1) Many times we have discussed the stupid, failed, and illegal Obama administration gun running operation called Fast and Furious. The alleged purpose of this program was to allow heavy duty guns to cross the border into the hands of drug cartels, track where those guns ended up, and use that tracking to prosecute and understand the flow of guns into cartel hands.
Stupid program with stupid logistics but often with fatal results. According to a Los Angeles Times news report from early July, a rifle used in the murder of a Mexican police chief and a body guard has been identified as part of the Operation Fast and Furious operation.
Luis Lucio Rosales Astorga, the police chief in the city of Hostotipaquillo, was shot to death Jan. 29, 2013 when gunmen intercepted his patrol car and opened fire. The ambush killed one of his bodyguards and wounded the chief’s wife and a second bodyguard.
Police investigators arrested eight suspects in their 20s and 30s and police also seized a stockpile of their weapons including rifles, grenades, handguns, helmets, bulletproof vests, uniforms and special communications equipment. A semi-automatic rifle, the firearm that killed the chief, was traced back to the Lone Wolf Trading Company, a gun store in Glendale, Arizona. The U.S. Justice Department identified it as a Fast and Furious weapon.
A not so great program that gets law enforcement people killed in another country. Really makes you think: what were these people thinking when they put together such a shabby and idiotic program?
2) In mid-May, 2013, the Justice Department Inspector General issued a report on a facet of the Fast and Furious fiasco that is further evidence that this is not a transparent administration by any stretch of the imagination:
- The report confirms the allegation that the former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, Dennis Burke, purposely leaked a document intended to smear Operation Fast and Furious scandal whistleblower John Dodson.
- The Inspector General report found that: “Burke’s conduct in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to be inappropriate for a Department employee and wholly unbefitting a U.S. Attorney.”
- The report also raised the issue if this conduct was worthy of having Burke’s law license revoked in his home state of Arizona.
- Additionally, the Inspector General also uncovered show senior Justice Department officials discussed smearing Dodson.
- Documents uncovered via a Freedom of Information Act show that Tracy Schmaler worked with the leftwing advocacy group Media Matters for America to smear whistleblowers, members of Congress and the media who sought to investigate DOJ scandals under Attorney General Eric Holder. Ms. Schmaler has resigned her position at the Justice Department.
Hassling whistleblowers, discrediting whistleblowers, public humiliation of whistleblowers who dared to speak the truth. Not quite the transparency one would have hoped for from a President who vowed to be the most transparent Presidency ever.
3) Staying with the whole whistleblower concept, a May 21, 2013 Politico article reported on how the home and business computers of CBS News correspondent Sheryl Atkisson had been hacked back in February, 2013, at the height of her investigating and reporting on…Fast and Furious. It is unknown who did the hacking and the Justice Department has vehemently denied they had anything to do with the hacking.
But, in light of the NSA, IRS, and numerous other scandals and government over reach that have come to pass in the past few months, that denial probably rings a little hollow with most Americans. This is especially true in light of the Inspector General report that uncovered how the Justice Department was caught trying to discredit at least one Fast and Furious whistleblower.
4) In Mexico, the violence and killing goes on unabated, with or without Fast and Furious weapons. An Associated Press article from mid-March, 2013 reported that seven Mexican men had been executed and then propped up on plastic chairs along the side of the road in the Mexican state of Michoacan to intimidate rival drug dealers, potential spies, and honest police officials who are not yet corrupted, and who just trying to take down the drug cartels. Elsewhere, the article also reports that seven others, including several Mexican federal agents were killed at the about the same time in the state of Guerrero.
Our war on drugs is fueling this violence and corruption with Fast and Furious being just one sad component of the whole debacle.
5) Houston radio station 1200 WOAI news reported on March 27, 2013 that the Texas Department of Public Safety 2013 annual threat report, which compiled intelligence gathered by dozens of law enforcement and homeland security agencies, found that six of the eight major Mexican drug cartels have so-called 'command and control networks' operating in the state of Texas. These cartel networks are coordinating the movement of drugs and people into Texas, and the movement of cash, weapons, and stolen vehicles back to Mexico.
Thus, as we predicted many times before, the violence and presence of the drug cartels will never be contained over the border only in Mexico. The cartels are in this country today and are using their might and reach to expand and control their drug running operations locally.
6) But Texas is not the only state to be in the throes of a cartel presence. Consider the details from an Associated Press story from April 1, 2013:
- Cartels have their own personnel running drug operations in at least nine NON-BORDER states, often setting up their presence in quiet suburban areas.
- Law enforcement experts are worried that such a widespread presence could pave the way for them to expand into other criminal enterprises such as prostitution, kidnapping, extortion rackets and money laundering
- "It's probably the most serious threat the United States has faced from organized crime," said Jack Riley, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Chicago office, who is quoted in the article.
- A Townhall article, also from April 1, 2013, reminded readers that a district attorney in Texas, his wife, and a district attorney in Colorado had been gunned down in broad daylight, likely because of their efforts of controlling drug cartel activities.
Thus, it is pretty clear they are here and quite possibly are already operating in your neighborhood.
7) The following article from the Dallas Morning News on July 10, 2013 does an excellent job summarizing the tragedy, deaths, and Obama administration lies and deceptions that have been going on relative to Fast and Furious since day one:
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20130710-editorial-forget-operation-fast-and-furious-not-with-bodies-still-piling-up.ece
Two points of interest among the other disgraces is the reminder that a U.S. Border patrol agent has actually been killed by a Fast and Furious weapon. U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was ambushed by drug smugglers Dec. 15, 2010, near Nogales, Arizona, with a Fast and Furious gun found nearby the murder scene. Second, according to the article, over 200 Mexicans have been shot to death with guns from the Fast and Furious operation.
Thus, not only were international treaties broken, government lies given out, whistleblowers intimated, and a stupid program put into operation, hundreds of people are now dead because of this illegal effort and U.S. taxpayer money.
8) And while all of the above incidents and trends are probably true, given the integrity of the reporting sources, consider what could become the biggest scandal of all of our lost war on drugs, a potential scandal that we have reported on before but needs to be reviewed again in light of the continuing lost war on drugs.
A Federal court case is underway in Chicago involving a Mexican citizen named Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla. Consider some of the alleged “facts” he and his lawyer are claiming in his court case:
- He says in the logistics coordinator for the Mexican Sinola drug cartel.
- According to him, Fast and Furious was not about illegally selling and transporting guns into Mexico and tracking their itineraries.
- The program was a deal cut between the Obama administration and the Sinoloa cartel
- The cartel was to funnel intelligence and information on rival cartels to U.S. law enforcement authorities who could then take down the assets of these other cartels.
- In return, the Sinola cartel received weapons via Fast and Furious, via Obama’s Justice department and freer reign and less hassle in carrying out their illegal activities in the U.S.
Unbelievable accusations that a Presidential administration would enter into this type of deal with the devil, in this case the Sinola cartel. But ten months ago we never could have imagined that a President would ignore pleas for help from a U.S. consulate under attack, would spy on and gather every electronics communications of every American, would unleash the IRS to harass and intimidate American citizens who dared to disagree with him, and then claim ignorance of all the illegal and immoral activities going on under his administration.
All because the political class refuses to admit that our forty year old war on drugs has been an expensive disaster, a disaster that continues everyday with no victory in sight.
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