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Operation Gunwalker: Eric Holder Found in Contempt.
Detharin
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Operation Gunwalker is the name given to a new scandal that is emerging in part due to one man. Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry, pic spoilered for size.
What did Mr. Terry do? Well he died in a shootout between Law Enforcement and a Mexican Drug gang near Nogales. Why are we just now starting to hear about it? Why should you care? Detharin you hate everyone, are you sure this post is not just you bashing the Democrats? Why is exactly is his death such a huge deal causing the DOJ to shit bricks? Image of Bricks spoilered for size
First I am going to avoid any politcal party bashing, let us try and do the same. Both R's and D's have signed on wanting to know WTF happened. So WTF did happen? Well in the beginning their was Operation Fast and Furious. This operation was designed to allow certain illegal purchases of weapons that would normally receive a "Oh hell no." to be given a "Yes" so the ATF could track where they went. This began in 09 out of the Arizona offices of the ATF. What this means is that the Bureau responsible for preventing the flow of firearms into Mexico instead decided to increase the flow of arms into Mexico, and then it gets weird.
See quite a few ATF agents had a serious problem with it, one Agent asking the question "Hey perhaps we should tell Mexican law enforcement about this whole let the guns across our border thing. I am sure they would like to know where these extra 2500 guns are coming from and why." was told by his boss that they did not need to know. He responded by going to Washington and talking directly to the people above his boss. Surely a simple heads up was not worth risking an international incident over?
The word came down from on high in the Department of Justice that what was happening is what they wanted to happen and to shut up and like it. If you did not like it you were free to get a job serving lunches at the Maricopa County Jail for 30k a year(Actual quote, referenced from the second video below.) They did what most people do, they shut up, they took it, and they went on with their lives.
That is until Mr. Terry died, and the firearms recovered from the scene were directly linked to these allowed straw purchases. What this means is that firearms that would never have been sold to known gun traffickers, that were in fact sold over the objections of the gun store owners, and ATF employees directly resulted in the death of a member of American Law Enforcement. This was the final straw for someone in the ATF as the story was leaked to CleanupATF.org. Now I know what you are thinking, one more crazy conspiracy on the internet right? Well not quite.
See Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea caught the story, and said to themselves "man that is all kinds of fucked up, lets check it out." So independently of each other the both consulted their sources and confirmed that these allegations were in fact true. Unfortunately asking a buddy about a screwed up situation, and getting him to go on the record shooting his career in the face are completely different matters. So Mike and David go to Washington and try and find someone, anyone to listen to this crazy story, grant whistle-blower status to anyone who is willing to come forward and testify, and make an honest to god issue of this situation.
Enter Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Now having never been to Iowa I cannot tell you anything about Chuck, but to his credit he decided to write a letter on January 27th asking the ATF to brief his staff on the allegations of Project Gunrunner, and again on on the 31st informing the ATF to stop accusing people who had spoken to his staff of being guilty of misconduct and generally threatening them if they did not STFU. This was early February, from there the Senator was Stonewalled multiple times for multiple months as he tried to officially discover what had actually happened. This displeased the Senator greatly. Senator Smash!
Letter from the 27th http://www.scribd.com/doc/47909152/ATF1-1
Letter from the 31st http://www.scribd.com/doc/47909228/ATF2
Before we get to the now there are 5 allegations in the Gun Walker Scandle quoted from http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2010/12/border-patrol-agent-killed-with-atf.html
Whether Obama is directly responsible, did not know, was ever briefed, never briefed, gave the go ahead, never heard of it until the scandal, or who within the DoJ authorized the program we do not currently know, I would rather not another weinergate where we lose sight of the actual issue. Let us try and avoid that. The only reason I am including 5 is that whether or not Obama is involved there is looking to be a coverup as getting the DOJ to admit to what happened has been difficult and to all outside observers it appears they are in full cover up mode.
When last we left our heroes, one was dead, two were blogging, and one had his back to the wall. Our Senator was in a difficult spot he could only get redacted information, or information his sources would immediately turn around and call bullshit on. Also his investigation was not gathering any real attention, the media barely talked about it, no one seemed to care. Enter California Congressman Darrell Issa chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform now I know what you are thinking? What kind of idiots stonewall a guy who can issue subpoena, well apparently the DOJ.
