'Gunwalker' -- The Story

You just have to read this whole story to understand the vast expanses between the guys 'on the street' and those bosses in their 'ivory palaces'. Those men/women who are dedicated to doing the job they are assigned to do and those who sit behind the desks giving orders.
This story makes you shake your head and wonder to yourself if the 'bosses' are really that stupid or you just don't understand the events that have occurred.
More evidence that AG Eric Holder should be arrested and sent to prison in these lines.
A long post but a needed read.
kaj

Amplify’d from pajamasmedia.com

What — and Who — Made ‘Gunwalker’ Tick? The politics of police promotions reveals the answer. June 20, 2011 - 12:12 pm - by Mike McDaniel

My co-blogger Bob Owens’ recent PJMedia story, “The Definitive Scandal: ‘Gunwalker’ Much Worse Than ‘Iran-Contra,’” laid out the parameters of an incredibly flawed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) operation known as “Operation Fast and Furious,” or “Operation Gunwalker.”

As early as 2009 and until recently, ATF agents were ordered to allow weapons illegally purchased in the United States to “walk” across the southern border into the hands of drug traffickers. The attempts of honest, competent line agents to stop the flow of guns were met with orders to ignore their duty and threats by their supervisors who told them that the highest levels of the ATF and Department of Justice were behind the program. Gun dealers who complained were told to cooperate and to sell large numbers of guns to criminals. So loose were the controls that, to this day, the number of guns involved is not precisely known, but ranges from the hundreds to the thousands.

ATF managers and administrators have tried to justify the operation by a variety of means. The Obama DOJ has denied that any guns were ever allowed into the hands of criminals and has engaged in Clintonian language parsing.

Phoenix ATF “Group VII” supervisor David Voth, in an April 2, 2010, e-mail, noted that there were 187 murders in Mexico in March, including 11 policemen, and that the ATF allowed the purchase of 359 guns in March, including “numerous Barrett .50 caliber rifles.” According to lower-ranking agents, Voth was excited about what was happening in Mexico, apparently believing that the level of violence proved the value of the investigation which would lead to the arrests of high-ranking drug cartel criminals.

The idea that the heads of Mexican drug cartels might eventually be implicated in the straw purchases of American guns is sheer lunacy, and the available evidence indicates that line ATF agents had no such delusions, but their supervisors and high-ranking ATF and DOJ officials may have. The heads of cartels are well known, and are guilty of far greater crimes than any with which they might have been charged under Gunwalker. Such people are responsible for hundreds or even thousands of murders. (Mass graves are continually being discovered in Mexico.) The kinds of drug, money laundering, and conspiracy charges — to say nothing of intelligence indicating that such criminals are actively aiding Islamic terrorists in their designs on America — relegate any charge that could have possibly been leveled as a result of Gunwalker to the category of spitting on the sidewalk. And of course, Mexico has been, at best, reluctant to extradite cartel heads to America for the violation of any law. Because the ATF has no jurisdiction in Mexico, or any foreign country for that matter, the idea of arresting a cartel head on such laughable charges is doubly ridiculous.

We are left with the knowledge that the ATF ignored common sense and its own procedures — and that at least two American LEOs and at least 150 Mexican LEOs have to date paid the price. The highest levels of the ATF and the Holder DOJ are apparently willing to blatantly lie, and to appear to be incompetent. But why?

Is it possible that managers at the highest levels of the ATF truly believed that they were working a competent, significant law enforcement operation that would result in spectacular, international results? There is evidence that acting ATF head Kenneth Melson was intimately involved, including his request for IP addresses of cameras hidden in an Arizona gun shop so that he could watch straw purchases being made, but this could be little more than neophyte voyeurism. Even considering the enormous practicality and experience gulf that commonly exists between law enforcers and federal managers, this seems unlikely. That level of idiocy is probably rare, even in the federal government.

More likely is that Melson and others were pursuing Obama administration policies in pursuit of gun controls they could not secure through legislative means. Obtaining policy goals in this way is a common Obama administration tactic, and there is reason to believe, including the often repeated lie that 90% of the guns used illegally in Mexico come from America — stated by Mr. Obama himself — that this may be the case. But if so, it would suggest a willingness to pursue unpopular and arguably unconstitutional policies regardless of the consequences. This too is a common Obama administration tactic. It would also suggest an appalling lack of concern for the lives of American and Mexican LEOs and citizens.

There remain only two alternatives: that the managers of the ATF truly are stunningly incompetent — or that they are willing to appear to be dangerously incompetent to protect others, others in higher positions, because the truth is worse, much worse. Read more at pajamasmedia.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a15qpj