A scandal the USA government might not want to get publicity over - LONG ARTICLE!

Biggins

Came across this during the week (but due to sickness couldn't post it).
Some shocking numbers killed. What an utter fcuk-up that seems to have cost hundreds, if not thousands of recent lives!

There's UK-sized scandal where Jeremy Clarkson jokes that we should shoot strikers; and then there is US-sized scandal where lots of people really do get shot and killed. "Operation Fast and Furious" in Arizona even puts phone hacking into the shade.

It involved authorities knowingly arming criminals, and those criminals going on to kill hundreds of people with those weapons, including government enforcement agents.

Operation Fast and Furious was launched with the goal of tracking "straw buyers": people who were licensed to purchase weapons in the United States but were illegally transporting them to Mexico to sell to drug cartels.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives decided a cleaver trick would be, rather than arrest these criminals; instead allow them to buy the guns, allow them to pass through border controls and in this way they could track the straw buyers and weapons, leading them into the Mexican drug cartel hierarchy.

Apart from the idea being fundamentally insane there was another problem - they lost track of the guns. Subsequently, since the "gun-walking" operations began back in 2006, two American agents were murdered with fast and furious guns and it's estimated over 200 Mexican lives have been claimed with weapons traced back to the operation. "These Fast and Furious guns... they are killing everyone down there," one U.S. government source told the Washington Post.

This week, and most of last month, the Senate Judiciary Committee has been hearing evidence from those involved in the operation, and those who want to make it quite clear they had nothing to do with it, didn't know about it; it didn't cross their desk.

Attorney General Eric Holder is in this camp; the first he knew was when reports came out in the media, he told the committee. But he was still defensive against inaccurate reporting over the affair. He said, "Some of the overheated rhetoric might lead you to believe that this local, Arizona-based operation was somehow the cause of the epidemic of gun violence in Mexico.
In fact, Fast and Furious was a flawed response to, not the cause of, the flow of illegal guns from the United States into Mexico. As you all know, the trafficking of firearms across our Southwest Border has long been a serious problem - one that has contributed to approximately 40,000 deaths in the last five years."

The committee has learned that over five years 94,000 weapons have been recovered in in Mexico. 64,000 of those can be traced to the United States. And those are just the ones recovered.
"We have to do something" said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, as he addressed the committee this week quoting the same set of figures. Actually, when you look at the preposterous scale of the gun trafficking problem, you can almost see the method in the mad decision to allow some guns to slip through the net under a tight monitoring process.
But rather than lead law enforcement officers to Mexican drug kingpins, fast and furious operations have increased the cartel firepower and drug-related violence with an extra 2,000 weapons. It was a high risk strategy; deserving of its mildly immature, high-octane codename.

The question is will anyone uncover who really knew about it? Surely, such a dangerous operation must have been authorised high up the food chain?

Source: http://blogs.news.sky.com/skyinvestigates/Post:21e71444-f272-4427-b6ee-9f8f411cd357

My name is URL

Doomed to end in tears considering the name they gave to the operation. Fcuking mongs

Biggins

...And no one will probably be held accountable in all likelihood - unless they can come up with a willing fall-guy!

Benny_Cake

Ah,the BAT - a great bunch of lads.Conspiracy theorists will have a field day with this one.

Raging_Ninja

It was all over the news in the US during the summer while I was there. There is a congressional investigation being carried out.

So, it didn't get 'no publicity'.

I don't know why Sky News is dragging it up only now, their sister company in the US (Fox News) covered it extensively, so I would have assumed Sky News would have covered it at the same time.

Maybe they're trying to deflect attention from the hacking scandal thing? Which incidentally didn't get that much coverage, at least on Fox News, in the US while I was there.

Brain Stroking

It is a massive mistake but the decision to think outside the box is laudable in theory. It's not like the tried and trusted methods were going to win the drug war were they? Back to the drawing board lads.
And it doesnt put the UK phone hacking scandal "into the shade".

Biggins

Raging_Ninja wrote: »

...I don't know why Sky News is dragging it up only now, their sister company in the US (Fox News) covered it extensively, so I would have assumed Sky News would have covered it at the same time.

Maybe they're trying to deflect attention from the hacking scandal thing? Which incidentally didn't get that much coverage, at least on Fox News, in the US while I was there.

