For months, I’ve asserted that Operation Fast and Furious had nothing to do with catching “the big fish” swimming in the “Iron River” of U.S. gun store guns allegedly flowing to Mexican drug thugs. The ATF’s supposed “botched sting” was actually part of a wider U.S. government effort to destroy the Mexican drug cartel known as Los Zetas. In fact, Fast and Furious (and Operation Castaway) was specifically designed to arm the Sinaloas and their pals against the Zetas, who threaten to take control of the drug corridor leading into the United States. And now there’s new evidence linking the ATF to Uncle Sam’s covert anti-Zetas campaign. But first, a quick recap . . .
Back in August, captured former Sinaloa Cartel jefe Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla fingered the feds in the American government’s pro-Sinaloa, anti-Zetas campaign. That same month, The New York Times revealed that the CIA was stepping-up its campaign against Los Zetas, including in-country agents, store-bought mercenaries and Predator drone flights.
The Mexican military is now staging SWAT style anti-Zetas raids from U.S. soil, coordinated by our friends at Langley using U.S. intel, flying in U.S.-funded choppers, firing U.S.-made guns, grenades and God knows what else. To be fair, the Mexican Navy’s U.S.-trained Seal teams have been going great guns. Since July, they’ve captured Zetas bosses, disrupted the Zetas’ communications network and (reported minutes ago) raided a Zetas “training camp.”
Equally important, we now hear that Cartels unite in the fight against Los Zetas. The anti-Zetas criminal alliance is called “The Resistance.” It has a logo (of course) and, according to our sources, the unofficial blessing of both the United States and Mexican governments.
The United Cartel are made up of former members of the Milenio cartel, remnants of the Valencia and the Amezcua Contreras Cartels, La Familia Michoacana, and the Gulf Cartel. Who make criminal groups like The Resistance, Jalisco Cartel New Generation, and the Gulf cartel, which after its break from their executive arm the Zetas The Zetas, maintain an internal struggle that seeks the destruction of both organizations.
The Resistance, was created by La Familia Michoacana to counter the attacks of criminal groups such as The Zetas.
Hmmm. Lest we forget, the ATF and the U.S. Attorney’s office stand accused of allowing grenade and machine gun maker Jean Baptiste Kingery walk from an arrest in the United States so that he could supply grenades and machine guns to La Familia Michoacana. As part of their anti-Zetas efforts? Count on it.
The result of this ATF-enabled gang-on-gang violence has been nothing less than horrific. On that point, with the help of foxnews.com, let me be clear:
Motorists stuck in heavy traffic during rush hour in a Mexican Gulf coast city watched in horror as suspected drug traffickers drove two trucks to a main avenue and dumped 35 dead bodies as gunmen stood guard and pointed their weapons.
The gruesome scene Tuesday in the downtown of Boca del Rio was the latest escalation in drug violence in Veracruz state, which sits on an important route for drugs and Central American migrants heading north.
The Zetas drug cartel has been locked in a bloody war with drug gangs for control of the state.
And it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets even worse. As Samuel Logan from Southern Pulse puts it . . .
We have three disparate groups formed together under a loose alliance to fight against a single paramilitary organization. Gunmen on both sides are well-armed, poorly trained, and highly motivated by pay, reward of ascension within their organizations, and the promise of loot – the perfect recipe for a blood bath.
Click here to read Logan’s John Keegan-like analysis of the geography and strategy of this struggle for control of Northern Mexico.
Keep in mind that Logan’s missing a key piece in this blood-soaked puzzle. Neither the American nor Mexican governments are standing around waiting for the killers to kill each other. They’ve chosen the anti-Zetas side in what could be called a civil war—if there was anything even remotely civil about it.
And now that the ATF, CIA, DOJ, ICE, IRS, DHS, CPB, State Department and White House have sided with President Calderon and picked the anti-Zetas team playing “Who Wants to Control $18b a Year in Tax-Free Cash?”, what happens if the Zetas win? Could we have a Mexican military junta with millions of refugees pouring over our porous border? We could.
Even if Los Zetas lose, the likelihood that the U.S. covert war against the mega-cartel will get dirtier in the interim boggles the mind. But there it is. And there’s the ATF, accused of contributing to the cause, thereby contributing to the death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata and countless Mexicans.
Their defense? Stupidity. Roger that. No matter which way this goes, whether or not “our” bad guys eventually beat “the other bad guys,” there will be tears before bedtime. To say the least.