Fast and Furious

[ZenGum]

Yeah, all those AK-47s really helped in Libya, didn't they?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Yeah, all those AK-47s really helped in Libya, didn't they?

I don't think the US sent them.

[Fair&Balanced]

Mercenary and Guerrilla extreme theater of racism and genocide.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Fair&Balanced

Mercenary and Guerrilla extreme theater of racism and genocide.

Only people who defend Holder, the DOJ, and ATF support genocide and racism...

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Fair&Balanced

Mercenary and Guerrilla extreme theater of racism and genocide.

Genocide is a very great horror, and it isn't even necessarily related to race -- one of genocide's three constants is hatred, however rationalized. It has to be there to motivate the action.

In that it is a very great horror, any measure that forestalls it should not merely be contemplated favorably, but embraced with enthusiasm -- and the less-than-enthusiastic be viewed with intense suspicion. "Enthusiasm" does not necessarily have to translate into personal gun ownership, but it's a good thing if it does: it puts your money where your mouth is.

[classicman]

Gunwalker scandal called "perfect storm of idiocy"

DEA Accidentally Finds Guns from ATF "Gunwalker" Case (Credit: CBS)
In advance of a hearing later today, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a report containing new testimony and allegations in the ATF gunwalker case. According to the report, Carlos Canino, Acting ATF Attache in Mexico, calls the strategy his agency employed: "The perfect storm of idiocy."

"We armed the [Sinaloa] cartel," Canino told investigators. "It is disgusting." Canino will be a key witness at the hearing.

But it's not just the Sinaloa cartel. Documents obtained by Congressional investigators show weapons - sold under ATF's watch in Operation Fast and Furious out of the Phoenix office - have been used by at least three Mexican drug cartels: Sinaloa, El Teo and La Familia.

In other words, Congressional investigators say the very agency charged with preventing weapons from falling into the hands of violent cartels south of the border ... instead facilitated it.

The Oversight Committee has used internal documents and information to showing where Fast and Furious weapons have shown up and been used in Mexico. It reveals more recoveries than Department of Justice has disclosed to the Committee in official answers ... and yet it's still only a partial picture.

The Department of Justice had no comment on that aspect of the report.

The first large recovery of weapons sold to suspected drug cartel traffickers under ATF's watch was on Nov. 20, 2009 in Naco, Sonora, Mexico. All 42 weapons (41 AK-47s and a giant .50 caliber rifle) traced back to Fast and Furious suspects. Some had been bought, turned around and delivered to the cartel practically overnight.

Yet ATF allowed the acquisitions and dealings to continue for more than a year, until December of last year, when Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. Two Fast and Furious assault rifles were recovered at the murder scene.

On a recent visit to Mexico, the Oversight Committee was allowed to view bullet holes in one of two Mexican government helicopters recently shot at by cartel members ... including a .50-caliber round that penetrated the bulletproof-glass windshield. Officials recovered Fast and Furious weapons among the suspects' cache.

Also, for the first time, Congressional investigators disclose names of some Justice Department officials whom witnesses, ATF agents, say knew about the controversial gunwalking operation.

Nobody at the Justice Department has publicly acknowledged approval of or a role in the case. President Obama has said neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder authorized the operation, and Holder asked the Inspector General to investigate.

But according to ATF witnesses, on March 5, 2010 ATF intelligence analysts told ATF and Justice Department leadership (including Main Justice Trial Attorney Joe Cooley) that straw firearms purchases in Fast and Furious had exceeded 1,000 and the weapons were ending up in Mexico. When concerns were raised, one witness present quoted Cooley as saying the movement of so many guns to Mexico was "an acceptable practice." The Justice Department had no comment on that.

In other testimony, former ATF Attache to Mexico Darren Gil repeated information he gave in an exclusive CBS News interview several months ago. He told investigators that the Justice Department's Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, Lanny Breuer, was well aware of Fast and Furious, and referred to the case supportively when visiting Mexico.

link

[TheMercenary]

This thing is still exploding.

Guns from U.S. sting found at Mexican crime scenes

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...76P33T20110726

[classicman]

<crickets chirping>

[Griff]

If anyone but teh murk brought it up we'd probably discuss it but folks other than f'n b are reluctant to crawl down in the sewer with him.

[ZenGum]

Just gotta say, though, that when a law enforcement agency names its operations after cheesy crime-action movies, the first warning light should have come on already.

[TheMercenary]

Wow! so Griff and fucked and balanced are in bed together?...... who'd a thunk it?

[Griff]

Ha ha! Not likely, I find his position almost as annoying as you do, but I'm not interested in engaging in his version of "civil debate".

[TheMercenary]

A few weeks ago we brought you a story from Sharyl Attkisson who was reporting on a scandal inside the ATF concerning the agency allowing guns to walk across the border. Soon the worst fears of many ATF agents were realized when Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was murdered by a Mexican drug gang member using one of the guns the ATF let walk. It turns out that the ATF was not the only agency that knew about this “gun walking” policy. The DEA, ICE, Homeland Security, and an Assistant United States Attorney all had knowledge that ATF superiors were instructing agents on the ground to allow guns to flow into Mexico in the hopes they would be able to catch larger targets. Rene Jaquez, an ATF special agent, spoke out about what he sees as some of the darkest days in the history of the ATF.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/laura...50262422521395

[ZenGum]

UG, I draw your attention to the present - not historical - reality in Libya.

[TheMercenary]

ATF's gun surveillance program showed early signs of failure

Reporting from Washington— In March 2010, the No. 2 man at the ATF was deeply worried. His agents had lost track of hundreds of firearms. Some of the guns, supposed to have been tracked to Mexican drug cartels, were lost right after they cleared the gun stores.

Five months into the surveillance effort — dubbed Operation Fast and Furious — no indictments had been announced and no charges were immediately expected. Worse, the weapons had turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and the ATF official was worried that someone in the United States could be hurt next.

Acting Deputy Director William Hoover called an emergency meeting and said he wanted an "exit strategy" to shut down the program. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for decades had dedicated itself to stopping illegal gun-trafficking of any kind. Now it was allowing illegal gun purchases on the Southwest border and letting weapons "walk" unchecked into Mexico.

But those at the meeting, which included a Justice Department official, did not want to stop the illegal gun sales until they had something to show for their efforts. Hoover suggested a "30-day, 60-day or 90-day" exit plan that would shut Fast and Furious down for good — just as soon as there were some indictments.

But indictments did not come for another 10 months. By then, two semiautomatics had been recovered after a U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed south of Tucson, and nearly 200 had been found at crime scenes in Mexico.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,7349292.story