Agent who started ‘Fast and Furious’ defends gunrunning operation
Source: WaPo
¬snip¬
But in the eyes of the man who started and oversaw Fast and Furious, the operation remains an example of smart law enforcement — an approach that simply has been misunderstood.
“It was the only way to dismantle an entire firearms-trafficking ring and stop the thousands of guns flowing to Mexico,” said William D. Newell, a veteran federal agent who spent five years as the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Phoenix.
In his first public interview about the operation, Newell said that he believed that he and his agents were working the largest gun-trafficking case of their careers and finally had a window into Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa Cartel. To identify cartel members, ATF agents, beginning in 2009, watched as about 2,000 weapons purchased at Phoenix gun stores hit the streets, with the goal of tracing them to the cartel.
¬snip¬
According to Newell, there is no evidence that Holder or any high-ranking Justice Department official knew the ins and outs of his gun case. But plenty of other officials in the ATF and the Phoenix U.S. Attorney’s Office did — and approved it, Newell said.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/agent-who-started-fast-and-furious-defends-gunrunning-operation/2012/06/27/gJQAQviT7V_story.html
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clang1
(884 posts)PERIOD.
According to Newell, there is no evidence that Holder or any high-ranking Justice Department official knew the ins and outs of his gun case. But plenty of other officials in the ATF and the Phoenix U.S. Attorney’s Office did — and approved it, Newell said.
At least this was said...
The progression continues.....
Atypical Liberal
(5,412 posts)The Mexican authorities were not informed. The ATF field offices in Mexico were not informed. No attempt was made to track the weapons after they crossed the border.
The most likely explanation I have heard is that this was an attempt to smuggle arms to the Sinaloa cartel to offset the power of the Zeta cartel which is getting so powerful it may achieve a coup over the government.
Southerner
(113 posts)Nothing else I have heard makes any sense. You may be on to something.
Whatever the real reason, I predict Holder will be going down keeping his mouth shut. Somebody high up had to have ordered this operation and I don't think he'll tell.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)
clang1
(884 posts)If you believe this:
"The most likely explanation I have heard is that this was an attempt to smuggle arms to the Sinaloa cartel to offset the power of the Zeta cartel which is getting so powerful it may achieve a coup over the government. "
So which of the TWO cartels is the GOOD one then?
WHY would they ARM, a DRUG CARTEL? A tantalizing question, if it were true...but it isn't true, or is it? Tantalizing to think about....
EITHER WAY THOUGH.....THERE IS ROT THERE.....SO THE REASON WHY, REALLY IS NOT OF IMPORTANCE IN THAT SENSE....WE ALREADY KNOW IT IS ROTTEN. WHY WASTE YOUR TIME GUESSING WHAT WAS IN THEIR MINDS THEN? WHEN YOU NEED TO THINK ABOUT WHAT IS GOING ON NOW. TO ME, THAT IS SOMETHING TO DO ONCE THE PROBLEM IS FIXED. NOT BEFORE. THIS TO ME IS JUST ALL A PART OF THE LARGER PICTURE AND NOW THEY USE IT TO TAKE YOUR VOTE. YOU LOSE TWICE. DO YOU SEE IT? BECAUSE THEY DO, IT IS WHY THEY DO WHAT THEY DO. THIS IS HOW CORRUPTION ALWAYS SEEMS TO WORK, AND IT IS HOW BAD POWER WORKS.
EITHER WAY, THEY ARE NOT GOING TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH AS TO WHAT WAS IN THEIR MINDS WHEN THEY STARTED THIS. KNOW THAT.
Meanwhile, the progression continues....
naaman fletcher
(7,362 posts)But doesn't the US have a long, long, looooooonnnnnggg history of choosing one piece of shit over another and arming them?
clang1
(884 posts)and that is why the idea of this is so tantalizing to think about. WHO BENEFITS FROM THIS VIOLENCE? El Presidente CALDERON DOES.
WHEN DID THE VIOLENCE BEGIN IN MEXICO? WHEN HE WAS ELECTED. SO YES.....THERE IS THE PROBABLE ANSWER.
WHAT DOES EVERYONE KNOW ABOUT THE ELECTIONS THAT JUST HAPPENED IN MEXICO A FEW YEARS AGO?
SEE THE OBVIOUS. ALWAYS THINK AND SEE. YOU WILL BE AMAZED BY IT ALL. I AM.
THIS PEOPLE IS THE ANSWER.....LOOK AT THE TIMING. IT IS TREASON.
