The Definitive Scandal: ‘Gunwalker’ Much Worse Than ‘Iran-Contra’
Pay attention to this era-defining event: The 2,000+ weapons are implicated in an estimated 150 shootings of Mexican officers and soldiers, two American officers, and an unknown number of civilians.
On October 5, 1986, a former U.S. Air Force C-123 transport plane was shot down in Nicaragua. The pilots and radio operator perished when the plane crashed, but a former U.S. Marine who was a cargo handler on the aircraft was able to parachute to safety. He was captured by the Nicaraguan government.
The former Marine, Eugene Hasenfus, claimed to be a cargo handler for the CIA. His capture and trial began the unraveling of what became known as the Iran-Contra Affair, which saw 14 Reagan-era officials indicted and eleven convictions for a plot that traded arms to Iran for hostages and illegally funded Nicaragua’s anti-communist rebels.
On December 14, 2010, a special unit of the U.S. Border Patrol came across a group of heavily armed suspects near Rio Rico, Arizona. The Border Patrol team identified themselves as law enforcement officers, at which point the armed men open fire. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was hit in the pelvis by a single bullet and died the next morning. One of the suspects was captured, and two AK-pattern semiautomatic rifles recovered at the scene were identified by serial number as weapons that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) — acting in concert with and with the blessing of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) — allowed weapons smugglers to purchase at U.S. gun shops. The weapons were just two of more than 2,000 firearms that ATF supervisors and the highest levels of DOJ management allowed to be “walked” across the border to narco-terrorist drug cartels in Mexico, in a scandal that promises to be more damning and deadly than Iran-Contra.
The ATF named their operation Fast and Furious, but it will go down in history by its more descriptive title: “Gunwalker.”
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is holding hearings this week on Gunwalker, and seems to be squaring up for a political duel with the Obama administration, which is seeking to block all access to official information about the operation. To date, the information collected by the committee has come from ATF whisteblowers, agents inside the operation who fought against senior government officials who were “giddy” over the death and violence from the roughly 2000+ weapons that they allowed smugglers to take across the border — weapons that seemed to be raising the body count in what was arguably becoming a Mexican civil war.
A damning and detailed 51-page report — The Department of Justice’s Operation Fast and Furious: Accounts of ATF Agents (.pdf) — was released by the committee on Tuesday. The report captured testimony from ATF field agents who fought with their supervisors over orders that flew in direct contradiction to their primary order: to always follow the suspect with the gun and always interdict to keep the weapon from being used in a crime.
The report’s findings:
“DOJ and ATF inappropriately and recklessly relied on a 20-year-old ATF Order to allow guns to walk.” The agencies misrepresented the intention of the order to justify their actions.
“Supervisors told the agents to ‘get with the program’ because senior ATF officials had sanctioned the operation.” At least one agent was cautioned that if he didn’t stop complaining about the dangerous nature of the operation, he would find himself out of a job, and lucky to be working in a prison.
“Operation Fast and Furious contributed to the increasing violence and deaths in Mexico. This result was regarded with giddy optimism by ATF supervisors hoping that guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico would provide the nexus to straw purchasers in Phoenix.” ATF officials were seemingly unconcerned over the deaths of Mexican law enforcement officers, soldiers, and innocent civilians, noting that you had to “scramble a few eggs” to make an omelette, in a callous disregard of human life.
Senior ATF personnel including Acting Director Ken Melson, and senior Department of Justice officials at least up to an assistant attorney general, were well aware of and supported the operation.
Department of Justice officials hid behind semantics to lie and deny that they allowed guns to be walked across the border.
When asked by the Oversight Committee how many of 1,750 specific weapons that “walked” under orders of the ATF and DOJ could have been interdicted if agents were allowed to act as they were trained, the agents answered they could have stopped every single one.
The more than 2,000 weapons that the Obama Justice Department allowed to be delivered to Mexican narco-terrorist cartels are thought to have been used in the shooting of an estimated 150 Mexican law enforcement officers and soldiers battling the cartels. Two American law enforcement officers have also presumably fallen prey to these weapons, along with an unknown number of civilians on both sides of the border.