A subpoena was issued for administrative records to determine who exactly was behind Operation Fast and Furious. What he received what records either already public, or almost completely blacked out and was denied the ability to interview certain people. So now we have problem. Can the Department of Justice ignore a Congressional Subpoena? Well we are going to find out Monday when the first hearing "Obstruction of Justice: Does the Justice Department have to respond to a lawfully issued and valid Congressional Subpoena?" kicks off. No I did not make the name up.
TLDR: Hey look I brought a video, two in fact. The first is a brief recap pre subpoenas, and the second is a bit later and includes the testimony of several ATF agents.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7357550n&tag=related;photovideo
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7358389n&tag=watchnow
Detharin you have already typed a fuckton, but I would like to know more! Well here is a handy link that reports events as they unfold day by day through various leaks and media outlets.
http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/a-journalist-s-guide-to-project-gunwalker
Remember when Wikileaks revealed less than 12% of the firearms able to be traced were traced back to American Gun stores? Pretty much destroying ideal that the majority of Mexico's guns were from civilian sales? Well the following joke graphic was produced.
Debate and Discourse, so what is there to talk about? Well firstly I would just like to get the word out there. Given that this forum has some of the finest minds ever found labeled Abby Normal I figured you guys might be interested. I am sure more than a few of you have some interesting thoughts on the issue. However let us try and avoid a couple things.
First THIS IS NOT A GUN CONTROL THREAD! We may touch on issues of gun control due to the allegations this program was designed to pad the numbers and increase the attention on guns from American being used to kill in Mexico. Discussing that is fine but please do not jump in with "Guns are scary and I do not think anyone should ever be able to have them." If you want to discuss gun control make a new thread.
Second. This is not a Republican or Democrat issue. 31 House Democrats have sent a letter to the White House asking them to tell the DoJ to come clean. I don't care of Grassley or Issa have 12 mistresses, and drop their pants on national TV for a wangs across American speech. Let us try and avoid "Obama is awesome and would never be involved" just as much as we avoid "Obama is the devil, Burn him and his Wookie wife!".
Third let us all avoid "Detharin is a jerk." Yes at times I am have the moral flexibility of Gumby, but we can all get along. I think there is enough here worth discussing, so have at it. If I am wrong the mods will deal with it in a fairly partial manner.
Links from AngelHedgie from Iwatchnews and NRP.
Iwatchnews Analysis with more information on the issue.
NPR covered the story.
Update 6/9/11
A second hearing has now been announced for 6/15 titled "Operation Fast and Furious: Reckless Decisions, Tragic Outcomes." Once again no I did not make this name up. Currently there are 3 panels of witnesses due to testify.
6/15/11
The second hearing was today, implicated were both the Acting Director as well as Acting Deputy Directors of the ATF who had been receiving weekly reports since March 2010.
Issa report including interviews of ATF agents verifying the gun walking as well as confirming the arrests from Fast and Furious could have been made a "Year and a half earlier without 1730 guns being trafficked."
http://oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Reports/ATF_Report.pdf
Link to emails confirming Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson and Acting Deputy Director Bill Hoover receiving weekly updates on Fast and Furious since March 2010.
http://oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Other_Documents/6-15-11_Melson_Docs.pdf
Link for todays hearing which includes transcript.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/300051-1
6/22/11
And the Daily Show weighs in with a recap.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/tue-june-21-2011-cameron-diaz
10/10/11
While quite a bit of information has been coming out of the gun walker program, up to and including knowledge within the White House Staff today a letter was released that was sent by Congressmen Darrel Issa to Eric Holder advising him that all attempts to conceal or obfuscate his involvement have failed. The letter itself can be found at the following link, it is rather long, and if anyone has not been keeping track of Gunwalker is an interesting way to catch up on just how much BS, lies, and obfuscations have been tossed out there in order to conceal the truth.
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2011/10/holder-ridge-defenses-overrun-holder.html
For the TL:DR crowd seriously read the letter, it is a beatdown of epic proportions.
