R86009
4 years ago

it’s a great movie, and presented from a disturbing point of view with a powerful ending.. well worth seeing..

R86093
4 years ago

What was ‘radical’ about it, the fact that it dared mention that the US is the world’s leading arms dealer? That ought to be a ‘duh’...

The movie is billed as “an arms dealer confronts the morality of his work as he is being chased by an Interpol agent”. He never confronts the morality of his work that I noticed; he’s a smug bastard who gets upset when bad things happen to him because of what he does. Big difference there, kinda like between “I’m sorry for what I did” versus “I’m sorry because I faced the consequences of what I did”. Unfortunately for Cage, he does some really dumb things in the movie that prevent him from being a total success.

Here are the lessons I gleaned from it on how to be successful if you’re considering this career choice:
1) You can make a huge fortune selling people things to kill each other/themselves with, fast and simple! Start with a couple of SMGs to local thugs, next thing you know the pace will pick up and you’ll be smuggling barges full of assault rifles and APCs to Colombian paramilitaries! It’s that easy!
2) You don’t have to worry about what people actually do with the weapons afterwards, because there are big powerful countries who are much, much naughtier than you, so your actions merit no moral consideration.
3) You don’t have to worry about getting caught, because the big powerful countries will probably just set you to work for them if it happens.
4) You may lose your (supermodel trophy of a) wife and kid (who you never see, because you’re constantly busy palling around with third world dictators and corrupt ex-Soviets all the time) because of your chosen profession. Hopefully, sucking booze from the cleavage of many gorgeous women who want to screw you senseless will ease your sorrows. Either way, you get more ass than a toilet seat.
5) You may get a family member killed, and therefore disowned by your family, if you do something really idiotic like bring your cokehead lush of a brother (who cannot even make a decent pot of beetroot soup when he’s sober- and he’s FRICKIN UKRAINIAN) along on a really big arms deal.
6) Make sure you keep useful people around at all times, so you can squeeze through Interpol’s bureaucratic loopholes! A guy who can take all the weapons off an attack helicopter in 45 seconds flat is very valuable; also consider hiring someone who can convert a tank to a golf cart in under a minute. If all else fails, remember: smelly potatoes are, like, Interpol’s kryptonite, man!

R86168
4 years ago

“visit http://www.controlarms.org/

and join Amnesty International, Oxfam and the International Action Network on Small Arms campaign to control the arms trade” – yossarian

“In 2003, the U.S. topped the charts for small weapons at $481 million in legal arms sales alone.”
source: http://www.humansecuritybulletin.in…/research_2.htm – Savanna

“We lead in legal weapons trade…there are many nations that “lead” or “beat us” in illegal weapons trade. As well most of these studies look at dollar value of “arms sales”...and to that end the include service contracts, training, support, upgrades, parts…etc and so on. Raw dollar value is not the best determination of impact on the ground when it comes to conflict and suffering.

“Where they fail to REALLY draw distinctions is in “deaths per dollar”. Much of the US sold equipment is high cost per unit, technology laden, heavy weapons and larger crew served systems and all the support that goes with it.
Example: US sells 182 Sidewinder missiles to Egypt and Taiwan under the FMS program. The value of the contract domestically is $54 million. Per unit cost $286K (roughly). Now I’ll bet you a dollar that that includes shipping, training, support and upgrades for a period of time. More so I would bet that less than 5% of those will be fired in any conflict during it’s lifecycle. So we have a high dollar sale that will in the end be a “shelf sitter” (my term).

“Compare that to $286K worth of AK-47’s at $89 per copy for a total of ~3200 units in the hands of people on the ground with a small conflict to “settle”.
Even if we take off 1600 units and apply that recovered cost to ammo & magazines. I would say 1600 AK’s with a full complement of magazines and ammo is a hell of a lot more dangerous in the “real world” than ONE sidewinder missile that will shelf sit it’s entire life.
Or even worse consider $286K worth of landmines at conservatively $10 a unit. That 28,600 hidden death dealers laying dormant waiting for their next victim. Also consider that mines are pervasive and generally kill or maim non- combatants not those their original targets. Then consider the cost of removing them, at 100x’s the original cost of the unit and the ever increaseing inability to detect plastic and ceramic mines… you got a lot of “cheap” problems. So which is worse…an expensive software upgrade to an avionics package or a ton of mines laying in wait for the next child that think’s its a toy?

