Posted on 03/16/2012 4:23:47 PM PDT by marktwain
Recent focus on the relationship between U.S. guns and Mexican cartels has been limited to the ATF's "Fast and the Furious." That plan had agents selling assault rifles to Mexican gun runners so that they could track high-ranking cartel members.
Though the ATF's actions are a bit questionable, there's actually a completely legal -- and perhaps more harmful -- way the U.S. is arming Mexican cartels. It's called "direct commercial sales" and it's operated by the State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC).
So how is taxpayer money paying to arm drug dealers?
Under the direct commercial sales program, foreign governments can submit an application to the DDTC. When approved, they are free to purchase weapons made by private U.S. manufacturers.
In 2009 alone, U.S. manufacturers sold 18,709 guns to the Mexican military, reports CBS News. About 26% of those guns were "diverted" into the wrong hands.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Gunwalker ping.
“Though the ATF’s actions are a bit questionable,”
LOL!! Leave it to Roto Rooters : )
I wonder if Georgfe Bush was in charge when a program that put guns in the hand of mexican drug cartels, which were then used to kil america border patrol agents they would have clled the actions “a bit questionable”
When is ISSA going to grow some balls AND INDICT SOME ONE
I wonder if George Bush was in charge when a program that put guns in the hands of mexican drug cartels, which were then used to kill american border patrol agents they would have called the actions “a bit questionable”
When is ISSA going to grow some balls AND INDICT SOME ONE??
Still trying to pretend Operation Gunwalker never happened.
Here it comes....don’t say we didn’t expect it.
Totally predictable. And NRA says Obama’s goal in 2nd term is to disarm us as much as possible.
"Legal", perhaps, but only because Federal employees aren't considered prohibited persons like convicted felons, drug dealers, and wife beaters.
Sorry. I wish he could, but Issa can’t indict anyone. An indictment must be brought before a federal grand jury by a US Attorney. And guess who they work for!
Now, Issa could start a motion for impeachment of someone!
“Though the ATF’s actions are a bit questionable, there’s actually a completely legal — and perhaps more harmful — way the U.S. is arming Mexican cartels. It’s called ‘direct commercial sales’ and it’s operated by the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC).”
The state department, (hillary,) takes a bow. PING.
My take: al-Reuters diluting F & F while joining the left’s assault on the 2nd’s RTBA. F~~~~rs.
We have a President walking around the White House without a stitch of clothing on. Naked as a Kenyan witchdoctor! When will ISSA fill a criminal complaint?
We have a President walking around the White House without a stitch of clothing on. Naked as a Kenyan witchdoctor! When will ISSA fill a criminal complaint?
We have a President walking around the White House without a stitch of clothing on. Naked as a Kenyan witchdoctor! When will ISSA fill a criminal complaint?
Inquire at Boehner's office. He was said to be in tears at the time.
In 2009 alone, U.S. manufacturers sold 18,709 guns to the Mexican military, reports CBS News. About 26% of those guns were "diverted" into the wrong hands.
In other words, the cartel gets its heavy military weaponry from the Mexican military.
This has never been a secret. It just got downplayed when they were trying to convince us that the cartel was buying its machine guns, and rocket launchers, and hand grenades from Walmart's sporting goods department.
"Grenade-walking" part of "Gunwalker" scandal
And this...
Worse Than Gunwalker? State Dept. Allegedly Sold Guns to ZetasPhil Jordan, a former CIA operative and one-time leader of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s El Paso Intelligence Center, claims that the Obama administration is running guns to the violent Zetas cartel through the direct commercial sale of military grade weapons:
Jordan, who served as director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s El Paso Intelligence Center in 1995, said the Zetas have shipped large amounts of weapons purchased in the Dallas area through El Paso.
(snip)
“They’ve found anti-aircraft weapons and hand grenades from the Vietnam War era,” Plumlee said. Other weapons found include grenade launchers, assault rifles, handguns and military gear including night-vision goggles and body armor.
More about State Department involvement...
— has sources claiming “Obama’s man in the State Department,” (former) Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg, was the State Department operative who helped Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and the Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General David Ogden formulate the strategy that led to the tactics used in Operation Fast and Furious.Steinberg took office as Deputy Secretary of State on January 28, 2009
A little more than two years later, it was announced that Steinberg's time in the Obama State Department was over. From the New York Times, 30 March 2011:
Mrs. Clinton heaped praise on Mr. Steinberg, describing him as an “indispensable” partner. “On every foreign policy challenge, big and small, he has helped formulate our policy and oversee its execution,” she wrote. Mr. Steinberg, she said, played “Oscar to Jack Lew’s Felix,” referring to Jacob J. Lew, her other deputy, who left earlier this year to become Mr. Obama’s budget director.
Want to read even more about State Dept. involvement? ...
Sipsey Street Exclusive: "In at the beginning." The State Department & the Gunwalker Scandal.
I read the earlier reference to DDTC as a evidence that the cartel was actually getting its weapons from the mexican military (and I do believe that... elements of the military have always been compromised in the past...)
But your post indicates that no, this is separate from the military sales. The State Department is selling weapons directly to the Zetas. We know one of the operations was selling weapons to the Honduran mob after the Zelaya affair, which led me to think there was a foreign policy objective involved in that sale. Another was selling weapons to the cartel. And now State selling to the Zetas.
But it occurs to me that we are just seeing the tip of a very big iceberg. The Clintons were in up to their necks in gun running back in the eighties, and this looks like the same song same key. Like then you've got investigations that seem to facilitate and cover the very thing they are supposedly investigating. You got some agencies in the know, others not in the know. You have to wonder at some point who exactly is working for who.
If the Zetas are armed by State, we've got ATF selling to the Mexican cartel, and to the Honduran mob, this is not a one-off. This is an enterprise. There is a parallel organization within these organizations that has its own agenda and no one dares to question them. It can be dismissed as a national security operation, or an on-going investigation and no one dares to question it.
This sounds like an old conspiracy movie in which the good guys all turn out to be bad guys. Maybe like Gene Hackman's The Firm multiplied by 10 thousand.
I remember years ago a Venezuelan general was arrested for shipping container-loads of drugs into the US. His defense was, that he had DEA's permission to ship so they could follow the shipment. But, you've sent 10 shipments, they said. Is this an investigation or a business? And at some point you conclude, the investigation is just the cover for a thriving enterprise.
On this side of the border it's violations of the RICO Act. In Mexico and Honduras it's state-sponsored terrorism.
What else would you call heavily arming international criminal syndicates within a foreign country wherein that country is in a death struggle with those syndicates?
Especially when it goes beyond thousands of assault rifles to include grenades, RPGs, shoulder fired rockets, anti-aircraft guns, night vision equipment, body armor and special deals to bring their drugs onto our soil with legal impunity?
Not to mention the just-revealed news that the rip crew that killed BP Agent Brian Terry was there with DEA and FBI assistance and approval to attack and kill a rival cartel's smuggling crew.
Let's not leave out the FBI and DEA laundering millions of dollars for the drug cartels by setting up bank accounts for them that they otherwise couldn't do. As well as immunity deals for cartel kingpins.
It's organized, it is spread through every Federal LEA and it violates numerous domestic laws and numerous statutes and treaties that deal with foreign nations. Yet none of it has been officially sanctioned. It's the FedGov acting like mafiosa.
0bama, Holder and Hillary Clinton are all deeply involved in this and it is state-sponsored terrorism. These Chicago machine Marxist thugs are dragging our country down to the level of Tehran and Pyongyang.
What? You've got to be kidding.
Can you find a link?
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