Tuesday, July 5, 2011

What's good for the goose

Mexico is making noises that the U.S. officials who authorized, took part in, and covered up Operation Fast and Furious, AKA Operation Gunrunner, could face prosecution in Mexico for the damage to that country, including the deaths of multiple Mexican citizens.

While I'm a proud American, and normally I wouldn't allow any other country to indict, extradite, and prosecute our citizens, much less government officials, I'm on Mexico's side on this one.  This isn't some Spanish court indicting Dick Cheney for political reasons.  Our government seems to have aided and abetted weapons smuggling, which led to the death of Mexican citizens.   We regularly extradite criminals from the rest of the world to the United States so they can answer for their crimes in the drug trade.  Why are the ATF, Justice Department, and other Obama administration officials any different?

They are accused of, either through malice or negligence, of allowing the illegal export of thousands of firearms to Mexico while that country is in the midst of a low-level civil war between the drug cartels and the government.  Even assuming that the plan was formed and executed out of sheer stupidity and was not some nefarious scheme to influence U.S. domestic gun control policies, those who ordered it and carried it out need to be held criminally liable.

If they don't get a trial here, then we should extradite them to Mexico if they are charged there.  If we expect the rest of the world to give us their criminals, including corrupt government officials, for crimes committed here, then we have to do the same for them.

2 comments:

Sean D Sorrentino said...

If they fueled a drug gang fight, we are bound to extradite.

Ruth said...

As long as they get the actual ringleaders and not a scape goat, I'm all for it.

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