Don’t miss the latest Profile in Toxic Masculinity over at Glibertarians!
The Obama Administration pulled a particularly boneheaded stunt with the Fast and Furious gun-walking scheme. Now those chickens are coming home to roost. Bawk bawk. Excerpt:
The Mexican government is still waiting for an apology for Operation Fast and Furious, an illegal and secret gun running scheme implemented during the Obama administration.
“Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his government would send a diplomatic note to Washington for information on the 2009-2011 operation known as ‘Fast and Furious,’ a topic that has resurfaced in recent days amid a debate over historic U.S.-Mexico cooperation on security and possible corruption under previous administrations,” Reuters reports.
During the operation from 2009-2010, thousands of AK-47s, .50 caliber rifles and other weapons were purposely allowed by ATF and Department of Justice officials to be purchased illegally by straw buyers at gun stores in the United States and trafficked over the border into Mexico. ATF officials sat by as thousands of guns “walked.” They argued this was done to trace weapons to the upper echelons of Mexican cartels, but out of thousands of firearms, only two were rigged with GPS devices that died within hours of crossing the border.
On December 14, 2010, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, a former police officer and U.S. Marine, was shot and killed while on a BORTAC mission near Rio Rico, Arizona. The weapons left at the scene were obtained through Operation Fast and Furious.
Ah, but who isn’t nostalgic for that good old scandal-free Obama White House? And it’s important to remember why they did this: To gen up public support for gun-control legislation in the U.S., even though the Fast and Furious weapons represent a small fraction of the weapons in the hands of Mexican cartels today.
Mexico is right to demand an apology for this, as it was a fuck-up of the first order, but they’re about three and a half years too late; it is former President Obama and his machine politician/AG Holder that should apologize for this fiasco, not the Trump Administration.
But where, one might ask, will any accountability lie? The answer is as obvious as it is disappointing: Nowhere. There will be no price paid for this Charlie Foxtrot, not by the former President, by his partisan hack of a former AG, not by anyone. The families of Mexican law enforcement that were killed will see no justice done; neither will the family of Brian Terry.
What, you didn’t think equal treatment under the law was still a thing in this country, did you?
