It was just over two and half years ago that the Obama administration entered the White House under promises of transparency and restoring America’s image abroad. Yet now we know that at the same time they were promising these things, Obama was simultaneously setting aside $10,000,000.00 for operation “Gun Runner” (via the stimulus package) and the ATF was looking the other way while 2,500 guns were sold to suspicious characters in Arizona who were supposed to take the weapons to Cartel members in Mexico.
Now we all know that “Gun Runner” was followed by operation “Fast and Furious,” which quickly proved to be an utter disaster. Run from the top down, from the DOJ to the ATF and FBI, “Fast and Furious” turned out to be slow and impotent. Only 1,300 of the 2,500 weapons sold were recovered and what was supposed to be a sweep of the Mexican cartel turned instead into a gift of 1,200 weapons that we failed to find.
In the aftermath of these operations, Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson has given testimony under oath indicating that Attorney General Eric Holder pressured him not to speak openly with members of Congress about the operations, Obama has denied knowledge of either, and the crime rate in Mexico has jumped exponentially.
Could it get any worse? Maybe so.
For instance, over the weekend the El Paso Times detailed an alleged gun smuggling operation in which Obama administration officials were selling military grade weapons to drug cartel members in Mexico. Supported by at least one former DEA official and one “CIA contract pilot,” the allegations are that weapons have been regularly transported from the Dallas/Fort Worth area to El Paso, Texas and/or Columbus, New Mexico. From either of those locations they then crossed into Mexico.
What kind of weapons are we talking about? According to Pajamas Media the weapons in view include “‘anti-aircraft weapons and hand grenades from the Vietnam War era,’…[as well as] grenade launchers, assault rifles, handguns and military gear including night-vision goggles and body armor.” The theory is that said weapons are being stockpiled in Mexico for a specific place and time: perhaps even the 2012 Mexico elections.
It is alleged that these weapons were sold “through a little-publicized program…[referred to as] ‘U.S. Direct Commercial Sales.'” The program was put in place to “regulate the sale of U.S. firearms to other countries,” but if the allegations are true, the program has more or less served as a cover for other operations (like selling military grade weapons to drug cartels in Mexico).
As a matter of fact, one Mexican drug cartel member who has been questioned claims that all the weapons he and his men possess “were obtained in the U.S., many of which were sold to them by the United States government.” It’s important to note that the difference between these guns and those tied to “Gun Runner” is that the DOJ was over “Gun Runner” but the State Department was allegedly behind direct sale to Mexican drug cartels.
In other words, it’s a whole new level of crookedness and corruption.
I know this is a lot of information coming at us awfully quick. And in a way it’s hard to believe. However, “Gun Runner” and “Fast and Furious” were also hard to believe when we first heard of them. But now it’s more than evident that the details of those two operations were true.
The bottom line is that the mantra about transparency and restoring America’s honor abroad has become but a distant memory at this point. Now, nothing this administration does comes as a real surprise.
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