Obama Administration, Official Weapons Supplier to Mexican Drug Cartels

How could anyone have thought this was a good idea?

At least 122 firearms from a botched U.S. undercover operation have been found at crime scenes in Mexico or intercepted en route to drug cartels there, according to a Republican congressional report being issued on Tuesday.

Mexican authorities found AK-47 assault rifles, powerful .50 caliber rifles and other weapons in late 2009 that were later linked to the U.S. sting operation to trace weapons going across the border to Mexico, the report said.

Guns from the program, dubbed "Operation Fast and Furious," also were found at the scene of the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in the border state Arizona last December. It is not clear if they were the weapons responsible for his death.

The sting has become an embarrassment for the Obama administration and its Justice Department, rather than a victory in cracking down on the illegal flow of drugs and weapons to and from Mexico.

It has also hurt ties with Mexico, which has been battling the violent cartels in a war in which thousands have died.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and federal prosecutors had hoped the sting would help them track gun buyers reselling weapons to cartels. But U.S. agents did not follow the guns after the initial purchaser re-sold them.

From the start this program was never about catching drug cartels or stopping gun smugglers. It was about using these weapons as an excuse for further gun control in the U.S. You take a group of weapons that you don't think Americans should be allowed to own, you make sure they fall into the hands of violent gangs which use them as you would expect them too, and then you decry the violence that results and demand these weapons be banned in the U.S. That was the real motivation for this whole project.

And if anyone else was president, this would be a potential administration-ending scandal. But because it's Obama, don't look for much media attention to this whole thing, even with a dead Border Patrol agent. The mainstream media still loves Obama and hates guns - they'll give him a pass.