President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice has purposefully armed narco-terrorist drug cartels that have been accused of bombings, ambushes, mass murders, public executions, and the assassination of police, politicians, and civic leaders.
Obama’s Justice Department armed the enemy of our neighbor and ally, providing enough arms to equip ten infantry companies, or two battalions, of violent drug dealers.
Iran-Contra was a misguided attempt to trade arms for hostages and supply a covert supply of arms to rebels fighting against a communist dictatorship during the Cold War.
Gunrunner was an attempt to develop enough gun-running evidence to bring down a cartel, and instead supplied thousands of arms to drug cartels locked in a life-or-death struggle with a key U.S. ally and trading partner.
You tell me which is worse.
Physicians and Epidemiologists say 35% Spike in Infant Mortality in Northwest Cities Since Meltdown Might Be the Result of Fallout from Fukushima
As I’ve previously noted, infants are much more vulnerable to radiation than adults. And see this.
However, radiation safety standards are set based on the assumption that everyone exposed is a healthy man in his 20s.
Now, a physician (Janette D. Sherman, M. D.) and epidemiologist (Joseph Mangano) have penned a short but horrifying essay asking whether a spike in infant deaths in the Northwest are due to Fukushima:
The recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates that eight cities in the northwest U.S. (Boise ID, Seattle WA, Portland OR, plus the northern California cities of Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Berkeley) reported the following data on deaths among those younger than one year of age:
4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 – 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week)
10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 – 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week)This amounts to an increase of 35% (the total for the entire U.S. rose about 2.3%), and is statistically significant. Of further significance is that those dates include the four weeks before and the ten weeks after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster. In 2001 the infant mortality was 6.834 per 1000 live births, increasing to 6.845 in 2007. All years from 2002 to 2007 were higher than the 2001 rate.
***
Data from Chernobyl, which exploded 25 years ago, clearly shows increased numbers of sick and weak newborns and increased numbers of deaths in the unborn and newborns, especially soon after the meltdown. These occurred in Europe as well as the former Soviet Union. Similar findings are also seen in wildlife living in areas with increased radioactive fallout levels.
(Chernobyl – Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Alexeiy V. Yablokov, Vasily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Nesterenko. Consulting Editor: Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger. New York Academy of Sciences, 2009.)Levels of radioisotopes were measured in children who had died in the Minsk area that had received Chernobyl fallout. The cardiac findings were the same as those seen in test animals that had been administered Cs-137. Bandashevsky, Y. I, Pathology of Incorporated Ionizing Radiation, Belarus Technical University, Minsk. 136 pp., 1999. For his pioneering work, Prof. Bandashevsky was arrested in 2001 and imprisoned for five years of an eight year sentence.
***
Why should we care if there may be is a link between Fukushima and the death of children? Because we need to measure the actual levels of isotopes in the environment and in the bodies of people exposed to determine if the fallout is killing our most vulnerable. The research is not technically difficult – the political and economic barriers may be greater. Bandshevsky and others did it and confirmed the connection. The information is available in the Chernobyl book. (Previously cited.)The biological findings of Chernobyl cannot be ignored: isotope incorporation will determine the future of all life on earth – animal, fish, bird, plant and human. It is crucial to know this information if we are to avoid further catastrophic damage.
Leaked UFO Footage seen by Fighter Jet – 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7PmjrJFWJU&feature=player_detailpage
Russia Says IMF Chief Jailed For Discovering All US Gold Is Gone
A new report prepared for Prime Minister Putin by the Federal Security Service (FSB) says that former International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn [photo with Putin top left] was charged and jailed in the US for sex crimes on May 14th after his discovery that all of the gold held in the United States Bullion Depository located at Fort Knox [photo 2nd left] was ‘missing and/or unaccounted’ for.
