Friday, August 30, 2013

“ObamaGuns”: The Scandal That Must Not Die



The first “phony” scandal (according to President Obama) of the Obama administration was Operation Fast & Furious.  In case you are a low-information voter who only gets their news from MSNBC, Fast & Furious was a “botched” ATF/DOJ operation to distribute high-powered weaponry to Mexican drug cartels and track them to their final destinations in cartel hideouts, where Mexican authorities could then round them up along with the cartel leaders.

There was just one problem with this brilliant scheme:  The ATF and DOJ had no plan for tracking the weapons.  Using the word “incompetence” to describe the management of this operation would insult the intelligence of The Three Stooges.
Some of the more conspiratorial-minded people on the right (aka realists), including Rep. Darrell Issa, believe that F&F was not an incompetent operation at all (based on the fact that no human being could be that stupid), but a deliberate attempt by the Obama administration to weaken citizens’ Second Amendment rights.  Issa bases his conclusions on subpoenaed e-mails from within the administration that describe using F&F to push for an assault weapons ban.

Just to recap the enormity of the scandal:
·         More than 2,100 weapons were distributed from the US to Mexican drug cartel members.

·         The weapons consist of AK-47 type assault rifles and 50 caliber “cannons”.

·         About 700 F&F weapons have been recovered from Mexican crime (murder) scenes.

·         Three more F&F weapons were recovered from crime scenes in Mexico just in the past week.

·         At least 1,400 weapons are unaccounted for, likely still in the hands of cartel members.

·         Over 200 people have been murdered from the recovered weapons alone, including US Boarder Agent Brian Terry, US Customs Agent Jaime Zapata, Mexican beauty queen Maria Susana Flores Gamez, and Mexican police chief Luis Lucio Rosales Astorga.

·         The Obama administration initially denied the existence of F&F.  It was revealed by a whistleblower (thank God for his bravery), ATF agent John Dodson.

·         The scandal was subsequently blamed on a few “rogue” middle managers in a field office in Arizona (sound familiar, Cincinnati IRS?). 

·          No one associated with F&F has lost their jobs or received any punishment, despite admitted “incompetence” in a “botched” operation that has resulted in hundreds if not thousands of deaths.

·         Attorney General Eric Holder was cited for Contempt of Congress for refusing to release documents related to F&F.  He is still in good standing in the Obama administration.

·         President Obama withheld documents related to F&F from Congress under “executive privilege”.
 
The F&F scandal developed the pattern for the administration for dealing with all subsequent scandals.  First deny its existence, then deflect blame to a few “rogue” agents or (in the case of Benghazi) a YouTube video.  When this is discovered to be a lie, accuse the Republicans who are trying to investigate it of “political gamesmanship” and demonize the investigators, i.e., Issa, Grassley, et  al.  Then, stonewall the investigation:  Refuse FOIA requests, plead the Fifth, hide witnesses, threaten potential whistleblowers, invoke “executive privilege”, etc., etc., etc.  Finally, rely on the mainstream media to suppress the story and the low-information public to have a short collective memory.

I submit that rather than having a few “rogue” agents, the Obama administration has a “rogue” President and Attorney General.  The F&F scandal has the potential of being more significant than Benghazi in the misery it has caused.  In Benghazi, four people were murdered, including a US ambassador.  This scandal showed the rest of the world that America is incompetent and impotent.  The US government did not have the will to protect its citizens nor punish the wrongdoers.  However, the Obama administration has the blood of hundreds of people, Mexican and US citizens, on its hands with F&F.  It is directly responsible for these deaths.

If, as reported, the recovered guns were used in the commission of more than two hundred murders, and these guns are just a fraction of the total, then it is totally reasonable to assume that more than one thousand people may be murdered before all of the guns are recovered, if they are ever recovered.   Taking the fact that Mexico’s population is approximately one-third of the US population, the F&F murders may be equivalent proportionately to the 3,000 deaths of US citizens on 9/11 (2001).

This scandal must not die unjustly.  Referring to it as “ObamaGuns” and describing the resulting devastation as “Mexico’s 9/11” could help keep the message in the public consciousness.

The term “ObamaGuns” is completely apropos.  Although the US 9/11 was perpetrated by Islamic terrorists, the Mexico 9/11 leads directly to the doorsteps of the President and the Attorney General, blocked only by potentially-incriminating withheld documents.   And all of this death and destruction caused just to pull a stupid political trick, a transparent attempt to gut the Second Amendment. 

We would be much better off being governed by Moe, Larry, and Curly.
Andrew Thomas

 

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