First I am going to avoid any politcal party bashing, let us try and do the same. Both R's and D's have signed on wanting to know WTF happened. So WTF did happen? Well in the beginning their was Operation Fast and Furious. This operation was designed to allow certain illegal purchases of weapons that would normally receive a "Oh hell no." to be given a "Yes" so the ATF could track where they went. This began in 09 out of the Arizona offices of the ATF. What this means is that the Bureau responsible for preventing the flow of firearms into Mexico instead decided to increase the flow of arms into Mexico, and then it gets weird.
See quite a few ATF agents had a serious problem with it, one Agent asking the question "Hey perhaps we should tell Mexican law enforcement about this whole let the guns across our border thing. I am sure they would like to know where these extra 2500 guns are coming from and why." was told by his boss that they did not need to know. He responded by going to Washington and talking directly to the people above his boss. Surely a simple heads up was not worth risking an international incident over?
The word came down from on high in the Department of Justice that what was happening is what they wanted to happen and to shut up and like it. If you did not like it you were free to get a job serving lunches at the Maricopa County Jail for 30k a year(Actual quote, referenced from the second video below.) They did what most people do, they shut up, they took it, and they went on with their lives.
That is until Mr. Terry died, and the firearms recovered from the scene were directly linked to these allowed straw purchases. What this means is that firearms that would never have been sold to known gun traffickers, that were in fact sold over the objections of the gun store owners, and ATF employees directly resulted in the death of a member of American Law Enforcement. This was the final straw for someone in the ATF as the story was leaked to CleanupATF.org. Now I know what you are thinking, one more crazy conspiracy on the internet right? Well not quite.
See Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea caught the story, and said to themselves "man that is all kinds of fucked up, lets check it out." So independently of each other the both consulted their sources and confirmed that these allegations were in fact true. Unfortunately asking a buddy about a screwed up situation, and getting him to go on the record shooting his career in the face are completely different matters. So Mike and David go to Washington and try and find someone, anyone to listen to this crazy story, grant whistle-blower status to anyone who is willing to come forward and testify, and make an honest to god issue of this situation.
Enter Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Now having never been to Iowa I cannot tell you anything about Chuck, but to his credit he decided to write a letter on January 27th asking the ATF to brief his staff on the allegations of Project Gunrunner, and again on on the 31st informing the ATF to stop accusing people who had spoken to his staff of being guilty of misconduct and generally threatening them if they did not STFU. This was early February, from there the Senator was Stonewalled multiple times for multiple months as he tried to officially discover what had actually happened. This displeased the Senator greatly. Senator Smash!
Letter from the 27th http://www.scribd.com/doc/47909152/ATF1-1
Letter from the 31st http://www.scribd.com/doc/47909228/ATF2
Before we get to the now there are 5 allegations in the Gun Walker Scandle quoted from http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2010/12/border-patrol-agent-killed-with-atf.html
The Gunwalker Scandal Made Simple
There are five key accusations against ATF and DOJ made by ATF whistle-blowers and other sources within FedGov:
1. That they instructed U.S. gun dealers to proceed with questionable and illegal sales of firearms to suspected gunrunners.
2. That they allowed or even assisted in those guns crossing the U.S. border into Mexico to "boost the numbers" of American civilian market firearms seized in Mexico and thereby provide the justification for more firearm restrictions on American citizens and more power and money for ATF.
3. That they intentionally kept Mexican authorities in the dark about the operation, even over objections of their own agents.
4. That weapons that the ATF let "walk" to Mexico were involved in the deaths of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and ICE agent Jaime Zapata, as well as at least hundreds of Mexican citizens.
5. That at least since the death of Brian Terry on 14 December, the Obama administration is engaged in a full-press cover-up of the facts behind what has come to be known as the "Gunwalker Scandal."
Whether Obama is directly responsible, did not know, was ever briefed, never briefed, gave the go ahead, never heard of it until the scandal, or who within the DoJ authorized the program we do not currently know, I would rather not another weinergate where we lose sight of the actual issue. Let us try and avoid that. The only reason I am including 5 is that whether or not Obama is involved there is looking to be a coverup as getting the DOJ to admit to what happened has been difficult and to all outside observers it appears they are in full cover up mode.