“I’m not saying the numbers are not true, but at least consider what the numbers mean in terms of death.
The real “value” in death is in the AK and in cheap landmines – the latter being a HUGE problem unrealized in the movie.” – SOT_II

“Check out this link which tells the real deal for reported worldwide arms sales. The volume is amazing, the players are predictable.” – Arms_Sales

“FYI FAS isn’t even close to reality…they mainly deal in papered trade, none of the licensed mfg or otherwise – that’s the “new” arms trade, licensing. “ – SOT_II

“I was going to ask you what “licensing mfg” meant, and maybe you could elaborate. But this is what I found about licensing and the small arms trade..

“Another way that small arms proliferate around the world is through licensed production. In such deals a company in one country will authorise the production of its weapons by a company in another country for a price. The licensing company will provide technical data and sometimes machine tools for the weapons to be produced. Weapons produced under these agreements by UK companies are not subject to UK controls and licensed production can, in fact, be see as a way of avoiding UK arm export controls.” source: http://www.caat.org.uk/issues/smallarms-briefing.php

“So it’s like outsourcing production to evade regulations, basically. The briefing I quoted above goes on to blame UK licensed production in Pakistan for the arming of Sudanese fighters (legal arms dealers dodge the EU embargo on Sudan this way).” – Savanna

“A sovereign country normally can produce it’s own weapons for it’s own defense. Most of the small and light arms of today are designed so that they can be made with very rudimentary technology and a low or no skilled workforce.

“There are actually two schools of thought on this and we can talk about those later the “high tech” approach to small arms and the “low tech” approach.

“Anyway a country like Iraq (for example) licensed lots of its military technology from France, Russia, and China…buying “blueprints”, tooling (machinery to make weapons), and training. Now the interesting thing is a lathe or a milling machine is a “dual use” piece of technology so there was not a heavy embargo on machinery that could be used for weapons production AND/OR making tractor parts, medical equipment, whatever.

“So one of the ways that Iraq got around lots of the weapons embargos in the “Oil for Weapons (food)” program was to purchase technology that could be dual use, but once inside the country use it ONLY for weapons production.

“In the “life cycle of small arms” (my term) we see development, implementation, retirement, and resale.

“High tech v. Low tech
The US is very “technology-centric” it values high technology as a “force multiplier”. This means a single soldier equipped with higher technology and well trained will be equal to 2, 5, 10 lesser trained and equipped soldiers. This does a couple of things, it fosters the research and development of new technologies, forces obsolesces, and generates markets for older technology.

A couple things to consider: a country that values higher technology normally places a higher value on their individual soldier. The soldier is a valued individual and is part of a team but each soldier has a larger individual identity. Religion and ideology are not as much of their motivation as is individual desire to “do good” or to “protect their country”. The “soldier system” is also more expensive in per unit cost for training, housing, benefits, medical, pay and weapons.

“Countries like China and old Warsaw pact countries take a low cost approach. The weapons technology is either “stolen” or very lo tech, there isn’t a huge infrastructure for training, maintenance, upkeep, or force modernization. They value numerical superiority over technological superiority. More bodies into the meat grinder with ultra reliable but very low-tech arms will win the war (in theory). The soldier is less valued as an individual but valuable as part of the system. Training, medical and family benefits, even basics like shelter and food are generally substandard by comparison to their western counterpart. The soldier’s identity is defined by their cause, religion, or ideology and sometimes a combination of two or all three. These soldiers tend to fight for a “cause” and are willing and readily die for that cause. When these two schools of small arms come head to head…that’s where the real bloodbaths begin.

“I will offer this from my own experience; Infantry soldiers win wars not technology. — This is the sad lesson we are “relearning” in Iraq and to some extent Afghanistan. If you have reliable weapons, ammunition, and a very dedicated fighting force with a “cause” all the technology in the world isn’t going to unseat them or defeat them. It was no different in our own Revolutionary War, in Vietnam, or Somalia.

“But back to the question, yes licensing is one of the many ways to “work around” an embargo. Why run the risk of losing a shipment of arms when you can build them in your own back yard?

