Operation Fast and Furious - The Scandal that Can No Longer be Denied

[bearpaw]

http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/2011/09/30/aronoff-operation-fast-and-furious-the-scandal-that-can-no-longer-be-denied/?subscriber=1

Aronoff: Operation Fast and Furious - The Scandal that Can No Longer be Denied
 By Roger Aronoff September 30, 2011 6:30 am

The usual truism is that many politicians make the mistake of not coming completely clean when allegations of wrongdoing surface. The cover-up, it is said, is often worse than the underlying crime or ethical violation. This has often been cited as the mistake made by people including Richard Nixon (Watergate break-in), Bill Clinton (Lewinsky, not to mention Filegate and Travelgate), and John Edwards (love child and cheating on his cancer-stricken wife). More recently, Anthony Weiner. There is a long list.
 
But in some cases, the crime, or lapse in judgment, is definitely worse than the cover-up. That appears to be the case in a simmering scandal engulfing the Obama administration that the mainstream media have tried their best to ignore for many months. It is known as Operation Fast and Furious.
 
It involves the Obama Justice Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). It involves some 1,500 guns, about 1,000 of which ended up in Mexico, and a Border agent, Brian Terry, who was murdered with weapons found near the scene of the crime in Arizona. The weapons were among 57 linked to Fast and Furious which have been tied to at least 11 violent crimes in the U.S., including the Terry murder. The Justice Department, while largely stonewalling, has admitted this much to Congress, as reported by The Los Angeles Times. In addition, at least 200 people have been killed or wounded in Mexico with weapons linked to the operation.
 
There has been some reporting on the incident in the mainstream press, but not much. Congressional hearings have taken place under the chairmanship of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). Charles Grassley has led the way in the Senate. But they have mostly been met by a stonewalling Justice Department.
 
There has been some good reporting by Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News, and Brian Ross of ABC News. Fox News has been all over the story, and Sean Hannity had a one-hour special back in July devoted to this emerging scandal. Others in the conservative media have done an excellent job, including Pajamas Media, Michelle Malkin, Andy McCarthy of National Review Online, American Thinker, WorldNetDaily, the Heritage Foundation and Andrew Breitbart through his many platforms, among others. This has perhaps been why the mainstream media have largely ignored the story. Even when they have reported it, they have gone to great lengths to be sure that it didn’t implicate President Obama, much less his Attorney General Eric Holder, for anything other than being out of the loop.
 
But that may have ended with recent revelations that the federal government apparently purchased weapons and sold them directly to criminals in Mexico. As Michael Walsh of the New York Post wrote, “the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives apparently ordered one of its own agents to purchase firearms with taxpayer money, and sell them directly to a Mexican drug cartel. Let that sink in: After months of pretending that ‘Fast and Furious’ was a botched surveillance operation of illegal gun-running spearheaded by the ATF and the US Attorney’s office in Phoenix, it turns out that the government itself was selling guns to the bad guys.”
 
This revelation may prove to be the game changer, and force the Obama administration to turn this over to an independent counsel.
 
Last night the story gained critical mass in the establishment media. CNN decided it can no longer duck and cover, and shield the Obama administration from a scandal that has the potential to make Whitewater and Watergate pale by comparison. Anderson Cooper deserves a lot of credit for putting this story together. In a long overdue report that I urge you to watch, he detailed much of what is known so far, including comments from Rep. Issa talking about the stonewalling he has met from the Justice Department, and from Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County in Arizona, who talked about the betrayal and potential criminal activity perpetrated by U.S. government officials.
 
Cooper’s reporter on this story, Drew Griffin, tried to explain a possible motive for Fast and Furious. He said that “the operation makes no sense.” So in attempting to explain it, he invoked the usual bogeymen. “So what's the real purpose?,” asked Griffin. “The lack of sense, the apparent cover-up has opened the door now for these conspiracy theorists. And you got to follow this. They believe this was part of a convoluted plan for the Obama administration and the attorney general to actually increase the level of violence on the Mexican border with assault weapons purchased in the U.S. in an apparent attempt to rekindle interest in an assault weapons ban. As wacky as that may sound, I must tell you that theory is gaining traction, not just among the second amendment crowd, because this operation makes no other sense.”
 
Griffin is correct that such theories are out there. But until some independent entity can get to the bottom of this, hopefully with the cooperation of the Obama administration rather than the stonewalling and obstruction that has characterized their response up to now, the reasons for the operation might remain theoretical. Let’s see if the cover-up proves worse than the crimes.
 
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Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media. He can be contacted at roger.aronoff@aim.org.

[DoubleJ]

As liberal as I am, or appear to be on some topics, I said back in July that this was an administration idea to force the ban of weapons. 

[Buckhunter82]

I love how the ATF let all these guns "walk" to drug cartels and then just last week sent a letter to FFL dealers telling them not to sell guns to legal medical marijuana patients. It's not about whether or not you are for or against MMJ, it's the point that they're attacking law abiding citizens constitutional rights. http://www.nssf.org/share/PDF/ATFOpenLetter092111.pdf

[high country]

Wow. I. Am. Shocked.

