ATF Project Gunrunner

Since we're speculating on possible reasons/motives for the conspiracy, let's revisit an article in the Washington Times which suggests the CIA was the moving force so that guns would end up in hands of the Sinaloa Cartel. The Sinaloa Cartel has ties to the Mexican military and would help counter-balance the Zeta Cartel which threatens the Mexican political structure.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/11/was-cia-behind-operation-fast-and-furious/

Of course, there can be more than one "why" behind Fast and Furious. A secondary motive of providing statistics and numbers to strengthen gun laws would appeal to many within ATF and elements of the Obama administration.
 
In the tape recoding at CBS, Agent Hope MacAlister and the gun dealer talk about a possible investigation in the Senate. The gun dealer tells the agent to "stay off the screen." Then, MacAlister makes an interesting slip:

Dealer: Hope, stay off the screen. You don' t need this sh--. Neither does your husband.

Agent: Believe me I have...

Dealer: You gotta have a f-----g life man.

Agent: I have a file and...

Dealer: shhh

Agent: It's all, it's all public stuff I dont' care.

Dealer: Well don't even convey it in that. I'm sure you do. Hopefully this thing will subside...
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http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20108460-10391695.html

Listening to the recording, it sounds to me as if MacAlister might have realized she said something she shouldn't have about keeping a file and then added the comment about it being "all public stuff." Hard to say for sure but I would be looking for that file if I were investigating the matter.
 
That's not just stupid or even monumentally stupid, but waaaaay beyond monumentally stupid.

Is something missing?
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No, this is the Chicago way. Obama and his handlers and lackies come from a political environment even more corrupt and one party dominated than DC. He is so use to the press covering for him and never being seriously questioned, that I believe they got arrogant on this and didn't try to cover it up too well.

Just like some criminals when they have gotten away with crimes long enough they begin to believe the police are stupid (when in fact they are just playing by civilized rules), and then in their arrogance begin to take greater chances and to taunt their opponents.

I think some of his associates discovered this early on and have returned to the safety of Chicago politics, right Rahm? Obama is pathologically arrogant (as the puppet begins to think he is actually in control and all the adulation is because of himself) and is now finding out that DC does not provide as sure and thick cover for his shenanigans as does Chicago.

The recent tapes are explosive, I believe. This is the type of information that will get middle level people willing to spill the beans beyond the initial whistleblowers. The biggies that ramrodded this are being promoted and bought off to keep quiet. But as more hard evidence comes to light there will eventually be several middle level people that are more than willing to jump onto the Congressional bandwagon and watch the ATF ship go under with the king rats.
 
Standing Wolf said:
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?
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Remember Occam's Razor: The correct answer is usually the most obvious.

Yes, in hindsight the operation seems stupid, dumb, naive, and impossibly ill-conceived. But remember that this administration is made up of people who are unaccustomed to doing anything the legitimate way, do not know how to tell the truth about anything, believe that what they want must be best for everyone because it's their idea (and they're smarter than everyone else) ... all the way to recognizing that an operation of such incomparable obviousness (if that's a word) is typical of Chicago machine politics.
 
Just give enough guns to enough killers and watch what happens, no big mystery there.
There's no expectation, except it'll be bad, and whatever happens can be used as opportunities arise.
Budgetary, logistically, systematically, internationally, legislatively, politically.
Short of getting caught, it's a no lose scenario. At every level it was justified or rationalized differently according to needs vs/ personalities.
Why, is cause that's who some people are and that's how people like that operate. While coming out the other side indignant, they would trade lives for the stats....this ensured the stats.

Anti-firearms agenda folks in a position to make change don't care what you think, that's why. They gave guns to killers cause they want people killed, that's why. People are stats. Figuring it out is easy, but the reluctance or reticence to accept, making it fit into your value system...not so easy.

They don't change how they operate, given the chance, it'll happen again. Probobly double down on it and eliminate the stupid low level middlemen by going at it wholesale.

Team players will get promotions and whistleblowers off to Podunk. A good cleansing for the ATF going forward.
 
