ATF Project Gunrunner
- Thread starter Al Norris
- Start date
Regardless of if Issa has a "strategy", or what it might possibly be, the rate at which information is uncovered has to this point been largely out of his control.
The BATFE, DOJ and the WHite House have stonewalled this investigation and they have been dragging their feet from the beginning.
I am sure there are more revelations to come, but the BATFE, and DOJ has so far been 100% responsible for the timing of it.
The BATFE, DOJ and the WHite House have stonewalled this investigation and they have been dragging their feet from the beginning.
I am sure there are more revelations to come, but the BATFE, and DOJ has so far been 100% responsible for the timing of it.
carguychris
New member
+1. I think it boils down to this, cynical as it may be:
Most American news viewers don't pay attention when civilians die in criminal or terrorist violence outside the borders of the USA, Western Europe, Israel, and English-speaking former British colonies (Canada, Australia, etc). This applies even if a few of the dead are Americans and/or the US government is tangentially involved. The news stories have no staying power.
Unfortunately, Al Qaeda took this lesson to heart after Americans largely ignored the 1998 African embassy bombings. But I digress.
Silver Bullet
New member
Absolutely. Imagine if the events of Waco had occurred while Bush was president.
Both Waco and Fast and Furious have been covered according to the 'script' that the majority of the media was most willing to believe under the circumstances of the time.
The media covered Waco extensively, generally from the perspective that a benevolent government was trying to rescue children from dangerous, gun-toting religious wackos. A minority of the media covered Waco as an intolerant government's deadly effort to prevent religious diversity.
Most of the media has portrayed Fast and Furious as a well-intentioned, but unfortunately flawed, effort to prove what was generally suspected ... that US gun dealers and gun shows were providing the flood of weapons for the drug cartels to turn Mexico into a killing zone. A minority of the media has covered Fast and Furious as a cynical government's effort to provide support for its political agenda.
Pick your perspective and you will either be please or angered by the reporting from the majority of the media, because they certainly have their biases.
Glenn E. Meyer
New member
Starting to wander folks - we don't need to do past conspiracy theories or other government actions unless informative to this case (not a rant in general about how they screwed up that incident). Thus, I took out some.
Glenn,
Good point. There is only one conspiracy -- this effort, Fast & Furious, to lend truth to the fiction that firearms are flowing to Mexico from the United States.
This has always been a fiction; and this administration wanted "evidence" that their thoroughly debunked claims were true. It backfired; and those conspirators are now stonewalling the Congress of the United States in an effort to cover up their misdeeds.
Perhaps it it time for everyone to go back and read POST #1.
Good point. There is only one conspiracy -- this effort, Fast & Furious, to lend truth to the fiction that firearms are flowing to Mexico from the United States.
This has always been a fiction; and this administration wanted "evidence" that their thoroughly debunked claims were true. It backfired; and those conspirators are now stonewalling the Congress of the United States in an effort to cover up their misdeeds.
Perhaps it it time for everyone to go back and read POST #1.
The activities involved in Fast and Furious have slowly been revealed. What has not been fully revealed is the motivation for that activity.
Are we really to believe that the whole operation was to buttress some statistics supporting a political agenda that we dislike? Wouldn't it have been much easier to just manipulate the statistics (e.g. getting the Mexicans to scour their warehouses and submit a lot more serial numbers for tracing ... as was actually done)?
Or should we believe that ATF was really trying to catch gun smugglers further up the food chain? If so, which agency was ATF supposed to hand off surveillance to when the guns left the country? And how were those smugglers - outside the country - supposed to be apprehended and brought to justice?
I suspect a few more dots need to be connected before we really know what was happening and why.
Are we really to believe that the whole operation was to buttress some statistics supporting a political agenda that we dislike? Wouldn't it have been much easier to just manipulate the statistics (e.g. getting the Mexicans to scour their warehouses and submit a lot more serial numbers for tracing ... as was actually done)?
Or should we believe that ATF was really trying to catch gun smugglers further up the food chain? If so, which agency was ATF supposed to hand off surveillance to when the guns left the country? And how were those smugglers - outside the country - supposed to be apprehended and brought to justice?
I suspect a few more dots need to be connected before we really know what was happening and why.
Aguila Blanca
Staff
Yes.gc70 said:
No.
All of the time and energy spent on F&F could have been spent trying to bust straw buyers elsewhere - supplying guns to gangs in LA, San Diego, Oakland, Chicago etc...
But those operations wouldn't have had any more impact than your typical "XYZ law enforcement agency confiscate n-tons of drug-xyz, with an esitmated street value of n-dollars. n-number of suspects in custody"
The F&F operation however had potential currency to change public opinion. The angle was that American gun shops where arming the hated Mexican drug cartels with American guns. - Ipso facto - American gun laws were flawed and required fixing.
The theory that F&F was primarily conceived to be a lever to move public opinion is not far-fetched.