Some real world examples:

This is a picture of a Iraqi licensed copies of the Russian SVD sniper rifle.
http://www.cqbarms.com/photos/album…s/10001/alk.jpg

Note the stamp/proof mark:
http://www.cqbarms.com/photos/album…001/recvier.jpg

Al Kadesiah Made in Iraq
HK MP5k’s in operational cases (they can fire from the case).
http://www.cqbarms.com/photos/album…01/DSC00112.jpg

These were a mixture of “Made in Germany” guns (being shipped to France) and Pakistani ordinance factories exports.
Here is a small selection of their “exports”
http://www.pofwah.com.pk/mexports.htm#

At some point we can talk about the real money maker…the “service contract” but that’s another story entirely. – SOT_II

This post is all imported from the Lord of War forum, which has a few gun trade threads going but nothing yet on blood diamonds.

R89561
4 years ago

I’m actually going to see the film today, Thanks for the information

R125682
3 years ago

I’m a tad late but I just saw the movie a few days ago.

great film. Haven’t done the research yet but does anyone know if, “Yuri Orlov”, was based on a real person?

R125688
3 years ago

Victor Bout

Victor Bout, shadowy international arms dealer and war profiteer, runs a network of air cargo companies that specialize in transporting arms to conflict zones. He controls the world’s largest private fleet of Antonov cargo planes with heavy airlift capacity, capable of bringing tanks and other heavy arms into difficult terrain. He has fueled dozens of the world’s most murderous conflicts by shipping arms clandestinely to rebel groups, trading in diamonds and other precious resources. His field of operations include Afghanistan, Angola, Congo, Liberia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Sudan. He is said to live in Moscow and to operate his air fleets mainly out of the United Arab Emirates. The US and UK reputedly have used Bout’s services to bring shipments into dangerous zones of Iraq. For years, Victor Bout has been able to operate with impunity, thanks to his many passports, different identities, and the wide support he enjoys from those in power. A series of UN Security Council reports have named Bout and detailed his deadly operations. Belgian authorities issued an arrest warrant for him on charges of “money laundering practices and criminal conspiracy” and he is on the international arrest list of Interpol. But few expect that he will be brought to justice any time soon.

A Belgian reporter, Dirk Draulans, met the man when he was covering the civil war in the Congo.

this is a picture of Bout, taken by Dirk:

The only positive visual ID of the man

R125690
3 years ago

this is a really interesting article:

The Trafficker Viktor Bout Lands US Aid for Services Rendered in Iraq

By Jean-Philippe Rémy

Le Monde
May 18, 2004

Here is a man about to be rendered an undreamed of benefit by virtue of the American army’s problems in Iraq. Viktor Bout, former Russian military man converted into arms trafficker specialized in the sale of former Soviet block military stocks to warring countries under embargo, was to escape punishment from international justice no longer.

Following a series of investigations conducted by the United Nations and a number of countries, including Belgium, one of the planet’s biggest “merchants of death”, who holds passports from five countries and shelters his identity, like that of his companies, under a stream of pseudonyms, had ended up becoming the target of UN sanctions, being all the while the subject of an international arrest warrant. Since 2001, he was forced to put his activities to sleep to get “on the right side” in Moscow, where, according to one of the Belgian investigators who have tried to arrest him several times, he has access to “powerful support”.

Now, Viktor Bout seems to be back at work in Iraq. According to several sources, his planes, flying under the name of an airline company, British Gulf, likely to disappear as fast as it was created, are assuring “transport of materiel” for the American army. The company’s advantage, one specialist in arms trafficking reveals, relates to the nature of the Russian merchant’s crews and planes: “They’re accustomed to land in any kind of war zone without having a fit. And if one of their planes is shot down, there’s no risk of American pilots’ bodies being dragged through the streets.”

As the price for his services, Viktor Bout is about to receive a kind of amnesty that will allow him to resume his large scale activities. During the 1990s one of the arms merchant’s clients and business partners was Charles Taylor. The former rebel, whose men are implicated in crimes against humanity in Liberia and in Sierra Leone, came to power thanks to the Viktor Bout’s weapons before he was forced into exile in 2003.

