This Man Belongs In Jail

I thought I was reasonably well-informed about the 'Fast and Furious' mess - the stupidity and incompetence of the ATF that resulted in thousands of guns being allowed to walk across the border into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, resulting in the deaths of Mexican citizens and LEOS, along with the deaths of U.S. LEOs. And of course we've had to endure the subsequent cover-ups among obama administration officials. As it turns out, however, there are things about this mess that I didn't know.

The first is the ludicrous rules of engagement under which the Border Patrol must labor. These include other federal agencies - most notably the Bureau of Land Management and the National Parks Service - denying the Border patrol access to certain federal lands, including wilderness areas and national parks.

This inter-agency conflict might ordinarily amount to a typical bureaucratic turf war -- but it's gotten more attention in recent years as agents have driven illegal immigrant traffic away from urban crossings and diverted a lot of it into the remote, tough-to-patrol federal land mass that makes up more than 40 percent of the southwest borderland.

As a result, large swaths of America's wilderness and park land, hit by a wave of smuggler traffic, have been deemed too dangerous for visitors. Much has been closed off to the public. Border Patrol has nearly doubled its patrol force in the last five years but has run into roadblocks in trying to get better access to the land.

According to the GAO report, supervisors at 17 of the 26 federal land stations said their access had been limited over land management laws, "resulting in delays and restrictions in agents' patrolling." Often, this meant they couldn't get permission for routine projects in a "timely manner."

In typical government fashion, one agency makes lands along the border off-limits to another agency. Needless to say, drug cartels and illegal alien smugglers take advantage of this. Criminals who have no regard for either laws or environmentaly senssitive lands and species run rampant. As illegal traffic goes up, so does damage to the land that BLM is trying to protect. At the same time, the Border Patrol's job is made more difficult, and American citizens are denied access to our own lands, while those who do go there are put at increased risk.

But the access issue, troubling though it may be, is not the most egregious rule of engagement. That 'honor' goes to the protocol agents must follow when confronting armed suspects.

Northwest of Nogales, AZ, Peck Canyon is a hotbed for illegal drugs and a battleground between illegals coming from Mexico fighting amongst themselves and the US Border Patrol.  At 11:15 PM the night of December 14, 2010 the Border Patrol is watching a “rip crew”, (illegals that prey on other illegals moving drugs into the US). The illegal rip crew was in a position to ambush anyone coming up the canyon.

Border Patrol agents commanded the illegals to drop their weapons. When they did not, the Patrol fired at them with beanbags as required by engagement protocol. The illegals fired back with AK-47s and real bullets.

Beanbags?!? Are you freakin' kidding me? We're asking our federal LEOs to go up against AK-toting thugs armed with beanbags? What imbecile came up with that idea?

When the firefight was over, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was dead. An AK-47 bullet had entered his back some 29 inches below the shoulder.

At the scene were three AK-47 rifles, all part of the 2,000 plus guns that the Department of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) under the Department of Justice (DOJ) had allowed to “walk” into Mexico.

To complicate things, one of the recovered AK-47s has been 'appropriated' by the FBI: removed from the collection of evidence related to the murder of Agent Terry "to protect a “CI” (confidential informant) the agency is working." I wonder what that's all about. Nothing good, I suspect.

A bright, respected, dedicated, well-trained young man, a United States Federal Law Enforcement Agent, dead at the hands of illegal Mexicans using rifles supplied by our own DOJ through ATF.

Read that last paragraph again. Pause and think about it. The government ties the hands of LEOs trying to protect us. It supplies weapons to vicious drug cartels. It does little to stop the flow of drugs and illegal aliens into this country. And the people responsible for this go unpunished.

Do you see anything wrong with this picture?

So much is wrong that it almost defies speech. Everything about this situation rubs against every principle, tenet, belief, ideology or standard that this country stands for.

And, much of what the DOJ and ATF has done and continues to do is in defiance of the law.

Headed, of course, by the criminal culpability of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Forget contempt of congress charges against Holder (heck, I'm guilty of contempt of congress). Forget calling for his resignation. Even forget impeaching him.

Indict the SOB.

To make matters even worse, there is reason to believe that the drug cartels are now engaged in 'search-and-destroy' missions targeting U.S. Border Patrol agents.

A now-sealed federal grand jury indictment in the death of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry says the Mexican nationals were “patrolling” the rugged desert area of Peck Canyon at about 11:15 p.m. on Dec. 14 with the intent to “intentionally and forcibly assault” Border Patrol agents.

According to the indictment, the Mexicans were “patrolling the area in single-file formation” a dozen miles northwest of the border town of Nogales and — in the darkness of the Arizona night — opened fire on four Border Patrol agents after the agents identified themselves in Spanish as police officers.

Using thermal binoculars, one of the agents determined that at least two of the Mexicans were carrying rifles, but according to an affidavit in the case by FBI agent Scott Hunter, when the Mexicans did not drop their weapons as ordered, two agents used their shotguns to fire “less than lethal” beanbags at them.

At least one of the Mexicans opened fire and, according to the affidavit, Terry, a 40-year-old former U.S. Marine, was shot in the back. A Border Patrol shooting-incident report said that Terry called out, “I’m hit,” and then fell to the ground, a bullet having pierced his aorta. “I can’t feel my legs,” Terry told one of the agents who cradled him. “I think I’m paralyzed.”

Bleeding profusely, he died at the scene.

After the initial shots, two agents returned fire, hitting Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, 33, in the abdomen and leg. The others fled. The FBI affidavit said Osorio-Arellanes admitted during an interview that all five of the Mexicans were armed.

Osorio-Arellanes initially was charged with illegal entry, but that case was dismissed when the indictment was handed up. It named Osorio-Arellanes on a charge of second-degree murder, but did not identify him as the likely shooter, saying only that Osorio-Arellanes and others whose names were blacked out “did unlawfully kill with malice aforethought United States Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry while Agent Terry was engaged in … his official duties.”

The indictment also noted that Osorio-Arellanes had been convicted in Phoenix in 2006 of felony aggravated assault, had been detained twice in 2010 as an illegal immigrant, and had been returned to Mexico repeatedly.

I'm sure most of you are scrathing your head and wondering why that scumbag wasn't in prison, rather than being subjected to obama's catch-and-release policy. Good question.

If those assholes want a war, let's give them one. As our troops are pulled out of Iraq, let's station a couple of divisions along the Mexico border. Give them drones and manned air support, and declare certain well-known drug smuggling corridors as free-fire zones. We'll see how long this nonsense continues then.

After all, it is a matter of national security...