RevStPatrick
(2,208 posts)Your post was alerted on by some idiot because of your use of all caps.
The alerter was soundly rebuffed, by we the jury.
That time-wasting piece of shit alerter was given a piece of 6 people's minds, and hopefully won't do that again.
However, there is still the issue of you using all caps.
I just want to let you know what happens when you uses all caps.
NOBODY TAKES YOU SERIOUSLY!!!
Seriously, the eye tends to get irritated and forces the brain to look away at posts with all caps.
Nobody EVER reads entire posts that are all caps.
People tend to think that people WHO YELL have nothing of consequence to add to a discussion, and therefore people ignore what is being said because of the way it is being said.
Just some friendly advice...
Atypical Liberal
(5,412 posts)WHY would they ARM, a DRUG CARTEL? A tantalizing question, if it were true...but it isn't true, or is it? Tantalizing to think about....
Ask Uncle Sam. The United States has a long, sordid history of playing factions against each other for our own benefit. Usually in the end it doesn't benefit us at all. Look at Nicaragua. Look at the Mujaheddin. Look at Saddam Hussein. We have a long history of playing "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
The theory that I have heard advanced, and it seems to fit the situation described, is that the Zetas cartel is getting too powerful - powerful enough that they may be able to take over the Mexican government.
So we funnel some civilian arms to their rivals to try and prop up the Mexican government. Can't send them military arms because those would turn up in busts and cause some uncomfortable questions. Plus as a happy coincidence the administration can point to the civilian arms and use it as an excuse for civilian gun control.
joe1991
(178 posts)The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal
http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/
also helpful to understand congress (and Issa) funded Project Gunrunner
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/21/1101851/-2008-Darrell-Issa-Voted-YES-to-Fund-Project-Gunrunner-Merida-Initiative
and the Merida Initiative
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merida_Initiative
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gunrunner
It was a stupid, overreaching program imo, they should have just monitered US gun sales better. As the fortune article states, the Phoenix area has 853 gun dealers.
Congress is paid off by the NRA, who own much of the blame for loose regulations in the first place.
A parliment of whores, indeed.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)the rejections were overruled, and the sales proceeded. At least SOME of these sales would have been halted with the gun laws on the books at the time.
Does that mean the border patrol agent that was murdered, and who knows how many others, would still be alive? No. Possibly not.
But it's all still pretty screwed up from stem to stern. If they HAD the Mexican law enforcement buying off on the existence of the program, even if they didn't directly assist for fear of their own enforcement officers being compromised by the cartels, I would forgive the errors as being simply errors on good faith.
Sucks that we didn't have Mexico's government approving the program. Total violation of Mexico's sovereignty, on top of everything else that went wrong.
clang1
(884 posts)But how do you KNOW whether that man would be alive or not? You don't, and he DID die because of those weapons. That is what matters so far as the death. HE MAY WELL BE STILL ALIVE WERE IT NOT FOR THOSE WEAPONS. HE WOULD BE ALIVE. PERIOD. THAT IS COMMON SENSE. AT LEAST GO WITH THAT WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING ELSE.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)They get them from innumerable sources, and the total number of guns lost through Fast & Furious approximately matches the number of guns that cross the border every month.
So no, it is not obvious to me that the murderer wouldn't have had a different weapon that day in that place.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)
SemperEadem
(8,053 posts)
Baitball Blogger
(46,709 posts)clang1
(884 posts)and corruption being used to affect an election and it is MORE than just simple corruption. THE FUCKING CORRUPTION IS EVERYWHERE and people are LOST in it.
REASON THAT OUT....IT IS NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE. UNTIL YOU SEE THE FOREST FOR THE TREES. UNTIL THEN, YOU ARE GRABBING AT SLITHERING SNAKES.
AND I SEE SNAKES EVERYWHERE, AND SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE.
THE FUCKING CORRUPTION=TREASON
One American has died directly because of this, how many Mexicans? How many are not DEAD YET?
POLITICAL CORRUPTION...
Meanwhile....The progresssion continues....
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)They didn't interfere with the sales because they needed prosecutorial approval to take the guns, which was continuously denied due to Arizona laws the required that they *prove* the gun purchases were for the purpose of committing crimes.
So instead, they were tracking the guns, and trying to get approval to wiretap so they could prove the purchases were for crimes.
The little scum that turned on his boss should have been fired long ago. Instead *he* is the one who "walked" some guns and couldn't be bothered to got after them.