It was buried in one of their blogs. Not exactly headlining it.

Brain Stroking wrote: »

It is a massive mistake but the decision to think outside the box is laudable in theory. It's not like the tried and trusted methods were going to win the drug war were they? Back to the drawing board lads.
And it doesnt put the UK phone hacking scandal "into the shade".

Someone should have at some stage earlier pulled the plug on the operation.
As for the "into the shade" bit, I don't think the cost was so high in lives with the hacking fiasco - think thats what the writer was referring to.

Mickeroo

Its a **** up for sure, but in fairness I don't think it can be blamed for most of the people getting shot. Chances are those people would have been shot by legitimately(for want of a better word) smuggled fire arms which probably cross the boarder in a larger scale than this operation allowed.

V_Moth

Brain Stroking wrote: »

It is a massive mistake but the decision to think outside the box is laudable in theory. It's not like the tried and trusted methods were going to win the drug war were they? Back to the drawing board lads.
And it doesnt put the UK phone hacking scandal "into the shade".

A government agency knowingly selling weapons to violent criminals is slightly more serious than hacking someone's phone. Also, the phone-hackers (to their credit) did not use that information to kill people, as was almost certainly the case with the guns used in this operation.

Brain Stroking

Biggins wrote: »

Someone should have at some stage earlier pulled the plug on the operation.
As for the "into the shade" bit, I don't think the cost was so high in lives with the hacking fiasco - think thats what the writer was referring to.

Pulling the plug early wouldnt really have been a realistic option. Once the weapons were put into circulation then it probably have been very difficult to even attempt to get them back.

I agree that the writer was referring to to the cost in lives. But those lives would have been lost if this operation had never been conceived. The cartels would have gotten the weapons from somewhere. There are many places one can get a gun. Plus the cartels would have long standing networks of dealers to buy through. It would have taken the authorities a while to set up trusted dealers that the cartels would have done business with. So if the operation was pulled the result would have been the same.
The phone hacking scandal was not a mistaken attempt to find a new way of gaining a foothold in a perennially losing battle. It was done by a company for profit.

I agree that the plan didnt work but that was because the guns were lost and that is a human error. The basic premise was quite a promising one and in my opinion it is through covert means such as this that the cartels have to be taken on. Just my opinion

Brain Stroking

V_Moth wrote: »

A government agency knowingly selling weapons to violent criminals is slightly more serious than hacking someone's phone. Also, the phone-hackers (to their credit) did not use that information to kill people, as was almost certainly the case with the guns used in this operation.

Look at it in unbelievably simple terms if you wish.

Biggins

Brain Stroking wrote: »

...Just my opinion

Absolutely fair enough and some good points.

hooradiation

Raging_Ninja wrote: »

It was all over the news in the US during the summer while I was there. There is a congressional investigation being carried out.

So, it didn't get 'no publicity'.

I don't know why Sky News is dragging it up only now, their sister company in the US (Fox News) covered it extensively, so I would have assumed Sky News would have covered it at the same time.

Maybe they're trying to deflect attention from the hacking scandal thing? Which incidentally didn't get that much coverage, at least on Fox News, in the US while I was there.

I was wondering why people were suddenly making fuss over this old news.

greenmachine88

Here's some further info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fast_and_Furious

Overheal

A scandal the USA government might not want to get publicity over

Biggins, you are way overdue. Fast and Furious is hardly a state secret, more than it is a media circus.

What your article doesnt say is that they tried to be clever by tracking the guns with over the counter GPS trackers that you can buy from an electronics store. The problem there is, batteries only last so long. Before the guns ever get to their destination, the signal would get lost.

Biggins

Overheal wrote: »

Biggins, you are way overdue. Fast and Furious is hardly a state secret, more than it is a media circus.

Could be right. Didn't get much publicity this side of the water so far though.
Heaven forbid it might tarnish the government there, in Europe or beyond! :pac:

Overheal

Biggins wrote: »

Could be right. Didn't get much publicity this side of the water so far though.
Heaven forbid it might tarnish the government there, in Europe or beyond! :pac:

Well I mean it was there in the wide open for anyone to pick up on. Mexico's problem's aren't really big news though in Europe are they. I believe we've had this similar discussion before when the Drug War happened a year or two back.