When last we left our heroes, one was dead, two were blogging, and one had his back to the wall. Our Senator was in a difficult spot he could only get redacted information, or information his sources would immediately turn around and call bullshit on. Also his investigation was not gathering any real attention, the media barely talked about it, no one seemed to care. Enter California Congressman Darrell Issa chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform now I know what you are thinking? What kind of idiots stonewall a guy who can issue subpoena, well apparently the DOJ.
A subpoena was issued for administrative records to determine who exactly was behind Operation Fast and Furious. What he received what records either already public, or almost completely blacked out and was denied the ability to interview certain people. So now we have problem. Can the Department of Justice ignore a Congressional Subpoena? Well we are going to find out Monday when the first hearing "Obstruction of Justice: Does the Justice Department have to respond to a lawfully issued and valid Congressional Subpoena?" kicks off. No I did not make the name up.
TLDR: Hey look I brought a video, two in fact. The first is a brief recap pre subpoenas, and the second is a bit later and includes the testimony of several ATF agents.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7357550n&tag=related;photovideo
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7358389n&tag=watchnow
Detharin you have already typed a fuckton, but I would like to know more! Well here is a handy link that reports events as they unfold day by day through various leaks and media outlets.
http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/a-journalist-s-guide-to-project-gunwalker
Remember when Wikileaks revealed less than 12% of the firearms able to be traced were traced back to American Gun stores? Pretty much destroying ideal that the majority of Mexico's guns were from civilian sales? Well the following joke graphic was produced.
Debate and Discourse, so what is there to talk about? Well firstly I would just like to get the word out there. Given that this forum has some of the finest minds ever found labeled Abby Normal I figured you guys might be interested. I am sure more than a few of you have some interesting thoughts on the issue. However let us try and avoid a couple things.
First THIS IS NOT A GUN CONTROL THREAD! We may touch on issues of gun control due to the allegations this program was designed to pad the numbers and increase the attention on guns from American being used to kill in Mexico. Discussing that is fine but please do not jump in with "Guns are scary and I do not think anyone should ever be able to have them." If you want to discuss gun control make a new thread.
Second. This is not a Republican or Democrat issue. 31 House Democrats have sent a letter to the White House asking them to tell the DoJ to come clean. I don't care of Grassley or Issa have 12 mistresses, and drop their pants on national TV for a wangs across American speech. Let us try and avoid "Obama is awesome and would never be involved" just as much as we avoid "Obama is the devil, Burn him and his Wookie wife!".
Third let us all avoid "Detharin is a jerk." Yes at times I am have the moral flexibility of Gumby, but we can all get along. I think there is enough here worth discussing, so have at it. If I am wrong the mods will deal with it in a fairly partial manner.
Links from AngelHedgie from Iwatchnews and NRP.
Iwatchnews Analysis with more information on the issue.
NPR covered the story.
Update 6/9/11
A second hearing has now been announced for 6/15 titled "Operation Fast and Furious: Reckless Decisions, Tragic Outcomes." Once again no I did not make this name up. Currently there are 3 panels of witnesses due to testify.
Panel 1
Senator Charles Grassley, Ranking Member, U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary
Panel 2
Ms. Josephine Terry, Mother of the Late Border Agent Brian Terry
Ms. Michelle Terry Balogh, Sister of the Late Border Agent Brian Terry
Mr. Robert Heyer, Cousin of the Late Border Agent Brian Terry
Special Agent Olindo James Casa, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Phoenix Field Division
Special Agent Peter Forcelli, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Phoenix Field Division
Special Agent John Dodson, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Phoenix Field Division
Panel 3
Mr. Ronald Weich, Assistant Attorney General, United States Department of Justice
6/15/11
The second hearing was today, implicated were both the Acting Director as well as Acting Deputy Directors of the ATF who had been receiving weekly reports since March 2010.
