Amy Goodman: War on Drugs: Fast, Furious and Fueled by the U.S.

[marmar]

from truthdig:



War on Drugs: Fast, Furious and Fueled by the U.S.

Posted on Jun 14, 2011
By Amy Goodman


The violent deaths of Brian Terry and Juan Francisco Sicilia, separated by the span of just a few months and by the increasingly bloody U.S.-Mexico border, have sparked separate but overdue examinations of the so-called War on Drugs, and how the U.S. government is ultimately exacerbating the problem.

On the night of Dec. 14, 2010, Agent Brian Terry was in the Arizona desert as part of the highly trained and specially armed BORTAC unit, described as the elite paramilitary force within the U.S. Border Patrol. The group engaged in a firefight, and Terry was killed. While this death might have become just another violent act associated with drug trafficking along the border, one detail has propelled it into a high-stakes confrontation between the Obama administration and the U.S. Congress: Weapons found at the scene, AK-47s, were sold into likely Mexican criminal hands under the auspices of a covert operation of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Dubbed “Operation Fast and Furious,” the secret program aimed to trace arms sold in the U.S. to so-called straw buyers, people who buy arms on behalf of others. The ATF’s operation allowed gun shops to sell bulk weapons to straw buyers who the ATF suspected were buying on behalf of Mexican drug cartels. Instead of arresting the straw buyer, considered a relatively low-level criminal by the ATF, tracing the guns as they made their way into Mexico might allow the ATF to arrest more senior members of the criminal cartels. At least, that was the plan.

According to reporting by the Center for Public Integrity, 1,765 guns were knowingly sold as part of “Fast and Furious.” Another 300 or so were sold before the operation started. Of these more than 2,000 guns, fewer than 800 have been recovered. Two of the guns recovered were found at the site of Terry’s death, in a region known as Peck Canyon, on the U.S. side of the border between Nogales, Mexico, and Tucson, Ariz. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/war_on_drugs_fast_furious_and_fueled_by_the_us_20110614/

[pipoman]

1. Agreed

on most points.

Without the US failed drug policy/war on drugs, there would be no need for any curbs of civil liberties in the US. The 70% figure has been debunked over and over. The 70% comes not from all seized firearms in Mexico, only those the Mexican .gov decides to request tracing info on. It doesn't apply to the thousands of automatic weapons seized, nor to weapons which originate from the Mexican .gov.

I am tired of the Mexican government making demands and being critical of US and our policies. They place responsibility of illegal immigration on the US, they place responsibility of illegal drugs coming into the US on the US, now they place responsibility of guns from the US going to Mexico. They take no responsibility for any of their own rampant .gov/leo corruption from the bottom to the top.

The US has sent our jobs, accepted Mexicos refugees, allowed for billions of US dollars to be legally transferred from the US to Mexico. The Mexican .gov has not empowered workers, placed any workers parity policy, allowed for private ownership of land, cracked down on corruption, allowed their people the means of protecting themselves against the cartels, etc.

Fuck the Mexican .gov.

It is time for Obama's administration to come out on the side of sanity and disavow the war on drugs, decriminalize pot, and defund Mexican terrorists. What a legacy, being the president who stopped the flow of guns and illegal money to Mexico.

Edit: Oh, and those who were the originators of the ridiculous "fast and Furious" program should be immediately dismissed and possibly jailed. I am not so sure this program wasn't bought and paid for by Mexican drug cartels.

[pscot]

2. the police state needs the war on drugs

to justify its huge budgets.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Just another reflective prism of the multi-hued, brilliantly insane policy known

as "The War on Drugs."

Thanks for the thread, marmar.