By virtue of his participation in the Liberian drama and his violation of the embargo that prohibited arms exports there, Viktor Bout was up till now subject to two types of United Nations sanctions, prohibiting him from foreign travel and planning a freeze of his foreign assets. Now Viktor Bout’s situation is about to change. Although the United States, involved in the Liberian dossier, had committed to make sure those responsible for the atrocities committed during the country’s civil war were punished and promised a reward for whoever should deliver Charles Taylor to international justice, it “is working to erase the name of the arms merchant from the list of people subject to sanctions,” a diplomatic source asserts.

The circumstances are favorable. Since Charles Taylor’s departure for exile in Nigeria in 2003, these lists have, logically, been in the course of revision. On the question of the freezing of foreign assets, several countries, such as France, Great Britain, and the United States, are presently submitting their own documents, while they wait for a Security Council vote. According to one diplomatic source, it’s by virtue of this “tidying up” that Viktor Bout’s name disappeared from the British list submitted in April, although it was still at the head of that list in January’s version. According to this same source, who corroborates the information that has appeared in the Financial Times, the initiative came from the United States, which put pressure on London to obtain this clemency.

As for the French list – on which Mr. Bout’s name still figures -, it has been “rejected”, even if “the affair is still being discussed in New York”, a British source who describes the issue as “sensitive”, complains that “leaks” should have occurred with regard to this issue. “It was inevitable,” comments a specialist. “This decision has not made everyone in London happy. Some officials, like those who wanted to see Viktor Bout judged by the International Criminal Court will make a scandal out of it.”

During the last decade, Viktor Bout has had time to iron out the initial problems of his system and to look for support on all sides. His businesses started in 1993, when this former student at the Institute for Military Interpreters in Moscow who speaks – in addition to the Russian and the Uzbek he inherited from his birth in Tashkent – English, French, and Portuguese, bought some cut-price airplanes: several Antonov, an Iliouchine, and a helicopter. His specialty then consisted of flying this fleet -which counted up to sixty vehicles – under different flags of convenience, bypassing borders, rules, and embargos, and developing a flourishing triangular commerce.

At one end of the chain, he exports weapons from the former Soviet bloc to Africa or Afghanistan. He’s paid cash on the spot, or in kind in the natural resources of a region, which he takes care of transporting also. His area of activities in Africa cuts through the region of war exploitation of diamonds and other precious minerals. One of the investigators who participated for years in the tracking down of the one he finally calls “Viktor”, has followed his instructive traces all the way to Afghanistan. Originally a supplier to the Kabul government while it was at war against the Taliban, the arms merchant soon managed to equip the theology students also.

After September 11, Viktor Bout was suspected of having furnished weapons to bin Laden, who was then sheltered by the Taliban. That didn’t stop the United States, according to a source from the Belgian secret service, from entrusting him with arms shipments to the Northern Alliance, then at war against the Taliban. Since then, he had reappeared in Somalia at the head of a new airline and weapons supply company. Iraq at this rate is just one more episode. “That’s the problem with Viktor, he always has some authority that protects him, because he does too many favors,” the investigator sighs.

R125692
3 years ago

Victor Bout’s File

an English site of a Dutch plane spotter who became interested in the man when he photographed one of Bout’s airplanes and found out that the registration was fake.

lots of links

R125698
3 years ago

heh. thx dude.

/reading

R125707
3 years ago

this is the most recent article I could find on the man:

Douglas Farah is currently writing a book on Victor/Viktor Bout

Viktor Bout And The Pentagon

By Douglas Farah & Kathi Austin, New Republic
12/1/06

Just after dawn on November 26, 2004, a small team of U.N. investigators – tracking aviation companies illicitly ferrying weapons to warring militias in the jungles of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – arrived at the makeshift headquarters of a South African peacekeeping contingent in Goma. The investigators roused the armed guards to provide protection for an unprecedented and audacious move – a snap inspection of the aging aircraft lining the grassy field beside a nearby airstrip littered with volcanic ash.

Charged with finding violators of the U.N.-mandated arms embargo, the investigators discovered aircraft using false registrations to deliver weapons to remote airstrips that funnel supplies into the war zone. In one case, an airplane was using a valid Kazakhstani registration prefix, “UN”
(UN-79954), which fooled many people into thinking its illicit cargo deliveries were U.N. flights. In exchange for the weapons, the aircraft were flying out illegally mined tin ore and coltan, a mineral used to make cell phone and laptop components.

