Fast and Furious was patterned from a Bush era operation called Wide Receiver. The purpose of Wide Receiver was to identify arrest and convict gun runners who would buy weapons on behalf of Mexican drug lords and then smuggle them across the border. Under Wide Receiver the US and Mexican Attorney Generals worked together and formed a plan of attack to try to snare these people via a coordinated sting. The guns had Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags placed in them, and either Mexican or American law enforcement agencies would arrest the gun runners shortly after making the purchase. Efforts were made to keep the weapons under surveillance at all times. There were 1400 arrests made, but guns ended up being lost despite these surveillance measures, so the project was dissolved in 2007.
In 2009 the Obama administration, for reasons and an end I can only make a guess at, rekindled this program and renamed it Operation Fast and Furious. But, they made a few changes. They decided the Mexican government did not need to know about it. The methods used for keeping the guns under surveillance were poorly thought out and were an abject failure. They made little or no effort to arrest the gun runners after the sales from legitimate gun sellers happened. So predictably most of those guns were lost, presumably to the drug lords. Finally instead of just 400 guns from Wide Receiver, 1765 guns were sold under Fast and Furious.
As a result, hundreds of Mexican citizens, ICE agent Jaime Zapata, and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry were killed with weapons that had been sold under Fast and Furious. The Dec 2010 murder of Brian Terry brought the program to attention of the American public. Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder denied in March 2011 that he knew about Fast and Furious, even though e-mails released by his Department of Justice (DOJ) say otherwise. There has been an ongoing Congressional investigation almost since F/F blew up. The DOJ has dragged their feet in providing documents to Congress concerning F/F. Eric Holder is about to be held in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over those documents pertaining to the operation. Obama has invoked Executive Privilege to thwart the investigation.
Here are my questions on this whole mess;
In 2009 the Obama administration, for reasons and an end I can only make a guess at, rekindled this program and renamed it Operation Fast and Furious. But, they made a few changes. They decided the Mexican government did not need to know about it. The methods used for keeping the guns under surveillance were poorly thought out and were an abject failure. They made little or no effort to arrest the gun runners after the sales from legitimate gun sellers happened. So predictably most of those guns were lost, presumably to the drug lords. Finally instead of just 400 guns from Wide Receiver, 1765 guns were sold under Fast and Furious.
As a result, hundreds of Mexican citizens, ICE agent Jaime Zapata, and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry were killed with weapons that had been sold under Fast and Furious. The Dec 2010 murder of Brian Terry brought the program to attention of the American public. Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder denied in March 2011 that he knew about Fast and Furious, even though e-mails released by his Department of Justice (DOJ) say otherwise. There has been an ongoing Congressional investigation almost since F/F blew up. The DOJ has dragged their feet in providing documents to Congress concerning F/F. Eric Holder is about to be held in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over those documents pertaining to the operation. Obama has invoked Executive Privilege to thwart the investigation.
Here are my questions on this whole mess;
1) If Wide Receiver was at a minimum a partial failure, why reinstitute it with less safeguards and quadruple the weapons?
2) If you purpose was to track the gun runners and make arrests why were the tracking of the weapons so poorly done that ¾ of them were lost? And why only a smattering of arrests?
3) Why was the Mexican government not consulted about this, as the cartel members are all Mexican citizens, living in Mexico?
4) Why if Eric Holder is blameless. why is he refusing to turn over all of the documents that Congress is asking for?
5) If Obama is blameless why is he hiding behind Executive Privilege?
The first three questions might have the same answers as Nixon’s Watergate scandal; a combination of arrogance and stupidity. Although Obama and his team take this to a whole new level. They played lethal games with both sworn law enforcement agents of this country and the innocent citizens of another, without that country’s consent. At least Nixon’s people were only trying to screw the other political party. In the end people died as a result of this operation. No one, Republican or Democrat is disputing this. Under Watergate no one died.
On the other hand, I for one would not it past Eric Holder and especially his boss to want to use a ‘discovery’ of American sold weapons found in the hands of Mexican criminals as a way to introduce new gun control laws. Obama has done very little to reward the gun control faction of his coalition and this might have been part of the Master Plan to ‘fundamentally change America. It saddens me that this thought not only occurred to me, but I think it likely. I would never have considered this of Bill Clinton, even though I was no fan of his. That is the level of distrust I have evolved to with this man.
Question 4? I think it likely that Eric Holder is not blameless. I think at best he is incompetent, and at worse complicit in Fast and Furious. Incompetent because the documents that he is hiding show he was briefed on the operation and failed to see how inappropriate and dangerous it was. Complicit, because he likely condoned it, regardless of the consequences. Either way he doesn’t want what is left of his legacy tarnished. (That sounds like fodder for another blog)
And finally Question #5? At best Obama is protecting his people, just like Nixon did during Watergate. At worse, he is playing politics, knowing that his re-election campaign can not stand the light of truth exposed on this scandal and deathly afraid for his own political skin. Again, I think there is very little this man will not say or do. He is a self-centered narcissist, who thinks he and he alone has all the answers. He will do anything to try to deceive the naïve or ignorant to vote for him again. And truthfully, I think those two classes, plus the dogmatic members of his party are all that will.
November can’t come soon enough.
2) If you purpose was to track the gun runners and make arrests why were the tracking of the weapons so poorly done that ¾ of them were lost? And why only a smattering of arrests?
3) Why was the Mexican government not consulted about this, as the cartel members are all Mexican citizens, living in Mexico?
4) Why if Eric Holder is blameless. why is he refusing to turn over all of the documents that Congress is asking for?
5) If Obama is blameless why is he hiding behind Executive Privilege?
The first three questions might have the same answers as Nixon’s Watergate scandal; a combination of arrogance and stupidity. Although Obama and his team take this to a whole new level. They played lethal games with both sworn law enforcement agents of this country and the innocent citizens of another, without that country’s consent. At least Nixon’s people were only trying to screw the other political party. In the end people died as a result of this operation. No one, Republican or Democrat is disputing this. Under Watergate no one died.
On the other hand, I for one would not it past Eric Holder and especially his boss to want to use a ‘discovery’ of American sold weapons found in the hands of Mexican criminals as a way to introduce new gun control laws. Obama has done very little to reward the gun control faction of his coalition and this might have been part of the Master Plan to ‘fundamentally change America. It saddens me that this thought not only occurred to me, but I think it likely. I would never have considered this of Bill Clinton, even though I was no fan of his. That is the level of distrust I have evolved to with this man.
Question 4? I think it likely that Eric Holder is not blameless. I think at best he is incompetent, and at worse complicit in Fast and Furious. Incompetent because the documents that he is hiding show he was briefed on the operation and failed to see how inappropriate and dangerous it was. Complicit, because he likely condoned it, regardless of the consequences. Either way he doesn’t want what is left of his legacy tarnished. (That sounds like fodder for another blog)
And finally Question #5? At best Obama is protecting his people, just like Nixon did during Watergate. At worse, he is playing politics, knowing that his re-election campaign can not stand the light of truth exposed on this scandal and deathly afraid for his own political skin. Again, I think there is very little this man will not say or do. He is a self-centered narcissist, who thinks he and he alone has all the answers. He will do anything to try to deceive the naïve or ignorant to vote for him again. And truthfully, I think those two classes, plus the dogmatic members of his party are all that will.
November can’t come soon enough.
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