According to this FSB secret report, Strauss-Kahn had become “increasingly concerned” earlier this month after the United States began “stalling” its pledged delivery to the IMF of 191.3 tons of gold agreed to under the Second Amendment of the Articles of Agreement signed by the Executive Board in April 1978 that were to be sold to fund what are called Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) as an alternative to what are called reserve currencies.
This FSB report further states that upon Strauss-Kahn raising his 
concerns with American government officials close to President Obama he was ‘contacted’ by ‘rogue elements’ within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who provided him ‘firm evidence’ that all of the gold reported to be held by the US ‘was gone’.
Upon Strauss-Kahn receiving the CIA evidence, this report continues, he made immediate arrangements to leave the US for Paris, but when contacted by agents working for France’s General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) that American authorities were seeking his capture he fled to New York City’s JFK airport following these agents directive not to take his cell-phone because US police could track his exact location.
Once Strauss-Kahn was safely boarded on an Air France flight to Paris, however, this FSB report says he made a ‘fatal mistake’ by calling the hotel from a phone on the plane and asking them to forwarded the cell-phone he had been told to leave behind to his French residence, after which US agents were able to track and apprehend him.
Within the past fortnight, this report continues, Strauss-Kahn reached out to his close friend and top Egyptian banker Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar to retrieve from the US the evidence given to him by the CIA. Omar, however, and exactly like Strauss-Kahn before him, was charged yesterday by the US with a sex crime against a luxury hotel maid, a charge the FSB labels as ‘beyond belief’ due to Omar being 74-years-old and a devout Muslim.
In an astounding move puzzling many in Moscow, Putin after reading this secret FSB report today ordered posted to the Kremlin’s official website a defense of Strauss-Khan becoming the first world leader to state that the former IMF chief was a victim of a US conspiracy. Putin further stated, “It’s hard for me to evaluate the hidden political motives but I cannot believe that it looks the way it was initially introduced. It doesn’t sit right in my head.”
Interesting to note about all of these events is that one of the United States top Congressman, and 2012 Presidential candidate, Ron Paul [photo bottom left] has long stated his belief that the US government has lied about its gold reserves held at Fort Knox. So concerned had Congressman Paul become about the US government and the Federal Reserve hiding the truth about American gold reserves he put forward a bill in late 2010 to force an audit of them, but which was subsequently defeated by Obama regime forces.
When directly asked by reporters if he believed there was no gold in Fort Knox or the Federal Reserve, Congressman Paul gave the incredible reply, “I think it is a possibility.”
Also interesting to note is that barely 3 days after the arrest of Strauss-Kahn, Congressman Paul made a new call for the US to sell its gold reserves by stating, “Given the high price it is now, and the tremendous debt problem we now have, by all means, sell at the peak.”
Bizarre reports emanating from the US for years, however, suggest there is no gold to sell, and as we can read as posted in 2009 on the ViewZone.Com news site:
To the final fate of Strauss-Kahn it is not in our knowing, but new reports coming from the United States show his determination not to go down without a fight as he has hired what is described as a ‘crack team’ of former CIA spies, private investigators and media advisers to defend him.
To the practical effects on the global economy should it be proved that the US, indeed, has been lying about its gold reserves, Russia’s Central Bank yesterday ordered the interest rate raised from 0.25 to 3.5 percent and Putin ordered the export ban on wheat and grain crops lifted by July 1st in a move designed to fill the Motherlands coffers with money that normally would have flowed to the US.
The American peoples ability to know the truth of these things, and as always, has been shouted out by their propaganda media organs leaving them in danger of not being prepared for the horrific economic collapse of their nation now believed will much sooner than later.
Source: WhatDoesItMean.Com
Pakistanis Had Osama Where They Wanted Him
“As the dust settles on the ruin of late Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, many questions have been asked. Pakistani authorities have not indicated any awareness of the project, and they are publicly deeply offended by it. Meanwhile, the Chinese obviously have seen the fractured US-Pakistani relationship as an opportunity.