Their Russian crews, arriving in dilapidated minibuses, were stunned by the U.N. officials’ demands to inspect the airplanes’ cargo and flight documents. As the day grew warmer, more airplanes landed, and soon investigators and peacekeepers were running up and down the pocked, blistering tarmac to keep planes from taking off before the inspections were completed. Some tense standoffs ensued, with the Russian aircrews occasionally threatening the investigators, indicating that they knew the whereabouts of one official’s family members. Some of the planes escaped the airstrip with the aid of Congolese military officers, flying off to unknown destinations. But, over two days, the investigators managed to pore over the cargo and records of 26 aircraft.

The guns-for-minerals pipeline bore the hallmarks of Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer who operates one of the largest private air fleets in the world. Bout has made millions flying lethal cargo to many of the world’s worst elements, from former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia to Rwandan genocidaires. Bout’s activities are so egregious that Peter Hain, a British cabinet minister, publicly branded him “Africa’s chief merchant of death.”

After years of prompting by the United Nations, President Bush issued an executive order in July 2004 making it illegal for any American person or institution to do business “directly or indirectly” with Charles Taylor’s associates, including Bout. Nine months later, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (ofac) ordered the freezing of the U.S. assets of 30 Bout-related companies, along with those of his U.S.-based partner, his brother, and two other associates. The United Nations had already taken similar action against Bout, who has been wanted by Interpol since 2002 on an outstanding warrant for laundering the proceeds of illicit weapons sales.

The punitive actions were based on Bout’s relationship with Taylor, but, in announcing the ofac action, the Treasury Department stressed another facet of Bout’s activities, noting that he made $50 million in profits from arms transfers to the Taliban when the regime was hosting Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. The Treasury statement also said Bout had used his aircraft to “transport tanks, helicopters, and weapons by the tons” all over the world and helped “fuel conflicts and support U.N.-sanctioned regimes in Afghanistan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Sudan.”

Yet, remarkably, given this record and the international efforts to shut him down, Bout also counts among his clients the U.S. military and its contractors in Iraq, nato forces in Afghanistan, and the United Nations in Sudan. The New Republic has learned that the Defense Department has largely turned a blind eye to Bout’s activities and has continued to supply him with contracts, in violation of the executive order and despite the fact that other, more legitimate air carriers are available. Revenues from these flights enable Bout to carry on the profitable business of nurturing conflicts in other, less covered parts of the world, threatening further international instability.

European and U.S. intelligence sources tell us they have identified at least three new Bout-controlled companies—based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (UAE)—that have been hired by the U.S. military and its contractors in the past four months for flights into Iraq. Two of the companies have taken aircraft formerly belonging to companies designated by Treasury as illegal and reregistered them under new names in Moldova. Another company did the same thing in Cyprus, the officials say. That company actually kept the same telephone number and address as one of the firms blacklisted by Treasury. Only the name on the door changed.

Even some of the designated air companies continue to operate unimpeded. Irbis Air Company, which is on the ofac list, reportedly placed a bid with Halliburton earlier this month to fly goods into Iraq, two sources monitoring Bout’s activities in Sharjah tell us. It is not known whether Irbis won the contract. Halliburton did not respond to requests for comment, but, in the past, it has said that any use of Bout aircraft was inadvertent and that contracts with suspected companies had been immediately terminated.

Spokesmen for U.S. Central Command and the Pentagon brushed off inquiries on the subject, saying they knew of no contracts with Bout-related companies. At the same time, they stressed the need to understand how complex contracting arrangements were in Iraq. The Pentagon, a military official said, could not check out the subcontractors who actually flew the flights into Iraq and Afghanistan.

This attitude reflects a larger problem in putting Bout out of business. American officials tracking Bout tell us that many military officials feel they do not have the resources or the time to check aircraft records when a flight may contain badly needed ammunition or matériel. “They don’t check because they don’t care,” says a civilian official who helped trace Bout’s Iraq contracts with the U.S. military. “On the ground, what they care about is getting what they need. Unfortunately, this short-term mentality means that they may, in fact, be breaking the law.”

But Bout’s flights for the U.S. government—and other legitimate clients like nato and the United Nations—do more than merely break the letter of international law. They provide Bout with cash that helps fund his gunrunning to conflict zones like the DRC, where the steady supply of weapons helps sustain a conflict that is destabilizing much of Africa. U.S. and European intelligence sources tell us they are also investigating whether Bout’s network is behind the thousands of new weapons surfacing in the hands of brutal militias in the Niger Delta region. Those militias pose a growing threat to stability in an area that provides around 10 percent of U.S. oil.

