23 thoughts on “What Was Fast And Furious About?”

  1. While I like Bill Whittle a lot, I think a lot of people who have been paying attention haven’t thought about how to portray this to those who have not.

    Start with Wide Receiver. Then contrast with Fast and Furious.

    “Under President Bush, a fairly standard gunrunning sting operation was conducted called Wide Receiver in Arizona. They had 400 guns that were RFID chipped to enhance tracking, extensive surveilance, were authorized to use helicopters and planes, and had the full involvement and cooperation with the Mexican authorities. This included surveillance to and through the Mexican border with hand offs to the Mexican authorities. Over 1400 arrests were made, and the program was discontinued as too risky in 2007 when the RFID tagging was discovered.

    In October -2009-, someone started a project named Fast and Furious where it was decided the same program would work better without the RFID tagging. Or the helicopters and planes. Or, in fact, without ground surveillance or notifying Mexican authorities. Gun shops were -ordered- to make sales to people they felt were straw purchasers. Field agents were -ordered- not to conduct surveillance – to the point of official reprimands of agents who did conduct some surveillance on their own time. Over 2000 semi-automatic weapons were involved in this operation. Only 300(*) have been recovered – where they were left next to the corpses they were used to kill. To date, they’ve been used on 300 Mexican citizens and a US Border Patrol Agent. And possibly a second agent with ICE.

    Nine months into investigating this, we still don’t know -who- thought this was a good idea and authorized it, but the claim of Executive Privilege is essentially saying “I did, which is why aren’t going to hear any more about it.” The question of “Why did anyone think this was a good idea?” is answered by a whistleblower as a sickening plot that can be summed up as “Enough dead bodies from American guns will get us a new Assault Weapon Ban.” A second vaguely plausible reason would be an international lawsuit against the manufacturers.

    But if whomever started this act of war on Mexico was identified, we could ask them.”

    1. What we need Al is a good American Civil Suit naming Holder and his boss liable. That would mean less verifiable proof for convictions and perhaps they would be broke for a VERY, VERY long time.

      It seems only fair to wish on them, that which they have foisted upon us.

  2. Woops. The (*) is because I don’t think we’ve even recovered -that- many, and I don’t know an exact number.

    1. Not to mention that the number of Mexican victims is surely far larger than the press will admit, since the 300 hundred number is based on murders where the shooter abandoned a perfectly good weapon or got killed at the scene. Perhaps someone could do some sort of statistical check on US drug gang shooting incidents, comparing the number of victims with the percentage of the shootings where the murder weapon is found at the scene.

  3. The people who decided “Fast and Furious” would be a good idea need to be extradited to Mexico, including the current occupier of the white house if we can prove his involvement.

    Can the president grant pardon on crimes to which he was party?

    1. Pardons could be granted everyone BUT himself. And even if he’s impeached or resigns they stand.

      I like your idea about extraditions. Or just take them down there with hoods over their heads and drop them off in neighborhoods where those guns killed innocent people.

      But take off the hoods so the people can see who it is.

  4. The problem I have with the gun control theory is that it would require this mess to stay secret. That strikes me as implausible, but… ANY explanation for this mess is implausible. On the other hand, would this have come to light if the D’s hadn’t lost the house? Maybe not.

    On the flip side… I wonder if this program was based on the Bush-era one by design; if things went wrong, they could just blame Bush. They’ve sure tried.

    1. To succeed as a gun control plot would require the operation to remain secret. Noting the number of lefty loons who believe in big conspiracy theories, the key people thinking they can keep the secret, or discredit leakers, may not be so far fetched.

      1. It appears that the operation was instigated at lower levels, though that’s what one would expect if it really was a conspiracy – no one at the top would have their fingerprints on it that way.

        The idea that it’s just a bungled op doesn’t pass the sniff test either; they proactively stopped the agents from tracking the guns. They didn’t just forget, they acted to stop any tracking (and the tracking was supposed to the the goal).

        One oft-mentioned flaw in the “gun control” theory is that it couldn’t work; increased violence in Mexico wouldn’t change Americans’ minds on gun control. That’s true, but if the violence was happening on our side of the border (such as the slaying of the border agent) it might.

        I’m slowly starting to believe the gun-control-conspiracy theory, because there just aren’t any other theories out there that fit the data.

        1. That’s why my (odd) variant gun-control conspiracy isn’t out of the running. Still a WTF, but…

          The gun control groups – right before this started brought suit in a couple of states against the manufacturers of the scary rifles. And were promptly bounced out of court, because it’s protected… here.

