Fast and Furious Racism

Tea Party Tribune ^ | 2012-06-24 17:43:50 | mrcurmudgeon

[tselatysr]

For the left, Operation Fast and Furious is George W. Bush's fault, or it's a witch-hunt over already answered questions. After all, Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department gave more than seven thousand documents to the House committee investigating the matter.

Considering the sheer volume of paper involved, two questions remain unanswered: First, who ordered the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to sell assault weapons to Mexican drug cartels? Second, did the person or persons in question ever once consider the deadly consequences this action would have on the lives of innocent people caught in the crossfire?

For some, the question seems to boil down to race. Many accuse House Republicans of targeting Holder due to his skin color than credit a small cadre of GOP lawmakers for uncovering a high-level administration gunrunning operation - and its subsequent cover-up.

"I don't want to start too much [of a] forest fire here, but it is my instinct: Is this [Holder contempt vote] ethnic?" asked MSNBC's Chris Matthews.

Former Rep. Arthur Davis wrote at Politico that by invoking Executive Privilege, President Obama intended "to drive the narrative of Republican extremism," adding, "Holder's race, frankly, is a convenience that abets the other favored Democratic argument of covert Republican racism."

I submit that contemptible racism is a singular component of Operation Fast and Furious - not because of the justifiable attacks on Attorney General Eric Holder and the Stone-Walling Oval Office occupant - but that our media and political establishment ignores the deadly operation's voluminous victims ... innocent Mexican citizens.

Mario Gonzalez Rodriguez was kidnapped by the Sinaloa drug cartel in October 2010. After subjecting him to torture, his thuggish narco kidnappers switched on a video camera to record Rodriguez denouncing his sister, who was then the attorney general for the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The body of Rodriguez was later recovered with two Kalashnikov rifles, which were traced back to Fast and Furious.

"The basic ineptitude of these [ATF] officials caused the death of my brother and surely thousands more victims," said Patricia Gonzalez Rodriquez to an ATF official attached to the U.S. embassy in Mexico City.

Although no official numbers have been released, and with the media decidedly uninterested in finding out, it is estimated that at least 300 Mexican citizens died as a result of the ATF's gun sales.

In a profile on Eric Holder, The New York Times noted that a "more extreme segment" of conservatives are "motivated by animus against Mr. Obama and that he [Holder] served as a stand-in for him," said the Times.

"This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him ... both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we're both African-American," Holder told the Times.

The Afro-centric nature of Holder and Obama's mindset renders them oblivious to the suffering of others outside their racial orbit - even other racial minorities.

"Have there been mistakes made under AG Holder's watch?" asked MSNBC host the Rev. Al Sharpton, "Yes. But was he responsible for creating the Fast & Furious program, or has he been non-cooperative? No. Is he being unfairly targeted and dragged through the mud as a method of delay from other pressing issues? Undoubtedly for sure."

No issue is more pressing than knowing if the Attorney General of the United States - charged with upholding the nation's laws - sanctioned an operation that added to the deadly arsenals of ruthless Mexican drug cartels and hastened the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of innocent people.

The truth, we are told, should take a back seat to Chicago-style race politics. "Pay no attention to the dead of Mexico," the Obama administration and the mainstream media seem to be saying, "They aren't the right shade of brown."

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[drunknsage]

Anyone spoken with the Commerce Dept regarding whether the Obama justice Dept received approval for those sales? The Kingpin law is very specific and allows for ZERO wiggle room for law enforcement. This point was brought up last year but I never saw any follow up.