MEXICO CITY - Two military-grade weapons were found alongside the murdered body of U.S. Border Patrol agent in December. The guns were part of an arsenal ATF agents were presumably tracking but lost track of.
Evidently, similar weapons were allowed from Houston and Tampa. About 2000 weapons were allowed illegal movement from Phoenix into drug-cartel hands in an odd, deadly intended entrapment operation to track how the guns moved into organized crime's hands in Mexico, and showed up in crime scenes.
At last week's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing, the intention was to trace the guns backwards, to find out which U.S. government officials knew what and when, because agents involved in operation "Fast and Furious,'' as it was known, lost track.
The implausible reason for the operation in the first place is that crime scene investigators in Mexico would know where the weapons originated and in which crime syndicate's hands they ended up -- after the crooks caused mayhem.
The hearing, so far, seems to dwell on the number of weapons (2000, 1800 or 1600), but the more important unasked question is how many innocents were killed, wounded, injured or suffered through use of these weapons, like the murdered border agent.
This is a humanitarian matter. It is entirely plausible that many individuals were victims from those towns and villages that got shot up by organized crime. They could file wrongful-death and other lawsuits against each link in the chain of death and injury.
These types of suits should be brought -- in Mexico, the United States and before international tribunals.
Also there is now good reason to ask U.S. State and Defense Department officials what really was the basis for their reports claiming failed state projections and pronouncements of destabilization before Fast and Furious.
Other concerns need investigation, such as the sale of weapons to cartel front organizations from State Department inventories, and shipments by organized crime from the same airport the DEA used in Texas. All this could be coincidental. But some plausible explanations are needed.
Conspiracy theorists will immediately jump the gun (excuse the pun). Others have ideological axes to grind. There is certainly material for them to chew on. For instance, Mexican authorities have made it public they were not informed about Fast and Furious.
Nor were ATF's own agents in Mexico, nor cooperating agencies like the DEA, FBI, Mexican prosecutors Procuraduría General de la Republica and Agencia Federal de Investigacion and the Policia Federal.
But the possible reason why things fell apart, given in a Washington Post editorial, is the most untenable.
The paper laid out the lame bureaucratic excuse that operation Fast and Furious became a fiasco because ATF's "budget has been repeatedly targeted by (the U.S. Congress) and often did not have the means to follow through."
In other words, high paid government officials could not afford to make a two-cent Skype phone call to alert their own agents about the crooks having guns they could point at them.
For another two pennies they could have alerted the Mexican authorities.
Carlos Canino, head of ATF operations in Mexico, said at the congressional hearings, "I want to make it perfectly clear ... at no time ever did I know that ATF agents were following known (or) suspected gun traffickers ... Never, ever ... would I imagine ... that we were letting that happen."
But it did happen. This caper should not get turned into something different than it is. It is about illegal gun trafficking, bureaucratic denouement, death, injury, mayhem, social instability. It is not about Houdini-like officialdom tricks so the issue disappears.
Keep your eye on the ball for any new disclosures.
That's my two-cents worth.
Jose de la Isla writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. E-mail him at joseisla3@yahoo.com
Masterrogue666 posted at 7:10 am on Fri, Aug 12, 2011.
Gee, Dale, I guess you'd like to have all those terrorist types over here killing civilians, eh?
The leader of Iraq attacked a neighbor, whom in turn, asked the USA for help. Said leader didn't learn from the first pasting we gave him. But hey, what else can one expect from a Mad-man?
Afgan still has the Taliban.
My question is why are we in Libya? They've hated the USA for years! Now they want our help?
Dale Whiting posted at 12:02 pm on Sun, Aug 7, 2011.
I know something which happened during a conservative administration, a dumb if not criminal thing to have done, which has not been investigated but which has been swept under the table by both liberals and conservatives. It's called the Iraq war. And focus on Iraq lead to a negligent thing to do, which until May 1 got swept away too, The chase for bin Laden in an Afghanistan war. The issue of the ADFE's loosing guns along our border with Mexico pails in comparision with Iraq and Afghanistan.
AmericanPatriot posted at 8:03 pm on Fri, Aug 5, 2011.
chatmandu002, I couldn't have stated it better. The liberal media doesn't care, but the retarded masses care even less.
chatmandu002 posted at 1:05 pm on Fri, Aug 5, 2011.
The reason this is not on the table for discussion is because it happened on the watch of a liberal president which the liberal media will not pursue. If this would have happened during a conservative administration then all hell would have broken loose. Remember the Iran Contra Affair.
The liberal/progressive media will not hold the liberal democratic administration to the same standards as a conservative administration.
NothingButTheTruth posted at 12:42 pm on Fri, Aug 5, 2011.
Dale I'm not so sure it was just a dumb thing as you say. I mean, if there wasn't an ulterior motive, their actions were retarded. Even though it was a failure in it's quest to prove that American guns are flooding across the border, they still used it to enforce a new law making the 4 border states report multiple semi-auto rifles sales which will only cause economic hardships for border state gun shops at best.
Dale Whiting posted at 5:57 am on Fri, Aug 5, 2011.
Bureaucrats do dumb things. When their acts are intentional and undertaken under circumstances where the reasonable person would comprehend the risks as being too great, they need to be prosecuted. When their acts are undertaken in igornance of the risks, they need to be fired.
I have never been so dissapointed in the ATF [thought they were not called ATFE, bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives].
Masterrogue666 posted at 7:56 pm on Thu, Aug 4, 2011.
Hey Jose, we'll pay those costs if MEXICO, et al, pay the USA for the costs we have endured for the MILLIONS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS that have come partake of what isn't really meant for them. I'm not greedy, I only want you to pay for the last 10 years. Once that's done, then we'll take care of your beef.
Sound fair?
AmericanPatriot posted at 4:23 pm on Thu, Aug 4, 2011.
RationalHuman, all can be explained with one word, apathy. As long as the beer swilling, TV addicted, football watching mongrels have enough distractions from reality, nothing will ever change, and the rats can lie all they want. Most people, if they are ask, will tell you that all politicians lie most of the time yet they seem to be able to say that without getting angry about it. Apathy is running rampant and nobody cares. They love to call those guns military grade weapons cause the apathetic people don't understand the difference and it sounds so much more dangerous. Most people if they want can buy a military grade "fully automatic" assault rifle, but they cost a mint and you need a special, very hard to get, license, and they wont let you have a dozen even if you have a lot of money and can afford them. The drug cartels wouldn't pay what these guns would cost on the American market when they can get all they want from either the corrupt Mexican army or the world black market. If the drug cartels have American made fully automatic assault rifles then they probably got them from either the American government or The Mexican government, and the Mexican government got theirs from the American government, so they all come from the same source, and that ain't from gun stores from the 4 states that border Mexico.
RationalHuman posted at 1:44 pm on Thu, Aug 4, 2011.
More importantly, why hasn't Eric Holder, the head of an organization that has supplied military grade weapons to terrorist groups, been brought up on charges and arrested?
RationalHuman posted at 12:49 pm on Thu, Aug 4, 2011.
Poor Jose...his idealistic racsim has blinded him to the most important issue, which he even mentions in the first sentence of his article.
To wit - "military-grade weapons" - CANNOT BE BOUGHT BY CIVILIANS AT A GUN SHOP. And yet the ATF is claiming all these weapons came from civilian gun shops.
Why are they lying and refusing to disclose the military arms depot these weapons came from?