          But. A -Mexican- suit would be brought in -Mexico-. Where there doesn’t happen to be a 2nd. Would -Barack-Obama- and -Eric-Holder- stand up and defend Remington (or whomever) against such a foreign suit?

          That is: The second amendment says “You have the right to own guns”, it doesn’t say we have to have any gun manufactories that sell civilian guns.

    2. “Blaming Bush” seems to be what Representative Issa is focusing on, especially the Feb 2011 letter from AG Holder blaming General Mukasey, his predecessor. of doing the same kind of thing and initiating the kind of thing that he, AG Holder, put a stop to “when I found out.”

      I mean, “Blame Bush” seems to be reflex with these people, even when it is an outright falsehood and a libel of a Federal official, and completely unnecessary. All the AG had to do was say “I found out about Fast and Furious and I put a stop to it”, all factual because the AG did find out about it and the program came to an end on his watch.

      But these people can’t seem to refrain from “blaming Bush” as much as some people can’t suppress a cough when their throat tickles or can’t block a sneeze. The reflex is so powerful is that appears that the AG lied to Congress to get in a “blame Bush” and then had to back pedal to the effect of a Nixonian “that statement is no longer operative.”

    3. They figured there would be bad press from the crimes committed with the guns and assumed everyone would think this was because of lax gun laws in the US. All of the administrations public statements for several years about needing a tighter boarder going south to stop the flow of.guns backs this up a little.

      It would be hard for this to be the work of some low level person, it involved the FBI, ATF, DHS, and the state department. The program was referenced by a high ranking doj official on video and he was praising his higher ups for.the good work.

      If this really was the work of an underling, they would have been fired a year ago and Holder would have told congress.

  5. Obama can’t pardon himself. He can pardon Holder and anyone else involved. If he is implicated deeply enough to actually face prison time I’d see one of the following scenarios going down.

    1) He wins reelection and nothing further happens.

    2) He loses reelection and the R’s take/keep enough seats to control both houses of congress. He issues pardons for Holder and anyone else in a position to make his life difficult. Some time between the election and his leaving office he resigns, putting Biden in the Big Boys Chair. Assuming they had brains enough to keep Biden completely out of the loop he’s clean. Biden then pardon’s Obama, for the good of the country, and turns the Oval Office over to Romney in January.

    My question would be is does a presidential pardon protect one from extradition to a foreign country that you have committed crimes against?

    Politically, allowing extradition of an ex president would be suicide. I can’t help thinking that the Mexican government wouldn’t have a case, though.

    1. Letting Slo-Joe be the 45th President for a few weeks will make it obvious even to him what’s going on. Even he isn’t stupid enough to want that sort of historical legacy, and that it’s not to his advantage to stay bought so cheaply.

  6. We should ask Jim, who I believe has first-hand knowledge of the president’s personal priorities. Gun control, Jim wrote in these comments recently, is something like 172nd on his priority list.

    I wish I had the inside track like that…

  7. Personally, I don’t buy the gun control angle – it’s too complex. The real story is that the drug cartels were having difficulty getting large numbers of high quality (not ak47) guns. So they called their “friends” in Chicago. The Chicago boys called in some favors with the white house, and bada bing bada boom, the US OKs all the deals and guarantees the safety of the cartel buyers.

    That is why no secrecy was required – the guns are now in the wind, and the deal is done. The person that authorized the sales will never be found – it is way too easy to hide that sort of thing. Unless Obama and his handlers are REALLY stupid.

    1. David,
      I have to tell you, that makes more sense than a fumbled, Democrat version of Wide Receiver ever has to me. And I’m no conspiracy type either. But usually the simplest explanation is closest to the truth.

      And no Pun intended on the fumble / wide receiver thing either.

    2. That may be the conspiracy hiding behind levels of conspiracy. When law enforcement does something inexplicably stupid that happens to be exactly what a drug cartel would want them to do, the obvious answer (and especially the answer in Mexican law enforcement) would be that the cartel so corrupted the police force that they control its highest levels.

      Drug cartels have billions of dollars they need to launder. The DNC has needs for untraceable cash. F&F sounds like a convenient cover story to tell bureaucrats at the BATF upper-management level so they don’t have to get a cut of the action.

    3. I can’t find it now, but I read somewhere that the majority of the guns went to one particular cartel. That would be very interesting if true.

  8. Finally got to listen to it. He’s absolutely right. They have no shame at all and they are the racists.

    It’s no less than what we’ve come to expect from the heirs of the most respected man in news. It’s disgraceful and despicable.

    They’ve educated indoctrinatated our children well and continue to as ‘adults.’

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