While Congress has oversight responsibility for implementation of the ofac list, its enforcement efforts have been sparse. Wisconsin Democratic Senator Russell Feingold first raised the issue of Bout’s coalition military contracts on May 18, 2004, in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. Feingold asked then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage about reports of U.S. military links to Bout’s companies. It took Wolfowitz eight months to respond. In a January 31, 2005, letter to Feingold, Wolfowitz acknowledged that “both the U.S. Army and the Coalition Provisional Authority (in Iraq) did conduct business with companies that, in turn, subcontracted work to second tier suppliers who leased aircraft owned by companies associated with Mr. Bout…. Although we are aware of a few companies that are connected to Mr. Bout, most notably Air Bas and Jetline, we suspect Mr. Bout has other companies or enterprises unknown to the Government.”

In fact, as the Los Angeles Times first reported in 2004, Bout aircraft were in constant motion into Iraq after the invasion. A single Bout company, Irbis, flew more than 140 flights into Iraq for the U.S. military and its contractors by the end of 2004.

Representative Sue Kelly, a New York Republican who chairs the Congressional Anti-Terrorist Financing Task Force, said in a statement to tnr that she felt a “considerable degree of frustration” over efforts to end U.S. contracts with Bout. Congressional investigators tell us that it is almost impossible to get answers on Bout from the Bush administration. And it took six months—until early December—for the ofac list of sanctioned Bout-related companies to be fully synchronized with the U.N. list, thereby making it internationally binding. Robert Werner, the director of ofac, said getting the ofac list incorporated into the U.N. sanctions list was “a truly significant success in our continuing effort to combat Bout’s arms-trafficking and sanctions-busting activities.”

In reality, however, the move was largely symbolic. During the time between the U.S. designation and the U.N. listing, according to U.S. and European intelligence sources, Bout revamped his operations, moving aircraft registrations and incorporating new companies. As a result, most of the designated companies no longer have any assets to be frozen, and it will take months to identify the new companies and begin sanctioning them.

he U.S military has, from time to time, made efforts to scrub Bout-associated companies and aircraft from its list of contractors and subcontractors. In May, after the ofac list went into effect, the Pentagon asked all companies and contractors applying for flights into Iraq and Afghanistan to reregister with a form that required detailed information on the aircraft and its owners. As a result, several of Bout’s companies were denied permission to fly.

As slow and incomplete as these U.S. efforts have been, they are far better than those of other nations. Russia, for example, has failed to move against Bout, despite the Interpol arrest warrant for him. His assets remain untouched, and he reportedly lives in the open in Moscow, frequently dining at a favorite sushi restaurant. Since 1999, the UAE, from which most of Bout’s aircraft operate, has consistently rebuffed requests by American officials to help identify Bout-associated companies. The British military acknowledges hiring, through contractors, Bout aircraft on seven occasions in 2005.

Bout’s companies are hard to track because he constantly shifts his airplanes’ registrations and the companies that own them. For instance, in Africa, he first registered his aircraft in Liberia and then moved their registrations to the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Moldova, and other countries which are far from main aviation hubs. But the U.N.‘s DRC operation showed that tracking Bout’s aircraft is possible. Airplanes and crews have records—such as airworthiness certificates, insurance records, and logbooks—that are difficult to falsify and can be requested for inspection whenever an aircraft lands. Holes or inconsistencies in these records are relatively easy to detect, and they helped identify Bout’s DRC and Liberian operations.

The consequences of Bout’s continuing operations have been devastating, both in human terms and for U.S. foreign interests. His network thrives because, while some dedicated public servants try to shut it down, there is no concerted effort to put Bout out of business. Perhaps there are too many people who feel they need to keep him around to fly into the next Iraq or Afghanistan. The Bush administration and the United Nations say they want to remove a threat to international peace. Rewarding Bout with lucrative contracts makes a farce of that goal.

R125711
3 years ago

Gallary of International Arms Dealers

R125712
3 years ago

I think the movie might be based on this guy

R125714
3 years ago

probably a mix

R125761
3 years ago

maybe so, but I’m gonna spend the rest of the day thinking I’m right if you don’t mind.