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I am not sure what Howard is doing, but he doesn't sound like the hapless victim gun store owner strong-armed into compliance with BATFE.

He sounds like a conspiritor. "Hopefully this thing will subside" Really? Howard just want the death of Agent Terry to go away?

What's his problem with Sen Grassley? A Senator who's trying to find out the truth behind the death of a Federal Agent and gross incompetence that has cost the tax payers millions of dollars and has endangered the lives of multiple law enforcement officers in the Southwest?

If he's lying about what he is saying and trying to get Hope McCallister to say something - I think he's a jerk for that too.

All he had to do was prove his compliance with BATFE requests and express his unwillingness to do so, and his doubts about the operation, but the tapes are way beyond that.

Either Howard is expressing what he really thinks - and I think he's an ass, or he's putting on some sort of show to trap Agent McCallister and I think he's an ass if he's doing that.

Either way - I think he's an ass.
 
Remember Occam's Razor: The correct answer is usually the most obvious.
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"Obvious" is subjective, what's obvious to one person may be totally oblivious to another. That is the fallacy in "Occam's Razor", IMHO of course.
 
I don't mean to get into a philosophical discussion, but the correct application of Occam's Razor, when choosing between two equally likely hypotheses (or conspiracy theories :D) is to select the one that makes the fewest new assumptions.

It's not necessarily the simplest nor the most obvious although usually it works out that way. And it's not always right.

I really think that a few people in Justice came up with a way to kill two birds with one stone: hammer a Mexican cartel and pad statistics on illegal gun sales into Mexico. Unfortunately, the plan was completely unworkable. Doubly unfortunately, it was executed anyway.
 
I am not sure what Howard is doing, but he doesn't sound like the hapless victim gun store owner strong-armed into compliance with BATFE.
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That's what I took from it as well. Howard did make a ton of money in a short time from his cooperation, but I want to believe that wasn't his motivation. That tape doesn't make it easy.
 
Thank you, Hardcase, for the description of the Razor. Always meant to look that up but never got there.

I guess it would be useless to ask about a pig, though...
 
Standing Wolf said:
"Yep. I'm still having two problems with all this:

#1 How can individuals with that much government power and authority be dumb enough to cook up such a lame-brained scheme?
#2 What are we overlooking?

The answer to the first question is one word; HUBRIS!
The answer to the second question is; Truth is stranger than fiction and we need only accept the theory of Occum's Razor.

Marxist operatives will stop at nothing to achieve their ends.
 
Hardcase said:
I really think that a few people in Justice came up with a way to kill two birds with one stone: hammer a Mexican cartel and pad statistics on illegal gun sales into Mexico. Unfortunately, the plan was completely unworkable. Doubly unfortunately, it was executed anyway.
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The problem with this hypothesis is that (a) they had no assets with which to track the guns once they crossed the border, and (b) they didn't inform either the Mexican authorities (who would have tipped off the cartels, I'm sure) OR our own people in Mexico. So just how were they going to "hammer" the cartels with no assets?

Okay, I 'fess up to being a conspiracy theorist, but I see only one explanation for this cluster foxtrot, and it doesn't involve busting Mexican drug cartels.
 
Okay, I 'fess up to being a conspiracy theorist, but I see only one explanation for this cluster foxtrot, and it doesn't involve busting Mexican drug cartels.
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No. Bart Sibrel is a conspiracy theorist.

Your conclusion fits obvious evidence. Big difference.
 
Aguila Blanca said:
The problem with this hypothesis is that (a) they had no assets with which to track the guns once they crossed the border, and (b) they didn't inform either the Mexican authorities (who would have tipped off the cartels, I'm sure) OR our own people in Mexico. So just how were they going to "hammer" the cartels with no assets?
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There would be no need to track the guns if the FBI's cartel informant was arranging the smuggling.

Fast and Furious was launched late in 2009. The Gulf, La Familia, and Sinaloa cartels also formed an alliance against Los Zetas late in 2009. Why not arms the cartel alliance to offset the rapidly growing power of Los Zetas? At worst, all of the cartels would be weakened fighting each other.
 
