President Barack Obama told the Mexican people today that the United States is partly to blame for Mexico’s drug violence because of illegal drugs and gun smuggling. However, he did not mention the gun smuggling undertaken by his own administration under the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Operation Fast and Furious.
Speaking to Mexican university students, Obama pointed a finger at his own country, as Reuters reported:
Drug-fueled violence in Mexico is not entirely the fault of the Mexican people, he said. Instead, the United States shares the blame because much of the violence is centered around the Americans’ demand for illegal drugs and the fact that guns are smuggled into Mexico from the United States.
“In this relationship there is no senior partner or junior partner. We are two equal partners, two sovereign nations that must work together in mutual interest and mutual respect,” Obama said.
Obama also vowed to jail gun smugglers–though did not mention any members of his own administration:
We recognize that most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States…we’ll keep increasing the pressure on the gun traffickers who bring illegal guns into Mexico, and we’ll keep putting these criminals where they belong–behind bars.
Far from pursuing the smugglers in Operation Fast and Furious, President Obama asserted executive privilege over documents related to the operation last year in an attempt to bar congressional investigations.
Fast and Furious was a gun-walking operation out of the Phoenix ATF office. Agents allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels and did nothing to trace or intercept the weapons. It started in the fall of 2009 and only ended in December 2010 when Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered in Arizona; the guns at the scene were traced to Fast and Furious.
Over 300 deaths in Mexico are linked to Fast and Furious guns and hundreds are still missing. No one within the DOJ has been held accountable and no one has revealed who came up with Fast and Furious or who approved it.
Evidence shows Fast and Furious was used as a way to promote tighter gun control laws. There is also plenty of evidence that shows knowledge of the operation went into the upper echelons of the DOJ and other departments.
Breitbart News’s Joel Pollak reported in July 2011 that Representative Darrell Issa and Senator Charles Grassley requested communications between the White House, State Department, and DOJ pertaining to Fast and Furious.
In March 2009, about six months before Fast and Furious launched, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Mexico almost the exact same thing Obama said today:
“Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade,” Mrs. Clinton said, using unusually blunt language. “Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians.”
The following month Obama repeated Clinton’s sentiments:
“This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States. More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border.”
Obama forgets evidence proves the majority of guns in Mexico do not come from America. Only 17% have been traced back to America.
If Obama wants to stop gun smuggling to Mexico, he needs to start in his own administration.
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