R126311
3 years ago

At 4 1/2 month’s old a human fetus has a reptile’s tail a rement of our human Evolution….

R126679
3 years ago

Wasn’t Margaret Thatcher’s son Mark caught dealing in weapons in Africa somewhere? And didn’t he get of with a smack on the wrist or something?

R126694
3 years ago

Actually I think he was trying to overthrow a government.

R163143
3 years ago

Victor Bout’s empire (PDF)

really interesting stuff

R163149
3 years ago

Fascinating. Victor Bouts supposed accountant, Richard Chichakli actually has a website defending him against charges brought by the DOJ. It’s also fascinating.

R163152
3 years ago

Golly, what on earth have we got here? from Allafrica (the Gambia Journal)

“As the trial of Charles Taylor on war crimes starts unfolding, Gambian observers are holding their breath in anticipation of what Mr. Taylor may divulge on his dealings with [Gambian] President Jammeh. Their lines have crossed too many times for observers not to believe so. It was not only Bout’s connections that the two West African “leaders” shared. Taylor was known to be a business partner with Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson. Robertson’s organization mentored Richard Hines. Mr. Hines was in 2004 hired as President Jammeh’s lobbyist for US$300 000 annually to help brush up Gambia’s international image. More on this on part two of this investigative report.”

While “Jammeh is also believed by many to be deeply involved in the drug business. Jammeh has many times publicly referred to his “endless private wealth.” Several years after taking over power, a record catch of heroin was discovered in a container destined for the Gambia but captured in a Mauritanian port by DEA agents. Several years ago another container loaded with cocaine and imported in by a well-known Lebanese businessman was discovered by unknowing Gambian customs officials at the Port of Banjul, only to be released quietly.”

Read the whole thing, it’s very interesting stuff.

R163153
3 years ago

I liked this film. It certainly has weaknesses as a work of fiction, but makes up for that in its depiction of real events and issues. My favorite scene was Cage’s plane being forced to land and how he he quickly got rid of all the incriminating evidence along with his plane. The last line in the credits states that the five biggest arms dealers are the same five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

I think this movie would have been loads better if it had lost the idiot wife character and replaced her with a prostitute or two betraying Cage to the authorities instead. Maybe she was meant to symbolize the denial of America and the respectability of arms dealers in our society. I would rather have seen that played out in the ATF agent’s character, maybe have him losing his wife as he is finally understanding the losing battle he has waged.

R163157
3 years ago

Sorry to spam a thread on a movie, but the Robertson connection is too juicy.

Douglas Farah, 2003 “[Charles] Taylor’s staunchest defender is the Rev. Pat Robertson, the owner of the Christian Broadcasting Network and host of “The 700 Club.” Robertson has invested more than $8 million in a gold mine in Liberia under the name of Freedom Gold Limited, registered in the Cayman Islands. In recent weeks Robertson, on his TV show, has been extolling Taylor’s virtues as a “fellow Baptist” and “a fine Christian.” In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Robertson, who has never been to Liberia, said Taylor’s indictment “is nonsense and should be quashed.” And he has portrayed Liberia’s civil war as primarily a fight between Muslims and Taylor’s Christians, an analysis not shared by anyone remotely familiar with the country. Taylor “definitely has Christian sentiments, although you hear all these rumors that he’s done this and that,” Robertson said“

R303328
1 year ago

Meet Viktor Bout, the Real-Life ‘Lord of War’

Interview: Journalist Douglas Farah, co-author of a new book on Viktor Bout, tells how the Tajik-born arms dealer forged a lucrative career skirting U.N. embargoes to sell weapons and air transport services to warlords and despots—not to mention the U.S. military and its contractors in Iraq.

By Laura Rozen

September 13, 2007 – Mother Jones

R331364
11 months ago

from the BBC News website (Last Updated: Thursday, 6 March 2008, 14:40 GMT):

Thailand holds ‘top arms dealer’

I wonder how long it wil take for him to be free again…

R331847
11 months ago

“When you possess so much that you can justify spending more defending it than you do grooming a next generation to inherit it thats when you have too much shit.” –Cos

R331848
11 months ago

I’m glad you’re not obsessed with your own place in history…