The Lord of War comes to the U.S.
Viktor Bout (the Russian arms dealer who inspired Nicolas Cage's character Yuri Orlov in the movie "Lord of War") has just been extradited to the U.S. He arrived in NYC yesterday:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11/17/...Top+Stories%29 I also recommend the latest blog post by Douglas Farrah (who wrote the book "Merchant of Death", which is about him): http://www.douglasfarah.com/ So, what do y'all think? |
Is he going to get off like in the movie?
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On the contrary, I think getting him tried and convicted would be extremely beneficial to the U.S. For the current administration, putting Bout on trial would be another way for Obama to claim that the rule of international law works. It would also let him brag that he can fight a counter-terrorism war better than his predecessors who failed to deal with Bout even while he was selling arms to militants and terrorists that have killed Americans (A.G. Holder is already making claims of this nature). So the short answer is, probably not. If he was going to get away clean, his best chance was while he was still in Thailand and the Russians still had some leverage (the Thai government tries to keep good relations with us and the Russians simultaneously, so they were in a difficult position when the Russians insisted they not extradite Bout). Now that he's in the U.S. and being tried in Federal court, it's all over for him. Of course, this doesn't mean he's necessarily going to get the punishment he deserves (death by lethal injection, if I had my way). He'll probably get some sort of deal if he testifies before a CT committee in Congress and provides information that could help us. But he will be looking at a long prison term and the loss of his business and fortune. |
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What Bout has done is the equivalent of an FFL selling weapons repeatedly to fugitives who are wanted for multiple murders, when he knew exactly who they were and what they intended to use the weapons for. Any FFL who did that would go to jail, and likewise, an international arms dealer who sells to people like Mullah Omar or Charles Taylor deserves the same (or worse) punishment. He has to be held accountable for what he's done, and personally, I'm happy that it's us and not some disorganized bureaucratic international body that took custody of him. |
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I guess the thing that bothers me is not that they're going after him, but that Bout is being handled by the civilian criminal justice system. I find the implications of the government claiming jurisdiction over the entire world to be quite chilling. I don't see any reason why this couldn't be handled the old fashioned way. |
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Anyway, there are international laws regulating arms sales, too. Not all of Bout's sales violated internationl law, but some did - including the sale of RPGs and SAMs to Marxist FARC rebels, which is what he's being charged with. FARC is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., EU, and many other countries, which means that selling them weapons is illegal. Especially since we have him on record telling his "customers" that the weapons he had to offer them would be ideal for shooting down U.S. Black Hawk helicopters. The bottom line is, if you sell weapons to people who you know are prohibited from owning them, you get in trouble. This is true in both U.S. and international law. That's what Bout did, and that's why he's facing charges. Quote:
Bout is going through the American criminal justice system because he was caught in a DEA operation, and charged by the DoJ. If he had been caught by someone else (Interpol, for instance), he would have gone through the appropriate system. But we caught him, so we get to prosecute him. |
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Spook: "Are you Viktor Bout" Bout: "Yes" *pwert pwert* |
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We live in a messed-up world where bad people win and go unpunished all the time. It's nice to see the good guys win every once in a while. And this is one of those times. Quote:
Second, the case against him is very, very strong. And as slow as the American justice system can be, it's still better than some messed-up international court (where killers like Slobodan Milosevic and Foday Sankoh actually died in custody before they could face trial). |
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And for the record, Colombia is nothing like Vietnam. FARC is also currently breathing its dying breaths. Our involvement in Colombia actually represents a successful example of counterinsurgency. |
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Getting rid of FARC doesn't mean that Colombia's drug problem will end, but it is still highly desirable because FARC has been the main instigator behind the conflict. The drug trade and the Civil War are two different (though closely related) conflicts. |
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As far as trying him in an international court, Interpol issued an arrest warrant for him years ago. If they decide that they want to prosecute him, they probably could, but I'm not sure they'd be able to build the kind of case against him that our own prosecutors can. It was our people who caught him and got the evidence that can put him away. And what does "handled as a military threat" mean? You want him to go before a military commission? Quote:
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Also, I don't know if it makes a difference, but I just read that the DEA operation which caught Bout was in fact aimed at weakening FARC, not arresting Bout. The DEA was going after known conduits transporting FARC's cocaine out of Colombia and guns into Colombia for FARC's armed campaign. Bout was one of several targets. So it looks like I may have over-stated this earlier.
