7 ms·

This whole "fast and furious" thing is just mind-bogglingly stupid. Seriously-- it takes a lot of effort to be this stupid. Do you realize the reason why Mexi

• underdown 14y ago
  So - a Democrat administration makes a mistake - and it's the Republicans' fault. got it.
• smsm42 14y ago
  Even if what you said about F&F were true, this does not change the fact Holder lied about it to Congress. If he thought it's a good operation - he should have said "yes, I knew about it since 2010 and it's just fine and nothing wrong with it", not "I just learned about it in 2011". Now back to F&F. If you took a moment to educate yourself, you'd learn the whole point of F&F was to CIRCUMVENT the gun laws and allow the cartels to buy massive amount of guns from dealers that otherwise they would not be able to buy. The dealers signalled the ATF multiple times, but where told to shut up and sell. The rank agents asked to arrest the buyers and take the guns, but were told to stand down and not interfere since it is an operation to track the guns into Mexico, so everything is going fine and the guns should "walk". In fact, there was no way to track them and no tracking actually happened - the guns just disappeared. Blaming gun laws for the sales that were specifically protected by the government agency whose purpose is to monitor gun sales - well, yes, mind-bogglingly stupid. Using government agency fuckup to prove that we need more government involvement - mind-bogglingly stupid. Trying to sell guns to Mexico without actually being able to find them and without telling anybody on Mexican side a thousand guns is heading their way - mind-bogglingly stupid. Blaming Republicans for the mess - I'd say it takes a lot of effort to be this stupid, but apparently it does not. It comes naturally to some - whatever the problem is, Bush is at fault. Doesn't require any effort or any thinking at all. Saves a lot of mental energy that can be spent on blaming Bush for more stuff. The whole F&F operation was a poorly executed screwup. It should have never happened and whoever thought it is a good idea should be reassigned to issuing parking tickets. However, the worst part is not this - anybody who follows the current events knows that for government projects screwup is a normal mode of operation. The worst is that AG Holder lied to the Congress about it - brazenly, openly and with full understanding that he will get away with it - and with President's help he did. For me and you, lying under oath would mean jail time. For him, according to you, it's just fine and if anything is wrong, the Republicans are at fault anyway. >>> The especially ironic thing is that since the witch hunt, the ATF's seizures of weapons has dropped 90%. Given that the purpose of F&F was specifically NOT to seize weapons that could be seized - relating the inevitable blowup of F&F to the lower seizures, is, well, you know... gah.
  • inthewoods 14y ago
    You should really read the Forbes article: "Quite simply, there's a fundamental misconception at the heart of the Fast and Furious scandal. Nobody disputes that suspected straw purchasers under surveillance by the ATF repeatedly bought guns that eventually fell into criminal hands. Issa and others charge that the ATF intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic. But five law-enforcement agents directly involved in Fast and Furious tell Fortune that the ATF had no such tactic. They insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be illegally trafficked. Just the opposite: They say they seized weapons whenever they could but were hamstrung by prosecutors and weak laws, which stymied them at every turn. Indeed, a six-month Fortune investigation reveals that the public case alleging that Voth and his colleagues walked guns is replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies. Fortune reviewed more than 2,000 pages of confidential ATF documents and interviewed 39 people, including seven law-enforcement agents with direct knowledge of the case. Several, including Voth, are speaking out for the first time."
    • smsm42 14y ago
      What is written there (esp. Fortune) is contrary to known facts and written from the words of very interested and involved people covering their asses after their operation blew up in their faces. I do not know who specifically gave the orders - was it prosecutors, ATF, or whoever else - but the fact is orders were given to not intercept illegal purchases and to let the guns "walk". From DOJ IG report: We found that the lack of seizures and arrests was primarily attributable to the pursuit of a strategic goal shared by both the [Phoenix] ATF and the U.S. Attorney’s Office -- to eliminate a trafficking organization -- and the belief that confronting subjects and seizing firearms could compromise that goal. This tactic was significantly different from previous tactic, e.g. in Project Gunrunner - where straw purchasers were arrested at the moment they handed off the guns. Here, they were allowed to proceed - to great dissatisfaction of the field agents. Whoever though up this was thinking that this would lead up the chain to eliminate the bigger organisation - but due to multiple failures in the execution - such as ATF agent tracking the buyer going on vacation and the buyer just disappearing with the guns - it did not happen and guns just disappeared in Mexico to the hands of drug cartels. Nothing to do with gun laws. Anti-guns bunch would have to look in other place to feed their political agenda.