Issa report including interviews of ATF agents verifying the gun walking as well as confirming the arrests from Fast and Furious could have been made a "Year and a half earlier without 1730 guns being trafficked."
http://oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Reports/ATF_Report.pdf
Link to emails confirming Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson and Acting Deputy Director Bill Hoover receiving weekly updates on Fast and Furious since March 2010.
http://oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Other_Documents/6-15-11_Melson_Docs.pdf
Link for todays hearing which includes transcript.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/300051-1
6/22/11
And the Daily Show weighs in with a recap.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/tue-june-21-2011-cameron-diaz
10/10/11
While quite a bit of information has been coming out of the gun walker program, up to and including knowledge within the White House Staff today a letter was released that was sent by Congressmen Darrel Issa to Eric Holder advising him that all attempts to conceal or obfuscate his involvement have failed. The letter itself can be found at the following link, it is rather long, and if anyone has not been keeping track of Gunwalker is an interesting way to catch up on just how much BS, lies, and obfuscations have been tossed out there in order to conceal the truth.
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2011/10/holder-ridge-defenses-overrun-holder.html
For the TL:DR crowd seriously read the letter, it is a beatdown of epic proportions.
Following the Committee’s issuance of a subpoena over six months ago, I strongly believed that the Department would fully cooperate with Congress and support this investigation with all the means at its disposal. The American people deserve no less. Unfortunately, the Department’s cooperation to date has been minimal. Hundreds of pages of documents that have been produced to my Committee are duplicative, and hundreds more contain substantial redactions, rendering them virtually worthless. The Department has actively engaged in retaliation against multiple whistleblowers, and has, on numerous occasions, attempted to disseminate false and misleading information to the press in an attempt to discredit this investigation.
On May 3, 2011, I asked you directly when you first knew about the operation known as Fast and Furious. You responded directly, and to the point, that you weren’t “sure of the exact date, but [you] probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” This statement, made before Congress, has proven to be patently untrue. Documents released by the Department just last week showed that you received at least seven memos about Fast and Furious starting as early as July 2010.
In your letter Friday, you blamed your staff for failing to inform you about Operation Fast and Furious when they reviewed the memos sent to you last summer. Your staff, therefore, was certainly aware of Fast and Furious over a year ago. Lanny Breuer was aware of Fast and Furious as early as March 2010, and Gary Grindler was also aware of Fast and Furious as early as March 2010. Given this frequency of high level involvement with Fast and Furious as much as a year prior to your May 3, 2011 testimony, it simply is not believable that you were not briefed on Fast and Furious until a few weeks before your testimony. At the very least, you should have known about Fast and Furious well before then. The current paper trail, which will only grow more robust as additional documents are discovered, creates the strong perception that your statement in front of Congress was less than truthful.
Detharin on
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The actual information is interesting and terrible and I look forward to reading more as more comes to light.
The big problem, and one I hope to avoid is that there is a lot of effort to spin this with a particular angle, and a lot of the sites covering it have an anti-gun control/anti-obama vent. It is rather difficult to wade through to find some neutrally presented information so as not to immediately set off everyone's "The other side is muck raking in order to smear our side." This is a very serious issue, that really is only coming to light because the ATF officials who worked on it become so angry over the consequences of their actions they began stepping forward.
This is absolutely terrible and sounds like some kind of jackass sting meant to prop up the agency as relevent with a big arrest or something.
Really this whole cover up thing could have all started internally in the ATF from entrenched interests. Unfortunately when it becomes public that the agency is not responding to an investigation by congress it goes beyond the one agency. If the president does not replace the current leadership or demand they turn over the information then he becomes part of the cover up.
I would not mind having brutal and dangerous government agencies like the ATF if they actually did there job and made us safer. I think this kind of incident though really shows how much they care about human life.
Separating things out into lots of smaller departments seems to encourage a lack of oversight and communication, which will inevitably lead to something like this.
Anyway, my understanding of this story was that it was primarily the fault of the agents (or whatever they have) in the regional office in arizona for letting their sting operation get waaaay out of hand. Is that not really what was going on?
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Or possibly the scale was set too high to begin with, as it would make it easier to trace the smuggled guns whilst also fulfilling political objectives as well (which would make me be inclined to look a lot higher up as well). It's a failure of oversight, potentially an intentional one at quite a significant level, though I've not figured out why the DoJ would be involved as well.
Hell, NPR covered the story.
At best it'll probably be a scapegoat though.
