Fast and furious: dumb and delirious

Operation Fast and Furious could be one of the most ridiculous and embarrassing mishaps to come crashing down on the heads of U.S. intelligence departments since the Iran-Contra affair.

In a scandal involving members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration, it has become clear the lengths our government will go just to catch a few criminals,

The operation involves Mexican drug kingpins, U.S. intelligence officers and a story that could light up any Hollywood silver screen. It’s too bad Vin Diesel didn’t get his hands on this idea 10 years ago.

For those who have not heard about the operation, I will give a brief synopsis. The ATF lead a covert operation to track 2,000 illegal guns, which it sold within the U.S. to Mexico, eventually hoping to trace them back to Mexican drug cartel leaders.

Using taxpayer dollars to put guns in the hands of cartel members would be enough to raise the hair on most people’s heads, but the story does not stop there.

Of the 2,020 guns sold, only 590 of them have been recovered. Through simple math, one can conclude there are still 1,430 U.S. supplied weapons running around Mexico in the hands of men who have proven time and time again that calming down on indiscriminate violence is not on their “to do” list.

The controversy gained national attention after two of the firearms were found near Nogales, Ariz., where a U.S. border patrol officer was killed in a shootout with Mexican drug traffickers.

This later brought to light the ATF unknowingly sold some of the weapons to people who were already on a list of “paid informants” working for the FBI and DEA. This means that if adequate communication took place between the departments, some of these guns would have never needed to be sold.

The list of reasons why this operation should have never taken place keeps going on and on. The ethical question of whether to supply violent men with weapons so they can run around killing thousands of Mexicans and Americans alike seems to lead to a fairly simple answer: just don’t do it.

I believe this is a prime example of the government’s long track record of taking ethically irresponsible actions to impose its failing agenda.

What someone behind a big mahogany desk must not have accounted for is that these guns are killing people, and the only way to get them back is to pick them up next to the bodies of their victims.

­— ogwise@indiana.edu