Motive behind 'Project Gunwalker' needs closer look

Alternate title: "Did BATFE try the Underpants Gnomes' approach to 'War on Drugs'?"

CBS News has been on "Project Gunwalker" longer than any of the rest of the establishment media, and has done, and continues to do, fine work. Fox News is now on it (after some initial reluctance). The Los Angeles Times is on it. So, sort of, is the Seattle Times. Outside the U.S., the BBC has started covering it. Even the Washington Post has picked up the story, albeit with a healthy (or perhaps "healthy" is exactly the wrong word) dose of pro-BATFE spin. And many others.

National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea and Sipsey Street Irregulars' Mike Vanderboegh have, in other words, after literally months (and endless hours of effort) of being near lone voices in the wilderness, successfully brought this enormous story into the mainstream. A senior United States Senator, in an important oversight position, has made clear he's not going away without answers--a lot of answers, and they had better be good. The U.S. House of Representatives is now stirring, as well. The Mexican government is also demanding answers (some might even call them "livid")--although it took them long enough.

Still, though, as gratifying as it is to see the mass media on the case, there is one vital angle they seem to this point to have missed completely. So far, the major press outlets seem to buy the BATFE/DoJ spin--that this was a perhaps ill-considered, but still honorably intended, effort to bring down at least one major Mexican drug syndicate. The notion that the main objective was to "pad" the statistics about Mexican "crime guns" coming from the U.S. civilian market, thus strenghtening the BATFE's argument for more funding and power--and "gun control" advocates' calls for more restrictive gun laws--seems hardly to have occurred to most of the media. That's odd, because with only a little bit of thought, the "we had hoped to take down a whole major drug organization" idea looks quite implausible. Mr. Codrea explains:

Think about it, and think about everything that has been corroborated to date: You don’t let thousands of guns escape into the wild, totally losing control of them, and knowing they will be found at crime scenes and traced back to U.S. gun stores, and then think that following a trail between a small-level buyer and a smaller-level user is going to lead you to the crime lord. La Jeunesse’s analogy with drugs only works if you’re talking letting kilos of drugs at a time escape your oversight and then hoping to pin the major player by recovering small packets from the junkie on the other end of the trail.

We are, in other words, being asked to believe that the BATFE's grand strategy for bringing down the drug cartels (when did that become a BATFE mission, anyway?) resembled South Park's Underpants Gnomes' business plan (see sidebar video for 10-second version), with the BATFE adaptation going something like this:

Phase 1: Encourage gun dealers (and sometimes pay them, as confidential informants) to sell guns to known traffickers
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Humbly accept plaudits as Mexican drug cartel comes crashing down

Brilliant!

In still other words, we are expected not to think of the BATFE and Department of Justice (and entities higher even than that in the U.S. government?) as having engaged in a monstrous conspiracy, at the price, probably, of the lives of hundreds of Mexicans (one Mexican congressman is citing a figure of 150 dead and wounded, although it's unclear how he arrived at that number), and one (or two?) U.S. federal agents, in order to justify more draconian gun regulation. Instead, we are being asked to believe that those behind the "Gunwalker" plan were "merely" grossly incompetent. Remember also that this might be much bigger even than "just" Mexico--there are some indications that BATFE-approved "straw sales" are supplying criminals all over the country. All the better to justify more "gun control."

The "we're incompetent (Underpants Gnomes-incompetent)" excuse should be pretty humiliating for anyone involved, but it does make a certain kind of sense that they would prefer it to admitting that they have been trading Mexican (and some American) lives for more infringements on that which shall not be infringed. That excuse would probably also serve to help insulate some of the higher level officials--perhaps even an elected official who, on April 16, 2009 said, "More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States," and who might have approved a sinister plan to push the numbers toward that figure.

Suddenly, the "we're incompetent" excuse might have a certain appeal, especially to those who can change that to "they're incompetent, but don't blame me--it's so hard to get good help these days."