Operation Gunrunner: An Administration Cover-Up That Gets Full MSM Support

Gary North

July 13, 2011

Newsmax and World Net Daily have run stories on the U.S. government's botched "sting" operation to get Mexican drug lords. The government sold automatic weapons to dealers in order to track the weapons to kingpins, or something like that. It's all a little vague.

Anyway, the head of the BATF has been implicated, and he is frantically pointing the blame elsewhere.

The government is in full stonewall mode.

Where are Woodward and Bernstein when you need them?

Just last week, Jesus Rejon Aguilar, an alleged founder of one of the most violent cartels, the Zetas gang, admitted to Mexican authorities, "All the weapons are bought in the United States," adding, "Even the American government was selling the weapons."

Aguilar was arrested on July 3. Among his alleged crimes is the murder of U.S. immigration officer Jaime Zapata, who was killed in February while on special assignment near San Luis Potosi in central Mexico. "Whatever you want, you can get," Aguilar said in a videotaped interrogation with Mexican authorities.

Dobyns said ATF acting Director Kenneth Melson, who has told Congressional investigators that the DoJ tried to stop him giving evidence, also has to bear his share of the blame.

"Acting director or not, this is his baby," said Dobyns, who wrote the New York Times bestseller "No Angel" about his Hell's Angels investigation. "This took place on his watch.

"A U.S. Border Patrol agent called Brian Terry was murdered with guns that passed through an ATF operation. ICE agent Jaime Zapata was murdered with guns that allegedly came through this case. Hundreds of Mexican civilians, police officers, police chiefs have been murdered. A Mexican police helicopter was shot down with a gun that came through our control," he pointed out.

Senator Grassley and Congressman Issa say they plan to get to investigate this, but they are getting nowhere.

This story is getting no coverage in the mainstream media. But the Web is getting out the message. There is a detailed account on Wikipedia

Project Gunrunner is an operation of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) intended to stem the flow of firearms into Mexico, in an attempt to deprive the Mexican drug cartels of weapons. However, multiple agents within the ATF have publicly stated that they were ordered to allow weapons to flow south of the border in order to "get evidence to take down a drug cartel".

ATF began Project Gunrunner as a pilot project in Laredo, Texas, in 2005 and expanded it as a national initiative in 2006. Project Gunrunner is also part of the Department's broader Southwest Border Initiative, which seeks to reduce cross-border drug and firearms trafficking and the high level of violence associated with these activities on both sides of the border.

This got no publicity for six years.

That's what I love about the Web. Some story takes months or years to get to a site like Newsmax, but the basics have been online for months. Then: ka-pow. It gets out to a wider audience.

The government has gotten away with covering this up this for years. It's not that the details are not available. They are hidden in plain site. But nothing happens. Then, without warning, the story gets picked up.

This is the new politics of the Internet. The government can run and hide, but not indefinitely.

The MSM covers up, hoping that the story will not get out. It may not get out. But Drudge can get it out. So can others. The government never knows when a story like this will go viral.