Yes, people do need to be held accountable. But blame's a lot like fertilizer - you need to spread it where it belongs for best effect. The Arizona ATF seriously screwed the pooch here, and the DoJ needs to be as forthcoming as reasonable without jeopardizing investigations and criminal cases. But at the same time, they have a very hard time handling gun trafficking in the US thanks to constant opposition to any laws regulating guns, which winds up putting them into these shitty positions. Furthermore, if there's one individual who should never been allowed to chair the Oversight Committee, let alone running this investigation, it's Darrell Issa.
I am not a criminologist, but that seems reckless and idiotic, and I hope that wasn't the case.
If we must have rogue law enforcement officials enabling criminal behavior to track and contain that behavior, I think I'd prefer that we stick to the Bunny Colvin method, and no more.
Either way, the OP makes two extraordinary claims:
That seems like quite a leap, if it is meant to suggest that this was the intent.
re: The chart
So 0% of the guns had an unrelated source? Not a one? Or is that the 36.1% that is "possibly related" to BATFE malfeasance. Again, the implication here seems to be tainted by political opportunism.
First of all, you must recognize that Mexico is a failed state. The drug lords have de facto control in many regions of Mexico. As such, traditional crime fighting measures will not work. The drug lords are simply too well organized at this point - nobody is talking, and you have shadow governments much like the Taleban has in Afghanistan.
As such, mapping the flow of guns is a good way to map the organizational structure of these crime families. You get to know who gets the new guns first, who gets the best guns... it tells you where the crime lords care about, and where they don't care about.
Will people die? Yes. But people are already going to die, it's fucking mexico man. People are dying every day in open raging gunfights between the federal police and the gangsters, and the gangsters do not always lose.
Take one part legitimate and tragic but mostly predictable scandal regarding fuckmuppetry by the ATF
Take one part batshit insane "CONSPIRACY TO STEAL OUR GUUUUUNZ"
Sprinkle liberally with equal parts tragedy, arrogance, and fucking crazy
Season with psychotic commentary
Bake at 400.
Serves 8.
I really have a hard time telling if you are being sarcastic. Your whole post has a very Clear and Present Danger quality to it.
So when do the recon drones start?
Actually it was a bit of the opposite, whether obama was involved is kinda irrelevant, I included that because it came from the original source. It might go to him, but really at this point rather irrelevant until the investigation gets rolling. I would rather keep him out of it because it kind of taints the issue.
Basically the local agents hated the sting operation, they were watching dangerous weapons cross the border, were ordered to let it happen, and were told if they did not like it they were in the wrong line of work. Basically Upper management, acting under instructions from the DoJ ordered the investigation to continue even as various agents approached both them, and people in Washington with concerns.
On the extraordinary claims the first is actually not that bad. Imagine you are the ATF, and your budget is being cut. With this program you can produce larger numbers showing how necessary you are, potentially if things work out great get a big high profile bust, and most of the people getting killed due to the program are in another country.
As for the second the graphic is a joke due to the events of Gunwalker. I do not think anyone is going to make the claim guns from America are not smuggled into Mexico. However they are not the majority. Before Gunwalker broke the numbers were estimated at only 12% of the guns able to be tracked. The majority of firearms are either bought from Central America, or stolen from the military who have purchased them legitimately.
How exactly do you do this without interaction with Mexican authorities?
All I've read on the case said they were tracking serial numbers, but how do you do this for guns that move across the border and then spread there, never coming back under US authority?
Just because IIRC, Issa's the one who dedicated his entire term in office to attempting to find reasons to impeach Obama. But yes, this is something that needs to be hauled out into the open, and find out what the hell happened to make this operation happen.
Not because US Law Enforcement died (logically, any gun would have been used there), but because we've been arming criminal groups with very little in the way of either solid tracking systems or actionable intel. Unless the ATF wants to bust out the paperwork of "due to this project we busted X Y and Z gangs"
Sounds like the seller were legit businessmen who were told by atf to make the deals? So we aren't talking about illegal hardware, correct? just illegal sale of guns/ie guns that are at the base of being able to be acquired?
