Posted on 06/16/2011 10:53:57 AM PDT by jazusamo
Pay attention to this era-defining event: The 2,000+ weapons are implicated in an estimated 150 shootings of Mexican officers and soldiers, two American officers, and an unknown number of civilians.
On October 5, 1986, a former U.S. Air Force C-123 transport plane was shot down in Nicaragua. The pilots and radio operator perished when the plane crashed, but a former U.S. Marine who was a cargo handler on the aircraft was able to parachute to safety. He was captured by the Nicaraguan government.
The former Marine, Eugene Hasenfus, claimed to be a cargo handler for the CIA. His capture and trial began the unraveling of what became known as the Iran-Contra Affair, which saw 14 Reagan-era officials indicted and eleven convictions for a plot that traded arms to Iran for hostages and illegally funded Nicaragua’s anti-communist rebels.
On December 14, 2010, a special unit of the U.S. Border Patrol came across a group of heavily armed suspects near Rio Rico, Arizona. The Border Patrol team identified themselves as law enforcement officers, at which point the armed men open fire. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was hit in the pelvis by a single bullet and died the next morning. One of the suspects was captured, and two AK-pattern semiautomatic rifles recovered at the scene were identified by serial number as weapons that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) — acting in concert with and with the blessing of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) — allowed weapons smugglers to purchase at U.S. gun shops. The weapons were just two of more than 2,000 firearms that ATF supervisors and the highest levels of DOJ management allowed to be “walked” across the border to narco-terrorist drug cartels in Mexico, in a scandal that promises to be more damning and deadly than Iran-Contra.
The ATF named their operation Fast and Furious, but it will go down in history by its more descriptive title: “Gunwalker.”
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is holding hearings this week on Gunwalker, and seems to be squaring up for a political duel with the Obama administration, which is seeking to block all access to official information about the operation. To date, the information collected by the committee has come from ATF whisteblowers, agents inside the operation who fought against senior government officials who were “giddy” over the death and violence from the roughly 2000+ weapons that they allowed smugglers to take across the border — weapons that seemed to be raising the body count in what was arguably becoming a Mexican civil war.
A damning and detailed 51-page report — The Department of Justice’s Operation Fast and Furious: Accounts of ATF Agents (.pdf) — was released by the committee on Tuesday. The report captured testimony from ATF field agents who fought with their supervisors over orders that flew in direct contradiction to their primary order: to always follow the suspect with the gun and always interdict to keep the weapon from being used in a crime.
The report’s findings:
“DOJ and ATF inappropriately and recklessly relied on a 20-year-old ATF Order to allow guns to walk.” The agencies misrepresented the intention of the order to justify their actions.
“Supervisors told the agents to ‘get with the program’ because senior ATF officials had sanctioned the operation.” At least one agent was cautioned that if he didn’t stop complaining about the dangerous nature of the operation, he would find himself out of a job, and lucky to be working in a prison.
“Operation Fast and Furious contributed to the increasing violence and deaths in Mexico. This result was regarded with giddy optimism by ATF supervisors hoping that guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico would provide the nexus to straw purchasers in Phoenix.” ATF officials were seemingly unconcerned over the deaths of Mexican law enforcement officers, soldiers, and innocent civilians, noting that you had to “scramble a few eggs” to make an omelette, in a callous disregard or human life.
Senior ATF personnel including Acting Director Ken Melson, and senior Department of Justice officials at least up to an assistant attorney general, were well aware of and supported the operation.
Department of Justice officials hid behind semantics to lie and deny that they allowed guns to be walked across the border.
When asked by the Oversight Committee how many of 1,750 specific weapons that “walked” under orders of the ATF and DOJ could have been interdicted if agents were allowed to act as they were trained, the agents answered they could have stopped every single one.
The more than 2,000 weapons that the Obama Justice Department allowed to be delivered to Mexican narco-terrorist cartels are thought to have been used in the shooting of an estimated 150 Mexican law enforcement officers and soldiers battling the cartels. Two American law enforcement officers have also presumably fallen prey to these weapons, along with an unknown number of civilians on both sides of the border.
President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice has purposefully armed narco-terrorist drug cartels that have been accused of bombings, ambushes, mass murders, public executions, and the assassination of police, politicians, and civic leaders.
Obama’s Justice Department armed the enemy of our neighbor and ally, providing enough arms to equip ten infantry companies, or two battalions, of violent drug dealers.
Iran-Contra was a misguided attempt to trade arms for hostages and supply a covert supply of arms to rebels fighting against a communist dictatorship during the Cold War.
Gunrunner was an attempt to develop enough gun-running evidence to bring down a cartel, and instead supplied thousands of arms to drug cartels locked in a life-or-death struggle with a key U.S. ally and trading partner.
You tell me which is worse.
there is absolutely NO comparison
You’re absolutely right.
I still believe that this was an attempt by the government to implicate legal gun sales in drug cartel murders, thus trying to justify more regulations and restrictions on gun ownership inside the US. Chasing after the drug cartels was secondary at most.
Well of course ,Leftist Idiots are involved in this.
I agree. There’s nothing the ATF would like more than to severely restrict or even prohibit private gun ownership.
He'll say that the agents, who, after all, were holdovers from the Bush administration, "acted stupidly."
“Gunrunner was an attempt to develop enough gun-running evidence to bring down a cartel, and instead supplied thousands of arms to drug cartels locked in a life-or-death struggle with a key U.S. ally and trading partner.”
I hope Issa gets to the bottom of this, however Mexico is not an ally. Anything that we give to Mexico will come back to hurt us.
And to demoralize AZ to boot.
Napolitano (the anti-Arizona Arizonan) is likely in on this as well.
Imagine if 0bama sold arms to Iran and used the money to fund a rebel army in South America. Would you say that was a bigger deal than ATF allowing lots of guns to hit the streets?
Dismantle the ATF. Alcohol Tobacco Explosives and Firearms sounds like a typical weekend back home - or a damn fine bait shop - it shouldn't be a federal agency.
There is only one reason the lefties did this: To put the blame on American gun dealers for selling guns to the Mexicans. They claimed so many firearms going across the border but the real numbers didn’t add up, so in order to push their radical anti-gun agenda they made up their own scandal. Back fired on them though, didn’t it. Every official involved in this down to the lowest agent and up to the top of the heap should be headed for jail.
I’d bet you’re right but I doubt it can all be attributed to the Bush abmin.
It’s going to be interesting to see how long Holder will be able last, I’d bet money he’s into this up to his neck.
“Gunrunner was an attempt to develop enough gun-running evidence to bring down a cartel,”
Horse dung and we all know it.
It gave Obama the chance to tell stupid Americans who don’t know any better ,that American guns from gun shows and gun stores that had no integrity were selling guns to Mexicans.
We know now that these stores were the first ones to report this to the ATF, who under Obama’s direction allowed this atrociy to happen. We need a new “honest” ‘truthful’ Non-Muslim President.
Bump
Wow, the rare article that gets every single statement about guns correct.
“I still believe that this was an attempt by the government to implicate legal gun sales in drug cartel murders, thus trying to justify more regulations and restrictions on gun ownership inside the US”
That’s EXACTLY what this was all about. They had a narrative that they wanted to prove but didn’t have the facts so they tried to create them.
“You tell me which is worse.”
Oh definitely Gunrunner IMO, and especially if we add in the part you (the author) didn’t mention which would be about the gun grabbing aspect, or intent of operation “GunWalker”.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.