Perhaps the view is speculative, but it does not seem hard to reach a sensible judgment about what was going on before the US raid. So far as Pakistani military authorities were concerned, Osama had to know that his base was being watched all the time. Most likely no one entered or left the compound without being observed, identified, tabulated, tracked, and probably questioned. If Osama and his people in that facility behaved, they were guests in Abbottabad. If they became truly obnoxious, they were really prisoners and could easily be disciplined.
Most likely Osama and his staff did not have telephone or internet connections to the outside world simply because they knew that on such media they could do nothing without being overheard or watched day and night. Good people had to carry instructions in their heads or nothing in the way of message traffic moved in or out. The cook was probably the person most often in touch with the outside world.
What were the benefits of this arrangement to Pakistani intelligence authorities? First, having Osama in that visible compound was far superior to trying to keep tabs on him and his operatives in Waziristan. Second, it was child’s play to track his operational activities, if any, by keeping tabs on any people who entered or left the site. Third, Pakistan’s intelligence service, ISI was probably not an innocent bystander whose operatives merely observed Osama’s traffic; they could easily take advantage of it and by co-opting Osama’s messengers they could easily piggyback on his activities. Fourth, it is not out of the question that Pak authorities could have joint ventured operations involving Osama’s Taliban contacts in the Afghan frontier regions or deeper in Afghanistan. Finally, it would have been no big deal to interfere with Osama’s outside team activities where that better served Pakistani purposes.
Now what? That should be the next question. Where will the central authority of al Qaida-to the extent that it retains one-station itself? Al Qaida operations from the beginning have been naturally decentralized to a great extent. That is because al Qaida largely does not invent the causes it serves. Rather it relies on local groups with local grievances to carry out operations that serve local purposes. Those activities may get media play or official reactions outside the countries of origin, but that would not be al Qaida’s doing. How al Qaida might help such local groups and activities is completely scenario driven.
The trick now is to locate and begin keeping effective tabs on al Qaida’s new operating center. As the US and Pak authorities pick up the pieces of a relationship badly fragmented by drone attacks and the covert Osama attack, a place to start is remapping the structure of al Qaida. The quickest way for al Qaida to regroup is to work in some existing subordinate location. That could well be reasonably nearby, in Pakistan probably in or near a sizeable city such as Peshawar. It would be hard to re-center in Afghanistan, because the al Qaida presence is reportedly so thin that beefing it up would attract attention.
Even so, the attractions of Afghanistan are enormous. Continued US, NATO and related Afghan support activities are not only natural targets for al Qaida mischief; they provide the environment for ready recruitment of new members to replace losses elsewhere and to augment activities in Afghanistan. The longer and more widely US/NATO forces conduct operations in Afghanistan, the better the recruitment environment for al Qaida. That is to say nothing of possibilities for alliances with disaffected elements of the Taliban. Such attractions might provide a reason for al Qaida reorganizers to build a new core group in the Afghan region, at least for starters. Such prospects do not bode well for the safety of US forces in that region in the near term. It would be prudent to mount an enhanced tracking effort just to determine that such moves and maneuvers are not occurring.
It was obviously so much easier for Pakistanis to keep tabs on al Qaida leadership (whether or not Osama was there) when the Abbottabad compound was home base. It will not be easy to replace that high order of surveillance and opportunity to interfere with al Qaida operations. It is not foregone that, with Chinese interference running high, the US/Pak relationship can be stabilized. However, what could come out of a US/Pakistani reexamination of the al Qaida leadership arrangements might well be a more effective US/Pakistani operation than existed before. Certainly, the injuries to relationships that covert US operations without consultations entail could be reduced and probably overcome by a more open and direct working relationship. For that purpose, both players need better definitions and agreements on what must be shared and coordinated.
However, the lesson for US friends and allies is hardly encouraging. Aside from the discomfiting drone attacks in Pakistan’s western frontier region, no such large scale covert US operation has been conducted before in a friendly country. The lesson of the Abbottabad operation is that friendship is no protection if the US sees something in a country that is perceived to threaten some American interest. In case there was any doubt, Obama has reconfirmed the George W. Bush policy of wherever US interests may appear to be threatened, there are no borders.”
By Terrell E. Arnold
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