obscure federal policy to do just that the solution?

President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, declared that they had no knowledge of the operation, Obama even taking the position, in an interview with Univision, that the federal government is pretty big and that it has many moving parts, clearly ditching any responsibility for his own organization. True leadership there.

Janet Napolitano, DHS secretary, also claims that she had no knowledge of Fast and Furious. Anyone who believes these people statement should by now have some serious concerns about the efficiency and competence of the major operators in our government.

Of interest should also be the fact that just recently, the Obama administration has introduced even more restrictions on the sale of firearms for the dealers in the southwest of the country. So basically, as the federal government was moving to restrict the sale of weapons in Arizona and New Mexico, the ATF was encouraging dealers to finalize suspicious sales flagged by the very dealers.

There are people who will believe the fairy tale of ignorance on the part of the federal government, but it is a stretch. The true policy being pushed here is one of a flanking attack against the 2^nd Amendment rights of the American people. Thousands of gun laws on the books have absolutely no meaning when they are ignored by the very government that instituted them.

The reality is that the scope of the operation is to give life to the anti-gun crowd in America by instilling the perception that the responsibility for the violence in Mexico is to be laid at the feet of our Constitution. The duality of government action, claiming that the violence is due to the southbound traffic of arms while allowing it to happen by policy, is nothing more than a concerted effort to give the government the cause for intruding even more upon the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the American people.

It is impossible to predict the consequences of this situation. It is very likely that if the trail of the investigation will head for the White House, the whole matter will be kept under wrap by the corrupted AG Holder, at least as long as Obama is President. In the meantime, we will continue to witness a Janet Napolitano telling us that the southern border is more secure than ever, just as Mexican drug cartel operators and illegal aliens smugglers continue to invade our Nation and our Border Patrol agents continue to pay with their lives for a policy posture that is a total failure.

Just my thoughts!