[Buckhunter82]

I am shocked too. That it actually made it to main stream media. People think our leaders couldn't get away with these things if they were really doing them. They don't get away with them, you just never hear about it. This is the exception. Do some research and you will find this is nothing new, but don't expect to see it on your nightly news every night.

[andytoshif]

I love how the ATF let all these guns "walk" to drug cartels and then just last week sent a letter to FFL dealers telling them not to sell guns to legal medical marijuana patients. It's not about whether or not you are for or against MMJ, it's the point that they're attacking law abiding citizens constitutional rights. http://www.nssf.org/share/PDF/ATFOpenLetter092111.pdf

It is my understanding that, from a Federal perspective, there is no such thing as a "legal" marijuana smoker. It's still against the law, even if a state approves it--see the LA Times article on the Federal Government trying to close dispensaries in California (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/10/feds-cracking-down-on-california-medical-marijuana-dispensaries.html).

I agree that marijuana has medicinal value, but the "patients" I know limp in the dispensary parking lot and laugh all the way home. I don't want drug users--including pot heads--buying and using firearms any more than I want to share the shooting range with drunk people.

[ribka]

More and more info coming out. Pretty strong allegations that DOJ and Dept of State was pushing these guns to be sold to DEA and FBI informants working for the cartels . ATF was told to back-off and let the firearms go south. FYI ATF street agents tried to stop this from the very beginning and upper management in ATF tried to fire them to cover it up the mess. These agents just testified before congress in this matter

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20112834-10391695.html

[buckfvr]

Wow. I. Am. Shocked.
[/q

If people only knew the truth.....all of it, we would all be shocked at the ultra high level of corruption and national AND International crime that our leaders are involved in. 

[high country]

I was being sarcastic. I am far from shocked.

[Buckhunter82]

I love how the ATF let all these guns "walk" to drug cartels and then just last week sent a letter to FFL dealers telling them not to sell guns to legal medical marijuana patients. It's not about whether or not you are for or against MMJ, it's the point that they're attacking law abiding citizens constitutional rights. http://www.nssf.org/share/PDF/ATFOpenLetter092111.pdf

It is my understanding that, from a Federal perspective, there is no such thing as a "legal" marijuana smoker. It's still against the law, even if a state approves it--see the LA Times article on the Federal Government trying to close dispensaries in California (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/10/feds-cracking-down-on-california-medical-marijuana-dispensaries.html).

I agree that marijuana has medicinal value, but the "patients" I know limp in the dispensary parking lot and laugh all the way home. I don't want drug users--including pot heads--buying and using firearms any more than I want to share the shooting range with drunk people.

I understand your concern about pot smokers buying and using firearms. They are, after all way more dangerous than prescription pill addicts that cook their pills in spoons and slam them intravenously. Leave the pill junkies their gun rights, but strip the pot smokers of theirs? You don't like the fact that people are "abusing" marijuana under the protection of a prescription. I understand, but do you think people don't do the same with prescription pills? You see the Federal government is in bed with the drug companies and makes millions from the pill. They can't make a profit from the neighborhood pot grower if people are using marijuana and not taking their pills. Whether or not these people truly need it for medicinal purposes, they ARE using it legally. You can say there is no such thing as "legal marijuana" from a Federal perspective, but according to the constitution, the feds don't have the power to make that decision, that is left to the states, but the feds don't recognize the 10th amendment either. "The powers not delegated to the United States(federal government) by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States(Washington state) respectively, or to the people." This means that whether or not marijuana is a legal medicine is up to the states, not the federal government and in Washington, marijuana is legal medicine. There are other amendments besides the 2nd. It just bothers me that everyone thinks the federal government knows best and shouldn't have to respect state laws, when the states are the ones that created it. They have our soldiers protecting opium fields in Afghanistan, so the heroin can hit our streets here and they're worried about people smoking grass and having rights at the same time. Sorry for the rant. Lets get back to them selling guns to drug cartels.

[wraithen]

Buckhunter, We didn't guard poppy fields over there. We actually burned anything that was more than a personal use size. Pretty flowers though. You can complain that the feds don't have the authority to outlaw marijuana and I agree. However, I have yet to see a state block DEA actions. Until that happens you may as well accept the yoke.

This operation reeks of a conspiracy or at the very least some backwards thought processes going on at our federal level. It will be a footnote. Things like this will be like south park. The first season was shocking. Now people just shrug their shoulders and say "that's south park." Soon we'll be shrugging our shoulders going "that's just how our government works"

[Buckhunter82]

[Buckhunter82]

They say tolerate and it is Geraldo, so I guess we can't take it to seriously.

[wraithen]

We did tolerate there. The law allowed a pretty good sized poppy garden for the farmers. We respected that. The giant farm plots that were just acres and acres and wouldn't get a farmer killed, got torched. Kinda sad but I miss that country. And how come Rivera hasn't accidentally been sniped by an unknown bad guy? That guy sure has a pair being anywhere near any allied combatants. I'd be shocked if they gave him more than soft body armor. (Mostly joking.)

[Buckhunter82]

As long as we have Geraldo, the federal government can't hurt us. I just hope they don't ban him if there internet censorship bill passes.