Posted on 12/09/2022 1:39:58 PM PST by george76
Bout is alleged to have fueled multiple conflicts across the globe through arms dealing, sometimes to both sides
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A senior defense official is concerned that convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, the "Merchant of Death" .. could go back to illegally trafficking weapons, thereby fueling deadly conflicts around the world.
"I think there is a concern that he would return to doing the same kind of work that he's done in the past..
Bout was in the middle of serving a 25-year prison sentence in a U.S. prison for several offenses, including conspiring to kill Americans
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Bout, a former Soviet military officer known as the "Merchant of Death," spent years supplying weapons to dictators and to conflicts across the world, sometimes supplying both sides.
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Many of the weapons he sold fueled civil wars in Africa. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor is believed to have been a customer.
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Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said there is no equivalence "between the Brittney Griners of the world and people like Viktor Bout."
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we cannot ignore that releasing Bout back into the world is a deeply disturbing decision,"
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Bout was nabbed in 2008 in a sting operation at a luxury hotel in Bangkok, Thailand, where he met with Drug Enforcement Administration informants who were posing as officials with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which has been classified by US officials as a narco-terrorist group.
Prosecutors said that Bout was prepared to provide the group with $20 million worth of "a breathtaking arsenal of weapons — including hundreds of surface-to-air missiles, machine guns and sniper rifles — 10 million rounds of ammunition and five tons of plastic explosives."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Hey Mr. Bout, we may need some AK’s and AR’s over here.
Naw, I’m sure it will be fine.
What else would he do?
I'm glad our country doesn't sell weapons world-wide!
Although, it has GIVEN away lots and LOTS of really good stuff to the Taliban.
And a partridge in a pear tree.
And I’m waiting for this Griner fella to drop a knee at her first game, fresh out of drug prison.
Naw. He’s turned over a new leaf, so he has./s
Also, he’ll have no reason to feel he has to get revenge on us!
1983 : (COLUMBIA : ) FARC’s war on America dates back to 1983 when the Marxist terror group took its first American hostage.
1996 : (COLUMBIA : ) Frank Pescatore, a geologist, was kidnapped and murdered by FARC in 1996. The Marxist terrorists packed his body with lime and formaldehyde and tried to pretend that he was still alive in the hopes of collecting a ransom for him.
1999 spring : (COLUMBIA : ) “Take them across the river and burn them.” That was how the lives of three left-wing American environmental activists had ended in the spring of 1999. Their killers were members of the FARC Marxist terror group. The victims were shot in the face after being tortured.
2008 :(THAILAND : Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout , Merchant of Death, is arrested — see Liberia’s Charles Taylor, Columbian narcoterrorists FARC)
2015 : (WASHINGTON, DC : -— see COLUMBIA) Obama administration says that it would not seek the extradition of FARC terrorists.
AUGUST 2022 : (COLUMBIA : Former M-19 guerilla Gustavo Petro is sworn in as president -— see son Nicolas Petro, drugs)
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