"Lord of War" Viktor Bout to be Extradited to US

"Lord of War" Viktor Bout to be Extradited to US

www.bbc.co.uk

The Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has said the alleged arms dealer Viktor Bout should be extradited to the United States.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This is the guy whom they based Nicolas Cage's character on in the movie "Lord of War" (Viktor Bout, not the Thai Prime Minister ).

He is one of the most wanted arms traffickers of our age, which means the US Government will probably come up with some sort of excuse to let him go.

As quoted in the movie "soon, you'll receive a call from a high powered official telling you to let me go. Governments can't run wars with people like me" (or something very similar).

Will be interesting to see how they handle this case, or if this one simply disappears off the radar from the main stream media, as I suspect will happen.

It's also interesting that this happened right after Obama was in the same meeting as the Thai Prime Minister, at the G20. I wonder what sort of side deal was struck for them to suddenly come to such an arrangement after years of arguing about this.

www.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

So do they want to shut him up about his working with the US in Iraq, or do they want to get information from him about Russian military or intelligence?

Bout is by no means a good man, but I find it interesting that, just as with Gerald Bull, he can be prosecuted by the very nation he once worked with.

reply to post by babybunnies


He will go in custody, then forgotten through a deflection. Then we will never hear from him again, or see him. He will vanish in the shadows.

reply to post by babybunnies


Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you want to look at it, the Thai prime minister is not the Judge who recently denied Bout's extradition just a few weeks ago.

The Prime Minister's 'comments' aren't binding on the court.

It really just signifies a softening on the Government's stance towards our's here in America, where like the Swiss in the recent failed attempt to extradite Roman Polanski that famous film director back to California on charges that date back to the 1970's a prima facia case was not established by our government as is required by the other nation's laws.

In other words we kind of take the more arrogant approach of, we want him, give him to us, or there will be a price to pay if you don't.

Keep in mind, that even the Taliban when they were the Afghani Government said, we will extradite Bin Laden to you, if you can establish some proof that he carried out the 9-11 attacks. Bush in typical American style said no, we don't have too.

So some behind the scenes political pressure or incentives have now made the Thai Prime Minister change his own stance, but it isn't the Prime Minister who will be ruling on the request. How much he can influence that actual Thai Judge who gets to decide is hard to say.

The Bangkoc prison is one of the worst places in the world to do time, the Turkish Prison from Midnight Express is a little nicer and more fun!

So Bout is probably more worried about getting whisked away to one of our secret prisons and being charged as a terrorist, than going to a Federal Penitentiary, which would be a much nicer place to do time.

While we have likely made some nice incentive to get the Thai Prime Minister to change his public stance, that doesn't mean that the Russians aren't going to make some nicer incentive to get him to reverse it again.

The Thais are enterprising, they will give Bout to the highest bidder.

Proto says, grab a snickers bar, this one is a long way from being over!

reply to post by babybunnies


That was one of my all time favorite movies. Thanks for posting this, Im curious to see how this all turns out. Governments used to need people like him, back in the days when people kind of cared what their leaders were doing, and whether or not innocent people were being killed for profit.

I dont know if that is the case anymore, however. Our little foray into Iraq and Afghanistan recently shows how little our citizens care any more about the justice of a war, or how many innocents die. And the choke hold on the media is so tight that even those citizens who might care will likely never hear information that might lead them to protest.

Guys like the "Lord of War" may now be liabilities the economic power that be no longer need to accomplish their ends. And he might just be a convenient scapegoat upon which to focus some of our collective frustration and fear about war.

We will just have to see how it turns out for him this time.

Even in his Wiki, a strong clue about Mr Bout is to be found...

Other customers As well as some more controversial customers such as Charles G. Taylor, the French government, the UN and the US have also used his planes. Bout has reportedly shipped flowers, frozen chicken, UN peacekeepers, French soldiers and African heads of state.

Source

Of course, in mentioning the UN we have to be aware of the UN Security Council, the permanent members comprised of China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We further must be aware of which nations are listed as the largest arms dealers as well.




And we quickly realize that, oddly, the five permanent members are also all in the top seven of the arms dealers list. Not being one to think too deeply about the obvious, so I will only say, here... "Conflict of interest much?"

The point of this all, with regards to Mr Bout, is that one doesn't have to be all that bright to make a few rational assumptions based just upon evidence that is readily available to us. As the movie "Lord of War" (A great flick, BTW, I do own the limited edition DVD) suggests, this man surely has been in bed with the US and the UN and has gotten wealthy serving their agendas in addition to his own. His mistake here....

Doing business with entities that have no qualms about turning todays ally / asset into tomorrows "terror" scapegoat.

My thoughts here is that the next phase of the "war on terror" is going to take a more of a shift towards going after "enablers" and not just terrorist sponsoring regimes or terrorist actors / entities. This approach has been extant since we used it as a pretense to go into Iraq, but I think it lost public support along the way. In order for the US (acting as a proxy for itself and other nations) to act against nations such as Pakistan and North Korea these rationals and approaches must be utilized.

Mr Bout offers a chance for the White House to claim that they've interrogated him and that he's stated that (insert nation of interest here) utilized his services to supply arms to (insert the Taliban or Al Qaeda at your leisure here). This could be used as a one or two off carte blanche for military action against any number of actors or entities.

To me this is laying the groundwork for future events. We'll all be better off, I think, if Mr Bout finds his way off the radar and can't be utilized in the manners I have suggested here.

~Heff

For those who are interested in this (or just want to see a textbook example of one of ATS's own being way ahead of the curve, Hellmutt has been on this story for years. I haven't completely sorted through all the info in his thread yet, but it looks like it might be just the thing for those of us who didn't even know the US was after him (last I checked, which was at a movie theater, I have to admit, I thought everything was hunky dory between the Lord of War and Uncle Sam). Anyway, there it is for those who could use some back story.

60 Minutes story on it right now.

(Accurate?)