My country is corrupt. I posit that it is complicit in the murder and annihilation of my race of people. I believe they have been inventing ingenious, covert ways to undermine population growth of people of color who may pose a threat to the traditional power structure. Why are you surprised? I find it hard to believe that anyone is. Federal agent, John Dodson, says what he was asked to do was beyond belief. When asked was he intentionally letting guns go to Mexico? Dodson told CBS News, "Yes ma'am�the agency was." This not unbelievable�

An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms senior agent assigned to the Phoenix office in 2010, Dodson's job was to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen. Investigators call the tactic letting guns "walk." In this case, walking into the hands of criminals who would use them in Mexico and the United States, namely in urban, Black-populated centers.

ATF named the case "Fast and Furious." Real Hollywood of them, except this isn�t fiction. Real lives are at stake. Real people are dying�and the United States government is in on it. Mexico, a major drug producing and transit country, is the main foreign supplier of cannabis and a major supplier of methamphetamine to the United States. Although Mexico accounts for only a small share of worldwide heroin production, it supplies a large share of the heroin distributed in the United States. Drug cartels in Mexico control approximately 70% of the foreign narcotics that flow into the United States. Guess where that ends up?

The US State Department estimates that 90% of cocaine entering the United States transits through Mexico, with Colombia being the main cocaine producer, followed by Bolivia and Peru. That�s why this Mexico connection is so very important!

Surveillance video shows suspected drug cartel suppliers carrying boxes of weapons to their cars at a Phoenix gun shop. The long boxes shown in the video being loaded in were AK-47-type assault rifles. If I�ve said it once, I�ve said a million times: �who needs an assault weapon?� Only a person ready to commit an assault does.

So it turns out ATF not only allowed it - they videotaped it. Instead of arresting people, the ATF let them go across the border. Documents show the inevitable result: The guns that ATF let go began showing up at crime scenes in Mexico. And as ATF stood by watching thousands of weapons hit the streets, the Fast and Furious group supervisor noted the escalating Mexican violence.

One e-mail noted, "958 killed in March 2010 ... most violent month since 2005." The same e-mail notes: "Our subjects purchased 359 firearms during March alone," including "numerous Barrett .50 caliber rifles." I emphatically say, our government is and always will be aware and apprised of the harm it is doing to people - especially people of color. That�s why it is allowed to continue. If these people (Mexicans crossing the border) cause NRA supporters and Tea Party activists discomfort, then they�ll �give them tools to kill themselves��in this case, guns. Just recall the days of J. Edgar Hoover who allowed drugs into Black ghettos from the 1930�s on. This tactic fuels work for law enforcement, supplies subjects for prisons and keeps races of people separate�the perfect demonic tool.

Dodson feels that ATF was partly to blame for the escalating violence in Mexico and on the border. I categorically say that Dodson is right.

But you ask, where�s the connection to American urban centers? Though difficult to negotiate, it is feasible. Once guns are trafficked into Mexico, those ATF-blessed guns are used to protect shipments of cocaine and marijuana into the U.S. Just like the drugs bought and consumed here, the guns stay here also. The only thing that leaves the U.S. is the money exchanged.

It�s a crime, and someone should be in jail. Instead of allowing Kenneth Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to resign under pressure, he should be in jail. He should be prosecuted and convicted for conspiracy to traffic arms to known criminals and to supply criminal enterprises. This, my friend, is a crime at the highest levels of government. What are we going to do? What are we going to demand? I know that a Tunisian court sentenced ousted President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and his wife to 35 years in prison in absentia on Monday after a one-day trial on corruption charges. Now, that�s swift justice! So what�s wrong with us?

This country is quick to arrest the low-level street dealer; or the addict in possession of a minute amount of drugs, but is quick to holler from the mountaintops that they want the drug problem stopped. These same Americans won�t holler from those same mountaintops to stop the problem at its source: government leaders. How utterly cowardly.

We complain of inequality in the dispensation of justice, but lay dormant when it�s time to call for accountability - through indictment and prosecution. Someone is liable�and it�s us. This is not unbelievable.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Perry Redd, is the former Executive Director of the workers rights advocacy, Sincere Seven, and author of the on-line commentary, �The Other Side of the Tracks.� He is the host of the internet-based talk radio show, Socially Speaking in Washington, DC. Click here to contact Mr. Redd.