The dope on Fast and Furious. [Archive]

CitizenBBN

12-01-2013, 04:00 PM

‘It’s like the underwear gnomes,” my ATF colleague Lee Casa told me one time as we recounted the latest bizarre goings-on in Phoenix.

“What?” I asked.

“You ever watch ‘South Park’? There’s this episode where all the boys get their underwear stolen by these underwear gnomes. They track them down to get it back and one of them asks why they are stealing everyone’s underwear. The gnomes break out this PowerPoint and reveal their master plan: Phase One: Collect underpants . . . Phase Two: ? . . . Phase Three: Profit.”

“We’re doing the same thing,” he explained. “We know Phase One is ‘Walk guns’ and Phase Three is ‘Take down a big cartel!’ ”

I cannot tell you how many times I've called this operation the Underwear Gnomes, and how many blank stares I've gotten, but those who have seen it all nod in agreement it's the perfect analogy. Well, as long as you don't buy the conspiracy that they intentionally were doing this to up US gun violence in Mexico go justify more gun laws in the US (which I largely do actually believe given the evidence that has come out).

Regardless, the operation itself, sans ulterior motives, is the Underwear Gnomes incarnate. Step 1: give them guns. Step 2:????? Step 3: arrest cartel king pins.

I haven't read a whole book in quite some time, other than to re-read a few pieces from Kafka and similar, but I'll read this one.

FWIW if you read that link you see enough to know this wasn't just sheer incompetence. I don't subscribe to a lot of conspiracy theories b/c they can be explained by stupidity, and there is a LOT of stupidity in the world and in government in particular, but at some point it passes stupidity b/c it's in violation of everything that normally happens procedurally. This flew in the face of every established bureaucratic procedure and continued for years, which means people at the top were knowingly letting it happen and praising those who were doing it. People in those jobs don't stick their necks out, don't just go off and do things like walk guns to drug cartels of their own accord. No way. that's not how government works.

Very senior people were saying it was OK, and given that even they aren't so stupid as to believe the underpants gnomes for 2+ years, they had to be allowing it for a reason. IMO it was b/c the gun control groups at that time were building their case for gun control based on Mexican gun violence and its link to the US civilian market. Feinstein already had the report ready when Dodson blew the whistle, citing ATF numbers that included the F&F guns as part of those getting into the hands of the cartels. (I have a copy of that report saved if anyone wants me to post it).

I don't think they sat down and said "send as many guns to Mexico as you can", but when this operation let them play secret agent AND lined up with the political goal of possibly proving the US market was a source of those guns, it was allowed to continue in hopes that somehow down the road it would pay off. If it didn't serve that political goal initially in its design and purpose it would never have happened. So in the end politics was behind it, and it's obviously fatal flaws were overlooked b/c in the broad sense the worst it was doing is what they wanted done: proving these guns are going from US gun stores to Mexico.

The fact that it wouldn't have happened without the US government was irrelevant. In fact if you read the link and do homework on this you find that not only was the ATF overriding both the gun store owners and the FBI NICS checks to get them sold in the first place, they were being bought with money supplied by the FBI to the higher ups who were acting as informants for them. So the US government not only allowed them to walk, they paid for them too, at least in part.

This all happened b/c a) ATF is incompetent at running such operations (they're still missing 100 million or so cigarettes from stings last year alone), and b) Obama/Feinstein wanted to renew the assault weapons ban.