Also, isn't this a common tactic with narcotics/illegal/counterfit goods to trace where the goods/drugs/guns/money goes to find out more about organized crime? If the ATF didn't say shit to the mexican government, could it have been due to concerns about safety and leaks within their organization. I could be completely off base, but corruption in their police force is a major issue, is it not?
edit: This isnt to say that any of this is ok, or that I am denying it. I feel like there's not enough information here. I'd rather blame ignorance and what would be personal small errors in judgement over malice on this. Not that those small errors aren't tragic or life/family shattering.
The issue is that apparently the ATF wasn't really getting much in terms of law enforcement value in return for allowing these people to walk off with so many additional guns, and then of course that one of the guns wound up being used to shoot a U.S. officer (which is kind of a superficial issue in the sense that people get shot all the time in mexico with guns that come from all over, but if a border patrol agent gets hit it's suddenly a Huge Deal.)
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
See, to me that just sounds like:
everyone:"Sucks, not a big deal"->them:"lets make this a big deal"->everyone:"nobody cares"->them:"omg president is in on it, conspiracy theory"
edit: on the subject of the president, I'm going to quote the OP: "Whether Obama is directly responsible ... we do not currently know, I would rather not another weinergate where we lose sight of the actual issue. Let us try and avoid that."
"Let us try and avoid "Obama is awesome and would never be involved" just as much as we avoid "Obama is the devil, Burn him and his Wookie wife!""
The closest he comes to mentioning Obama being in on any sort of conspiracy theory is when he was effectively quoting someone else, which was immediately followed up with "The only reason I am including 5 is that whether or not Obama is involved there is looking to be a coverup."
I'm not sure its possible to be more clear that the OP wants to avoid involving Obama in the discussion at this point.
edit 2: I got a little bored and conducted research that was entirely composed of taking a look at a handful of relevant and reasonable looking links from the OP. Some relevant quotes: There also appear to be some claims of ATF agents personally moving the guns across the border, but I'm not sure if I'm reading things correctly as yet. I'm not sold that ATF is in a position to verify the accuracy of its data (see my earlier post).
edit 3: screw it, I'm lazy, my quick (and incomplete) read of this article is that it seems like its not written by a nutcase: http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/03/03/2095/atf-let-hundreds-us-weapons-fall-hands-suspected-mexican-gunrunners/page/0/1. If you don't want to do your own research, it appears the folks who wrote that have done it for you.
We don't know whether or not al-qaeda was involved in the shooting either, but we're not discussing that.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
You tell me which of these two quotes is more of a red herring when the issue at hand is ATF being (or not being, take your side as you please) a bunch of incompetent idiots.
To clarify this issue a bit we have to consider a couple factors. I want to preface this once again with this is not a Obama issue and would rather avoid that. However to understand the Moar Gun Control idea it is fair to say that the Democratic party, and Obama do fall on the side of more gun control. It is in the Democratic political platform, as well as Obama's campaign. Bear that in mind, but consider it tertiary to the issue. Second the ATF has been having it's budget cut. So let us go back to 2009. Again I stress this is not a gun control, or anti Obama thread.
The idea that Operation Fast and Furious could be used in a campaign for more gun control is a sound one. ATF agents have quoted that as many as 2500 guns which normally would have been either prevented from being sold, or seized by ATF were instead allowed to cross the border into Mexico. The ideal was that these guns would turn up at crime scenes, and thus could aid the ATF in catching people higher up the gun smuggling food chain. The fact these guns were being allowed across the border was known only to a small group of people.
We then come to what does this mean for people who have no idea what is going on. Well for one this causes a slight increase in the amount of gun deaths in Mexico. I say slight because the majority of illegal firearms in Mexico come from either Central America, or are stolen from the Military who continue to buy/be sold these guns legally. Second along with an increase in gun related violence more guns are traced from crime scenes in Mexico back to gun shops in border states. With me so far?
So aside from people in the know, what everyone else is seeing is more guns from gun stores being used in crimes on both sides of the border. The ATF also gets to have a large bust hypothetically at some point and seize a large number of guns taken from smugglers purchased in American gun stores. It is worth noting at this point that even including gun runner guns only about 12% of firearms seized in Mexico that are turned over to be traced end up coming from American Gun stores. Again that 12% number includes guns from Operation Fast And Furious.