Fast and Furious was launched late in 2009. The Gulf, La Familia, and Sinaloa cartels also formed an alliance against Los Zetas late in 2009. Why not arms the cartel alliance to offset the rapidly growing power of Los Zetas? At worst, all of the cartels would be weakened fighting each other.
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Seriously?! No, at worst the guns are used to kill Border Patrol, DEA, police and civilians, and maybe a couple of Zetas. Who armed the Zetas? Yes, the US government. We trained the Mexican special forces and then they realized they could use the training and weapons we provided to become the new cartel enforcement power. How's that een working for you?

Now the U S Govt gets the brilliant idea to arm the Sinaola cartel to fight the Zetas whom we trained and more or less equipped. So after this bloodbath, which criminal element do you suggest we equip to take on the Sinaola cartel?

I hope the FBI learned this lesson in regards to helping one mob supposedly fight another mob. You do not get less mob, you get one much bigger nastier mob. This is a failed strategy.

If you want to play games like that you have to have more control of the situation (leverage) and it helps if one of the parties has some morals. The cartels are ruthless thugs who could care less about any agreements they make.

There is a long history at every level of many governments in which politicians see an advantage TO THEMSELVES to make deals with organized crime. But the person on the street, the beat cop, the civilian, the low level crooks are the ones who pay the price.
 
The mainstream media really has sucked at investigating the story - some of it is how media has changed.

It used to be that these big news agencies had a large staff of talented and dedicated investigative reporters, but the Internet changed everything.

Some of it is probably bias and complacency. They were content to broadcast the occasional blurb that Issa, Grassley or some blogger turned up.

But I think this will mark a change in things. The large news agencies can't afford the loss of face. Some of them at least are going to to get serious about investigating and reporting the story and you'll start hearing reporters ask the hard questions on shows like "Meet the Press" and others. The questions about "who knew what and when?"

This also is looking more and more to me like it's moving toward the apointing of a special procescutor. I think politicians are loath to do that now - it's like the political version of using a 300 megaton thermo-nuclear war head to swat a mosquitto. But the facts keep making things look worse and worse. A federal agent was murdered and it's completely unthinkable to me that an agency dedicated to investigating crime and uncovering the truth would tamper with a crime scene and obscond with evidence. What happened to the third gun?

If you can't trust the FBI to investigate this - who can investigate it? it's like you have to create a new independent investigative task force.

it seems like only a special prosecutor would be able to really investigate it properly. The more evidence that comes out - the more it looks to me like its heading that way.
 
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Well, the El Paso Times reports allegations that several high-ranking political officials (federal and state) are working for the FBI. The source admits his own ranch was used to smuggle drugs but claims the FBI asked him to do it.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_18924755

It seems like a fair question in any of these controversies is who exactly is working for whom?

This also is looking more and more to me like it's moving toward the apointing of a special procescutor
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Issa said in his call he will ask for a special prosecutor; however, since the Oversight Committee must stop its investigation once that happens and since the special prosecutor will be a DOJ appointee investigating his own agency, they want to continue investigating to make sure the Oversight Committee has enough info to make sure the special prosecutor does his job.
 
More from the audio tapes obtained by CBS News:

ATF 'Fast and Furious' secret audio recordings reveal concerns about whistleblower

The gun dealer is Andre Howard, the agent is ATF Agent Hope MacAllister.


Dealer: He's (Dodson) more toxic than you realize. I can tell you cause I asked him. How much of this f-----g file did you release?

Agent: Mmmhm

Dealer: He said basically the underlying case file. I said okay, who'd you release it to? F-----g Patrick Leahy! Ok? Wasn't just Grassley it was Leahy alright? Leahy as we both know has adjourned this inquiry right now okay with no plans to reconvene it. So your people were successful on that end.

Agent: Right.
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Leahy stopped investigating and the conclusion is "your people were successful" huh? Who are "your people" and what did they successfully do, I wonder?
 
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