But it's still true that the U.S. government has been trying to arrest him for the past 5 years, and he was wanted long before that. |
MT2008, you are one of the most knowledgable people I've ever known.
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The drug cartels in Mexico work in a similar way; the major cartels that currently operate in Mexico spent years administering government and economic activity in order to cultivate population loyalty. Mexico is also (due to its geography) a far more difficult country to control than Colombia. |
As far as i see it, we have no authority to arrest or try him. His crimes were committed outside the US and who cares if he wants to sell bad guys stuff to shoot down Black Hawks. Arms dealers may be bad, but there is no real international authority to stop them and they do business in countries that have no real government or just bribe their way through. He told bad guys the stuff he had was good for killing Americans? He's probably told that to all his customers, just replace America with the name of the buyer's enemy.
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That being said, there are economic sanctions that can be placed on rogue regimes and militant groups which prohibit observing parties to the sanctions from selling anything to them. |
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And as far as criminals owning weapons goes, I believe that if you can't be trusted with a firearm then you can't be trusted with freedom. If you are walking the streets than you should be allowed to have a gun, if you are too dangerous to have a gun then you are too dangerous to be walking the streets. |
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Also, many rebel armies don't rely much on hired logistics; they get what they need by looting and stealing. This is what the R.U.F. in Sierra Leone (one of Bout's customers) did; they were pretty much bandits masquerading as "freedom fighters". Quote:
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Anyway, you already can wheel and deal as you please with firearms, provided you aren't using them for illegal purposes. This is not about whether you sell a gun to somebody who you had no reason to believe was a murderer. This about whether you sell a weapon to somebody who you know for sure is planning to use it to kill somebody, and you do it anyway. Obviously, that's not a situation an average FFL or even most private sellers in the U.S. would experience. But metaphorically, this is the equivalent of what Viktor Bout did. Personally, I don't regard a law which makes it illegal for me to sell weapons to criminals as an infringement on my personal liberty, or collective liberty. I regard it as common sense. So do most Americans, including those who own and sell guns. Actually, I would think that selling weapons to bad people who you know will use them in murder, and not feeling any guilt about your actions whatsoever, is characteristic of a "psychopath" (bearing in mind that lack of empathy and remorse are key sociopathic personality traits). I'm sure that a psychological profile of Viktor Bout (and most men like him) would identify him as a textbook sociopath or possibly psychopath. And I hate to break it to you, but just because somebody is not considered trustworthy with firearms doesn't mean they need to be locked up. That's an extremely fallacious assumption. There's a good reason why it's illegal for minors, those with mental illnesses, or even people who have committed minor criminal acts to own firearms. Do you lock up all of those people because they aren't considered trustworthy to own firearms? |
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I'm talking about those "permanantly locked up pscopaths" burt mentioned, not just any regular old felon |
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It's possible Viktor Bout genuinely believes that what he is doing is right. He doesn't see hurting Americans as wrong because we are not on his side. |
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Those measures also exist because of people other than criminals - again, children, the mentally ill, people who aren't citizens, etc. Liberty isn't about being able to do anything you want without any laws whatsoever. It's about having the least intrusive government possible, which is not the same thing as complete anarchy. Most reasonable people accept that their personal liberty has limits where there are tensions with societal cohesion. And this isn't something new, either - John Locke, and Montesquieu, and almost every philosopher who inspired the founding fathers agreed. What people like you promote is basically total freedom for its own sake, as opposed to freedom for the sake of preserving life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness (which is the intent of classic American liberalism). Quote:
This is quite curious to me. Libertarians claim to be "patriots", and yet when it comes to foreign policy, their sense of moral equivalence (equating the U.S. with FARC, as you are doing now) reeks of the same sort of idiocy I hear from leftists. Of course, it's possible (albeit rare) for leftists to be right about some things for the wrong reasons, but I still don't get how the Libertarians don't see how similar they are to the people they despise. If they had their way, America would be unassertive in the world. Actually, it's one of the reasons I stopped identifying as a Libertarian...they talk so much naive bullshit about foreign affairs that I find them impossible to respect on almost anything else. Quote:
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