This results in pro gun control advocates able to produce statistics showing that more guns are being smuggled from American to Mexico. This has the potentially being a reason to both increase. or slow the decrease of ATF funding, as well as be a talking point for more gun control as I am sure you can see.
From there we spiral into the coverup. When Grassley requested the ATF explain this operation to his staff he did not receive a response from the ATF, he received one by the Department of Justice. Much like when an Agent uncomfortable with not telling the Mexican government about this operation went to Washington and talked to his bosses superiors in the Department of Justice and was told everything was fine and to stop asking questions.
For anyone interested the response Grassley received from the DOJ
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_k07pirzBU34/TVG4F84r5XI/AAAAAAAAG4Y/2oWTWvs4TpQ/s1600/ScreenHunter_03_Feb._08_16.14.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_k07pirzBU34/TVG4TLMir_I/AAAAAAAAG4g/Bb5rGbsBXmQ/s1600/ScreenHunter_04_Feb._08_16.15.jpg
For those of you who do not wish to check the links, one page each and anyone can feel free to read them and correct me if I am wrong, the DoJ basically says they would never allow guns to be smuggled across the border (which is a complete lie as testimony of ATF officers, video, and a mounting pile of evidence show) and request Grassley stop bothering ATF agents with this issue, and that the DoJ would be more than happy to supply him with all public information on the issue but ongoing investigations would not be discussed. IE we will not discuss at all what is going on with Operation Fast and Furious. Feel free to read those two pages, they are short and tell me if you disagree.
Now there is some ire being directed at both Gun Store owners, as well as ATF agents. It should be noticed that the only reason we know about this at all is ATF agents against this program started to speak out after Brian Terry died. We say 1 death is a tragedy, and 1000 is a statistic. For multiple ATF agents this became true. They did not like what they were seeing, but until it killed someone they considered "one of their own" they were willing to go along with it. After even under threats these agents have been coming forth. In addition we are getting a lot of information from gun store owners who were instructed to proceed with sales they were not comfortable with, including emails they received from the ATF which included quotes such as
The only reason Obama is mentioned is that the Department of Justice has been doing their absolute damnedest to avoid answering questions about this issue. Which stinks of a coverup, people want to know what happened, and now that the results in coming out who authorized it and how many people were dumb enough to let it happen. As mentioned 31 house democrats wrote a letter to Obama which was basically "Can you tell the DOJ to stop being a bunch of cocks on this issue and tell us what exactly is going on."
And IF anyone ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, CANNOT REFRAIN FROM DRAGGING OBAMA INTO THIS then this is what he said on March 23 to a reporter from Univision. May whichever/whoever/whatever dark god you worship have Mercy on your soul if this is all you really care about. Video under spoiler.
I have altered that line, if you still have a problem with the new line feel free to either post here/PM me a replacement you would prefer. Again while the president is tertiary to the discussion at hand as he has been asked to tell the DOJ to stop being dicks I would rather avoid making him a focus of the discussion at hand. If you feel the new line continues to serve as a red herring that may cause the president to become a focus of the discussion please let me know.
Detharin thanks for the recap, that is making more sense now.
Well, the problem is that Detharin keeps ignoring the other side of the argument - that gun trafficking statutes in the US have been so defanged, there is little the ATF can do to try to stem the flow of weapons. For example, the ATF can only perform one announced audit of a gun seller's books per year.
What percentage of the guns aren't traceable? 90% of 1% is a damn small number, 90% of 100% is a lot.
Also, I think I'm with the NRA on this one: Its nice that ATF wants to stop violence in Mexico, but they are allegedly a sovereign state which makes it their problem.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Mostly because I do not consider "our job is hard" as a reason to not do your job, and "people can lie on form 4473" as a valid excuse as to why the ATF instructed gun stores who did not want to make sales because they knew the person was lying on their 4473 to make those sales.
And this is what happens when the tried to do their job:
What tends to get glossed over in all this is that the ATF is often forced to try to combat gun trafficking at a severe disadvantage, thaks to the NRA opposing any and every law regarding guns.
As I said before, blame is a lot like fertilizer. Yes, the ATF screwed the pooch on this. But at the same time, they've been asked to combat gun trafficking while being attacked for doing so.