If I told you that the U.S. government was selling guns to Mexican drug cartels, you’d tell me I was crazy. If I further told you that both Republican and Democrat presidents participated, you’d suggest I have a few screws loose.; but that’s exactly what I’m telling you.
First of all, let me give credit where credit is due. This article is based heavily on information researched and verified by Michelle Malkin. I tip my hat to Ms. Malkin who has waded through the facts, misinformation and found some frightening truths. Her article in the The National Review Online exposes the gangster activities that began during the Bush administration and continue, thanks to $10 million dollars that was stashed in Barack Obama’s anti-stimulus program.
What bothers me most is that the mainstream media has had access to much of this information for years and has quietly kept it under covers. It’s more than likely that the media discovered this information too late to use it against the Bush administration, and when the facts came to light that their president was involved gave justification enough to keep it quiet. Up until this past February, nary a peep was heard from any of the press. Regardless of what you may think of Ms. Malkin, she’s exposed this bloody crime to the light of day and found that the $10 million of taxpayer money has now cost American lives.
The following is taken directly from Ms. Malkin’s article of March 30, 2011 in The National Review Online:
Welcome to Project Gunrunner. Prepare for another Justice Department whitewash.
First, some background. Like so many border programs run amok, Project Gunrunner was the spawn of Beltway bipartisanship. It was established in 2005 as a pilot project under the Bush administration and run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The intended goal of the program’s sting operations: stop illicit firearms trafficking along the Southwest border through close surveillance of undercover gun purchases and coordinated intervention with Mexico. The deadly result: federally sanctioned gunwalking of high-powered weapons from U.S. officials right into the hands of drug-cartel killers.
By 2008, Project Gunrunner’s bureaucratic fiefdom had expanded rapidly along the U.S.–Mexico border and into the nine U.S. consulates in Mexico. The office raked in $2 million more through the little-scrutinized Merida Initiative, which Hispanic vote-pandering Republicans rammed through in a war supplemental bill. Despite warnings from the DOJ inspector general that tracking and assessment measures needed improvement, the payroll exploded from a few dozen to more than 200 by 2009. Under the Obama administration, ATF reaped another $21.9 million to expand Project Gunrunner (nearly half from the stimulus boondoggle), and the White House has requested almost $12 million more in fiscal year 2011 appropriations for the program.
Project Gunrunner’s reach and authority continues to grow despite dire, prolonged warnings from insiders and whistleblowers that countless monitored guns have been passed on to violent criminals without being intercepted as planned. Following up on leads first published at www.cleanupatf.org and the blogs of gun-rights advocates David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh, CBS News reported last month that Project Gunrunner “allegedly facilitated the delivery of thousands of guns into criminal hands.”
One of those guns was used by Mexican gang thugs who murdered U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last December. At least six veteran ATF agents and executives stepped forward to expose how ATF presided over the purchase of hundreds of high-powered rifles and pistols — over the objection of the very private gun shops that the Obama administration’s anti-gun zealots have vilified.
One whistleblower familiar with Project Gunrunner’s Phoenix offshoot, dubbed “Operation Fast and Furious,” told CBS News: “The numbers are over 2,500 on that case by the way. That’s how many guns were sold — including some 50-calibers they let walk.” The weapon used in the Mexico slaying of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Jaime Zapata has also been linked to Project Gunrunner surveillance operation subjects.
As investigative watchdog Republicans Sen. Charles Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa step up pressure on the administration to come clean this week about who knew what and when, Obama denied any knowledge of Project Gunrunner on Spanish-language Univision TV. He blithely allowed that “there may be a situation here in which a serious mistake was made. If that’s the case, then we’ll find out and we’ll hold someone accountable.”
Coming from a man who appointed crime-coddling, accountability-evading, open-borders corruptocrat Eric Holder to uphold the law, that is a bloody, cruel joke.
If the aim of Project Gunrunner was to cut off the flow of arms to the Mexican drug lords, a quick review of the downward spiral of Mexico shows it’s an abject failure. During the term of Project Gunrunner life for the Mexican people has become dismal. Border incursions into Arizona and Texas are completely out-of-control. The Mexican government has lost control of its country and the criminal state of that country is regularly extending into the U.S.
While the Obama administration speaks to the Hispanic population in this country of his desire for immigration reform, because it’s politically advantageous, he’s supplying arms to drug bosses slaughtering the people south of the border. While our Department of Homeland Security is turning back, rather than arresting, illegal immigrants, a blood-bath is taking place and we’re an accessory. In business, if you try something and it doesn’t work, you stop doing it. In Washington, if something is a colossal failure, you throw more money at it. Sadly, this stupidity has now caused the death of two of our own.
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