Posted on 12/12/2022 8:39:55 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The controversy over the one-sided prisoner exchange between the U.S. and Russia, with notorious "Merchant of Death" and "Lord of War"Viktor Bout traded for a wokester celebrity basketball player caught with personal stash of CBD oil, is now dying down. The remaining question is what's next?
We can safely assume that Brittney Griner will either return to professional basketball, or more likely enter the lucrative lecture circuit with book deals and television appearances. That's a very big 'who cares'?
But arms trafficker Viktor Bout is another story.
What is he going to do now that he is out and about in Russia now, coming home to a hero's welcome, fully embracing the unpopular Putin regime with expressions of admiration and gratitude, yet also pretty well now free to travel to all the world's dodgy places?
Will he do the lecture circuit, too? It's possible in Russia -- two ruined spies, Maria Butina and Anna Chapman, both of whom were brought back home in more even prisoner exchanges, became television hosts in Russia, vigorously projecting the party line.
But they were both low-level blown intelligence operatives now of limited use to the Putinites, and both kind of liked the limelight.
Bout is something different.
Bout was accused and convicted of being the world's most dangerous arms trafficker, and was mighty valuable to Putin's regime.
He was believed to have been a former Russian intelligence officer (GRU?) who got caught without support in Africa in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and got into the arms trade to survive. Putin himself was in that situation and returned to St. Petersburg to go into politics shortly after the Wall fell in East Germany, and from St. Petersburg, he went to Moscow in the years before he became Russia's president.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Several are convinced he’ll soon reemerge as a player, helping Russia sell and acquire weapons in violation of international sanctions imposed in response to its invasion of Ukraine and earlier human rights violations.
“The Merchant of Death is back in action, with more hatred against America and with greater motivation to fuel conflicts and support Russia in its outrageous and disastrous war with Ukraine,” says Derek Maltz, who as head of the DEA Special Operations Division oversaw the undercover investigation of Bout.
What's more:
[Former DEA chief Mike] Braun disagrees with those who argue that Bout is a has-been, that his network has frayed and his business model collapsed. If anything, Braun says, Bout has probably made valuable contacts over the nearly dozen years he has spent in the U.S. prison system.
“Anyone who thinks he’s washed up and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is not going to push him back into service, it’s beyond me,” Braun said. “People who believe that don’t understand how the real underworld works.”
What's scary is that Bout returns now to a different world.
Ukraine is now an even bigger shambles than it was when the Soviet Union fell and arms are absolutely all over the place, ready for resale. Huge amounts of money and grift make it easier to get away with such deeds because a lot of people are doing it.
What's scarier still is that he still has ties to Afghanistan, where Joe Biden irresponsibly left an even bigger stash of weapons ... and based on U.S. and EU sanctions, the Taliban needs money.
Bout claims he had only sold arms to the Northern Alliance of Afghanistan which once fought the Taliban, but U.S. intelligence and others think he may have sold to al-Qaida and the Taliban and just not be saying. If it's true, than he likely still has some good business ties with that bunch and they've got some fresh merchandise for him to dispose of for them. Even if it's not true, he could likely make a deal with them.
Both war zones are absolutely tailor-made for Bout's "services" and now Joe Biden cannot stop him.
He will groom the next generation of arms dealers and supervise the business from the safety of Russia.
Bout is a Russian intelligence agent, selling Russian arms (which are produced in state-run companies) to governments and groups approved by the Russian Government, for Russia’s strategic purposes.
But then again the CIA does the same thing for covert arms shipments, and Raytheon and Lockheed Martin do the same thing for overt arms shipments.
Maria Butina wasn’t a spy, she was a political prisoner held hostage by the United States.
Like their slaves in the Democratic Party, these globalist love death and seek to bring it to the majority of Mankind, leaving only an impoverished remnant who will be forced into serving the elites in order to survive.
It is time to reintroduce the scaffold to the town square or we will perish.
Maybe Vik will send Britt a Christmas card.
He'll probably go back into business in competition with the ATF and their Fast and Furious forced Gun Dealer sales of AR and AK "Automatic Rifles" to Cartel soldiers for the purpose of killing Border Patrol Agents.
Or he just might sell firearms to American citizens, something the ATF would never do.
With all the unaccounted for US weaponry stashed around Ukraine I suspect Zelensky will contract him to sell it in the underworld to add to Z’s personal wealth as he ready’s for his day to bug-out.
True. he main goal was expanding gun rights in Russia and “taking” the 2nd amendment there. She visited the NRA, and gun conventions and interviewed people. All in the open. When they were pretending Trump was a Russian asset, they were trying to say Russia funnels money to the NRA who then funnels it to Trump. Butina was their “Russian” connection.
Her arrest was shameful and part of the FBI framing Trump as a Russian asset.
Maybe Joe doesn’t want to stop Bout. Maybe he can use Bout as an excuse to cover up and blame some of his own nefarious deeds with his admin and other countries profiting from never ending war.
He went into air to rightfully make fun of America for leaving a marine behind. However, 50 years ago Americans would have also brought the woman home fret. The marine would want that 50 ears ago.
I think this is a great time to point that out.
RE: He went into air to rightfully make fun of America for leaving a marine behind.
It’s also hard to argue with Viktor Bout when he made this observation on RT news.
SEE HERE:
Viktor Bout told RT: “They’re losing their Christian values. They’re losing their families. They’re losing literally their country. It is not anymore the same country we knew America used to be, the model for the entire world and lead and be an example. Like they say, you know, a sparkling town on a hill.”
That American sleazy crook was kicked out of the Marines after being court-martialed.
Bout was convicted of conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and officials, delivery of anti-aircraft missiles, and providing aid to terrorists.
Everyone agrees this was a bad deal for the US. He didn’t even ask for her to get her dope back which proves what a lightweight negotiator he is.
I can honestly say I care less about the 3 of them in anyway.
They really are some nasty people but the ‘merchant of death’ is an international dealer of death and horror on a mass scale, and is now in a position to exceed his dark history.
but like me, Billy Graham, Bin Laden, Hitler, Mother Theresa, Fidel Castro, my preacher, and the Aztecs, he is against the homosexual agenda, so that is supposed to make him OK.
Oceana vs europa...the otger side needed help in ukraine keeping the action going.
“Well, he had the right connections in the country of his ethnicity, which, what a coincidence, was UKRAINE.”
Oh, why am I not surprised...
“Both war zones are absolutely tailor-made for Bout’s “services,” and now Joe Biden cannot stop him.”
...and with the US Dollar about to be displaced as the world’s reserve currency (thanks to the Neocon war in Ukraine), he won’t have to worry about Western spooks tracking his work.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.