BATFE's bungling aside, those resources could have been used more efficiently to greater effect in other areas of the country, but those operations had no potential political currency associated with them.
But those operations wouldn't have had any more impact than your typical "XYZ law enforcement agency confiscate n-tons of drug-xyz, with an esitmated street value of n-dollars. n-number of suspects in custody"
The F&F operation however had potential currency to change public opinion. The angle was that American gun shops where arming the hated Mexican drug cartels with American guns. - Ipso facto - American gun laws were flawed and required fixing.
The theory that F&F was primarily conceived to be a lever to move public opinion is not far-fetched.
BATFE's bungling aside, those resources could have been used more efficiently to greater effect in other areas of the country, but those operations had no potential political currency associated with them.
gc70, the motivation for gunwalking has been revealed, as if it were not already obvious from the design of the program.
If you're having trouble hunting down favorable anecdotes, go create them!
That's Fast and Furious in a nutshell.
If you're having trouble hunting down favorable anecdotes, go create them!
That's Fast and Furious in a nutshell.
publius42 said:
Accepting "the obvious" is what bothers me. I was initially inclined to accept "the obvious" because I wanted to believe that the administration would stoop to any level to gin up statistics to support a gun control agenda. But, if so, it was a plan befitting a high school kid. What was obvious from the start was that executing the plan involved far too many unsympathetic people (both gun store owners and ATF agents) who would not remain silent if the end game was only to provide statistics for a gun control campaign.
publius42: I hesitate to go further in this thread lest I cross the line of advancing a conspiracy theory, but feel free to PM me for more thoughts.
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Standing Wolf
Member in memoriam
Yep. I'm still having two problems with all this:
- How can individuals with that much government power and authority be dumb enough to cook up such a lame-brained scheme?
- What are we overlooking?
The BATFE's and other agencies' scheme to let criminals buy lots of guns and send them to Mexico is both stupid and incredibly—in the literal sense of not being believable—illogical. Cook up fake statistics to agitate for more Marxist so-called "gun control?" That's approximately intelligible, although it obviously would have been considerably simpler to come up with fake numbers. How hard would it be to gin up a fake "analysis?"
So far, it's awfully dumb, but comprehensible. Now we come to involving FFLs, lots of BATFE people and apparently people from other agencies, probably including the State Department, and real guns being handed to real criminals and carted across the border into another country. That's not just stupid or even monumentally stupid, but waaaaay beyond monumentally stupid.
Is something missing?
Oh but there is a bit of news. CBS News: Secret recordings raise new questions in ATF 'Gunwalker' operation.
Under most circumstances, conspiracy theories are just that. A theory that generally isn't true (at least, that has been most of our experience, here at TFL).
Even I waited until there was some evidence that Something was going on, before I broached the subject. I did that with as much real data as I could, and even then, I wasn't sure that this whole thing wasn't some cockamamie gambit.
I think we've gone beyond the "theory" aspect. We have a bonafide conspiracy. It also appears that we have a cover-up in progress (see the link above to substantiate at least part of that statement).
Speculation as to the "why" is a valid part of the topic. Nobody has a lock on that aspect, that I know of.
ETA: Dang! CBS News Releases more recordings: ATF Fast and Furious secret audio recordings.
gc70 said:
Under most circumstances, conspiracy theories are just that. A theory that generally isn't true (at least, that has been most of our experience, here at TFL).
Even I waited until there was some evidence that Something was going on, before I broached the subject. I did that with as much real data as I could, and even then, I wasn't sure that this whole thing wasn't some cockamamie gambit.
I think we've gone beyond the "theory" aspect. We have a bonafide conspiracy. It also appears that we have a cover-up in progress (see the link above to substantiate at least part of that statement).
Speculation as to the "why" is a valid part of the topic. Nobody has a lock on that aspect, that I know of.
ETA: Dang! CBS News Releases more recordings: ATF Fast and Furious secret audio recordings.
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Given the recent past with this administration I would watch for whoever is getting promoted in the ATF & DOJ, most likely they are in part guilty of some high crimes... along with some more people up there somewhere.. Im thinking Mr. Hope and change has some new worries besides re-election..
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Paranoia has been described as the invalid thinking that "people are out to get you". When it turns out that the belief is valid, which is to say that there are "people who are out to get you", is it still paranoia? I wouldn't think so, but then I could be wrong.
By the way, we hear a whole lot about The Gun Lobby from media. From the same source, re The Anti-Gun Lobby, we hear nothing, which does not say that there is no such thing as the Anti Gun Lobby. Rather, it says that the Anti Gun Lobby, which exists in the federal government too, is simply something that media would rather not talk about..
By the way, we hear a whole lot about The Gun Lobby from media. From the same source, re The Anti-Gun Lobby, we hear nothing, which does not say that there is no such thing as the Anti Gun Lobby. Rather, it says that the Anti Gun Lobby, which exists in the federal government too, is simply something that media would rather not talk about..