And CBS pulled a piece of a memo totally out of context and made up a new context.
Read the Fortune magazine article.
This entire thing is a made up witch hunt. Unfreakin' real...
IamK
(956 posts)how was a few people planning on tracking 2K guns in Mexico..... This was a flawed operation from the start (Bush or whoever)... Now
everyone is playing Sgt Shultz,,,,
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)were actually exporting them to Mexico. Read the article in Fortune. The "scandal" is not what Issa says it is. The scandal is that Arizona's drug laws make it difficult to control gun trafficking into Mexico even when you know it is going on.
This "scandal" is going to backfire on the NRA and on Issa.
We may have reached the "Sir, have you no sense of decency?" point. If you don't know what that means, here is the story of Senator McCarthy and Joseph Welch.
On June 9, 1954, the 30th day of the Army–McCarthy hearings, McCarthy accused Fred Fisher, one of the junior attorneys at Welch's law firm, of associating while in law school with the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), a group which J. Edgar Hoover sought to have the U.S. Attorney General designate as a Communist front organization. Welch dismissed Fisher's association with the NLG as a youthful indiscretion and attacked McCarthy for naming the young man before a nationwide television audience without prior warning or previous agreement to do so:
. . . .
When McCarthy tried to renew his attack, Welch interrupted him:
Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild. ... Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
. . . .
The gallery erupted in applause.
For the full story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_N._Welch
Demit
(11,238 posts)I haven't been following the story at all up till now. But I understood from the beginning of the piece that the ATF was clearly hamstrung by Arizona prosecutors. Then Dodson (scum who turned on his boss) went rogue, and a number of pissing contests further screwed things up. I had to take a break from finishing the article, but it sounds like various players are seizing on to this thing for whatever their ultimate ends are. Nasty.
clang1
(884 posts)or WHO it really is....Why wouldn't it be a Witch Hunt? They ARE ALL corrupt. From the TOP to BOTTOM.
Corruption flows downhill, not uphill.
THEY ONLY WANT YOU TO BELIEVE THAT IT FLOWS UPHILL. IN NATURE, NOTHING FLOWS UPHILL. THIS IS THE WORLD.
Meanwhile.....The Progression continues....
clang1
(884 posts)WHEN DID THE VIOLENCE BEGIN IN MEXICO?
WHEN DID THE VIOLENCE BEGIN IN MEXICO?
WHO BENEFITS FROM THIS VIOLENCE? El Presidente CALDERON DOES. WHO ARE HIS FRIENDS?
WHEN DID THE VIOLENCE BEGIN IN MEXICO? WHEN HE WAS ELECTED. SO YES.....THERE IS THE PROBABLE ANSWER.
WHAT DOES EVERYONE KNOW ABOUT THE ELECTIONS THAT JUST HAPPENED IN MEXICO A FEW YEARS AGO?
THEY WERE CORRUPT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SEE THE OBVIOUS. ALWAYS THINK AND SEE. YOU WILL BE AMAZED BY IT ALL. I AM.
THIS PEOPLE IS THE ANSWER.....LOOK AT THE TIMING. IT IS TREASON.
LOOK AT WHAT THEY HAVE DONE BEFORE...LOOK AT HISTORY.
THIS IS MY TAKE ON THE MATTER. IT IS WHAT IS OBVIOUS TO ME.
THING IS NO MATTER HOW I LOOK AT IT, IT IS ALL THE SAME. BECAUSE IT IS. PERIOD.
IT DESTABILIZES COUNTRIES AND KILLS PEOPLE. AND THAT IS THE POINT.
CONSIDER ALL THE PARTIES THAT COULD HAVE BEEN INVOLVED....WHAT HAVE THEY ALWAYS DONE?
THIS VIOLENCE WAS MEANT TO DESTABILIZE MEXICO. MEXICO ALREADY KNOWS THIS, THAT IS WHY THEY RAISED A DIPLOMATIC COMPLAINT ABOUT IT.
Meanwhile....The Progression continues....
FlaGranny
(8,361 posts)that the violence in Mexico is occurring because Calderone was bent on fighting the drug cartels instead of letting them flourish unopposed. The war on drugs is a whole different story - drugs should be legalized in the US - then the cartels would wither.
You, my friend, sound a bit paranoid. Yes, there are conspiracies, but you seem to find conspiracies everywhere, unless I am misunderstanding you - it is difficult to understand what you are really saying - especially about the UFO business.
I'm off to work now.
