The Burkle Center at UCLA has posted the video of Janet Napolitano's dry, boring speech at UCLA last month. If you are having trouble getting to sleep tonight, watching this is better than counting sheep. Otherwise, just skip to about the 36 minute mark and watch the No-borders Dreamers stage their chant and walkout followed by my question regarding Fast and Furious. This is where Janet takes umbrage at me rolling my eyes at her non-answer.
http://www.international.ucla.edu/burkle/news/article.asp?parentid=125738
Napolitano's answer was not only evasive; it was dishonest. She refers to the concept of "controlled delivery" in equating what ATF did in Fast and Furious with controlled deliveries as conducted by DEA. In the latter, agents are able to conduct a continuing surveillance on drugs that are either seized or still under surveillance up to the point where the ultimate intended recipient takes delivery, at which point, they can be arrested. Of course, this also applies to other contraband. This is clearly not what happened in Fast and Furious, nor was it even intended to do so. How can you arrest the intended recipients of guns in Mexico when the surveillance ends either at the US gun store or at the Mexican border? If you are watching guns purchased in the US (under surveillance) cross into Mexico, and the Mexican police are not involved -or even advised, where is the control? Who is going to be arrested? That was clearly not the goal. What was the goal? The only reasonable answer is that if the guns show up at shootings in Mexico, they can be traced back to the US and the administration's claim that 80-90% of guns in Mexico originate in the US is validated. Next step? Tighter control on gun sales and ownership. If you think that is a wild conspiracy theory, provide me with one that is more reasonable.
In addition, Napolitano refuses to go into her conversations with DOJ, either because according to her own testimony before Congress, there have been none, or there is something to hide in those contacts. By her own non-answer to my question, she shows herself to be complicit in a government cover-up of an operation in which (according to some reports) her own DHS had a supporting role.
Keep in mind as you watch her answer, this is a government head who has seen one, if not two of her own agents murdered by guns involved in Fast and Furious.
You have to give her credit. It was one of the best non-answers I have ever heard.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting... in business, you have to solve problems and be direct. You rise or fall on your decisions. In government, your fate seems to depend on how well you obfuscate and otherwise dodge and weave. This lady is a master practitioner. She is on both sides of all questions.
It was also a dishonest answer in that she was trying to equate f and F with controlled deliveries, where drugs already seized or under surveillance are allowed to continue to the recipients under surveillance and the recipients are arrested. F and F had nothing to do with that. There was no effort to follow the guns to anyone. Who was going to follow them in Mexico? No one. The Mexicans were not even advised. By her obfuscation and dishonesty, she has implicated herself in a cover-up.
ReplyDeleteI'm convinced someone HIGH UP wanted a campaign to prove that there is a gun problem and that it comes from the US. It is a conventional left wing position and now we have the most left wing president ever so they can push underhanded campaigns.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it was handled ineptly and it turned into a disasaster. Now they have to hide their correspondence.
I hope some whistle blower shows up and testifies about their hiding the evidence.
As I believe I have observed previously, you don’t necessarily have to be paranoid to at least consider that this is indeed a backdoor way to end up with increased gun restrictions on law-abiding citizens.
ReplyDeleteI will readily admit that I need to do a bit more research, and maybe someone can help me out here, but for some time now I have gradually begun to hear a little something more about some sort of global UN small arms treaty to which we will be pressured to be a signatory. I know it is probably only politics, but as an example, one of our Republican Senatorial candidates is making noises about it, with claims that it will restrict gun ownership relative to licenses, registrations, etc.
Considering that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, an avowed, even rabid, anti-gunner (even though she hides it fairly well) is/will be quite heavily involved, if in fact not the principal, in thedrafting/ratification any such treaty, and who further will almost certainly run for the presidency in 2016 and who well may in fact get elected, it is not the least bit difficult to suspect that F&F and the treaty are two separate but related initiatives
designed to do exactly what Gary has described.
The major problem with this kind of thinking is that increased gun control will only result in an increase in violent crime perpetrated by the bad guys against the good guys.
As I believe I have observed previously, you don’t necessarily have to be paranoid to at least consider that this is indeed a backdoor way for those gun dealers who are making good money supplying arms to the drug cartels to take the heat off themselves by getting their pliant tools in congress to put the heat on the Department of Justice instead.
ReplyDeleteAn old DEA hand like Gary knows how this works. A more recent example: two Mexican plainclothes officers had a cartel operation under surveillance in a low-income area. The cartel members, becoming aware of this, spread a quick rumor among some young mothers in the neighborhood that the two guys in the car over there were the ones responsible for a recent series of child molestations. The two plaintclothes officers were lynched by an outraged crowd of duped civilians long before a back-up team could save them.
Darrel Issa is a bit more sophisticated, but the principle is the same. Why would an experienced DEA under cover officer fall for such tripe? Gary believes ANYTHING that might discredit the President of the United States (at least this one).
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteThis old DEA hand has no idea what you are talking about.
Gary, you never heard of the Italian American Civil Rights League, organized by Joe Columbo? You never heard about the subsidized ghettoes in Kingston whose residents announced "We will die for Dudus"? You never in your entire career saw a drug gang pose as something honest, beneficial, and "for the people," or pull strings with pliant politicians to get the dogs called off their case?
ReplyDeleteYou've lived a more sheltered life than you have given the impression of.