Just before 6:00 am on January 8 and 9, 2011, American AC-130 gunships pounded targets in Somalia, constituting naked aggression, the result of which ended with the deaths of 31 civilians. At the same time, U.S. forces attacked the Iranian Mission in Irbil, Kurdistan, both clearly acts of war. As a result of and concurrent with America’s new fronts in Somalia and Libya, an escalation in the fighting in Afghanistan, the decision to escalate the war in Iraq, ongoing occupations in Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq, signal a continuation of gratuitous violence, a ‘forward policy’ reminiscent of the nineteenth century colonialist era. The hope therefore of more civil years in 2012 and 2013, have been, once again, dashed by an insidious admixture of corporate greed, naked, extra-legal militarism, occupation and gratuitous ‘war on terror’ ideology, inarguably the mid-wife of the world’s incessant human suffering and dislocation. As Senator Chuck Hagel recently exclaimed about covert and overt U.S. militarism, ‘this is the biggest foreign policy blunder in the history of the United States,’ and comes as yet another derailment of the hopes and dreams of the Afghan, Iraqi, Somali, Libyan, and Palestinian people, all war-weary and desperate for a modicum of civility and justice.
From Afghanistan’s haunted past, a continuation of an old threat has emerged. An Afghan serving as a translator with U.S. Army intelligence units in Afghanistan has informed me based on eyewitness accounts that ‘conditions in Afghanistan are boiling over, with Russia again supplying arms to their Cold War colleagues, the Northern Alliance in copious quantities, while at the same time these people are also involved in drug and precious stones smuggling.’
The arms from Soviet-era inventories are transshipped from bases in Tajikistan to numerous clandestine sites and airstrips in the north of Afghanistan, sites once utilized by the Soviets to re-supply their proxy warrior, Ahmad Shah Massoud during the ten-years (1979-1989) Soviet/Afghan War, and to additional sites as well currently under the control of the Northern Alliance. (See: Merchant of Death, Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun, 2007, pp. 10, 15, 46, 59, 118, 126, 195, and American Raj, Liberation or Domination, Resolving the Conflict between the West and the Muslim World, Eric S. Margolis, 2008, p.196)
Flights returning from Afghanistan are consigned with an illicit manifest: ‘emeralds, rubies, lapis lazuli, opium and processed heroin are delivered to the arms brokers as a form of payment’. ‘Traffickers’, the translator continued, ‘are able to operate with impunity thanks to their well-compensated, highly placed government connections.’ ‘Afghan drug lords’ are compensated with ‘uncut or raw diamonds’ that are later transported to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates aboard Ariana Airways, and aboard illicit Russian smuggler’s aircraft for the purpose of laundering into cash, payment that represents a less problematic and hence more convertible currency. (See: American War Machine, Deep Politics, the CIA, Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan, Peter Dale Scott, 2010)
The origin of the diamonds is believed by UN investigators to be of both Afghan and African provenance, obtained in exchange for illicit arms that undoubtedly lend currency to the recently coined term ‘blood diamonds.’ According to UN investigators, weapons originated from USSR Cold-War stockpiles had been and continue to be sold to arms traffickers by ranking Russian military officers. In 2010, Ukrainian arms, valued at 36.6 billion dollars have gone missing from storage depots and military installations. But the amount of Soviet arms expropriated and distributed by traffickers is thought to be substantially higher, though unknown. Arms trafficking, as with the ‘war on drugs’ is publicly admonished by most governments, yet this illicit trade in death and addiction has been routinely ignored, relegated to the back-burner and thus a useful tool by politicians and policy makers who are dependent upon and answerable to their multitudinous corporate sponsors, the ultimate beneficiaries of world-wide conflict. Over recent decades, UN and other investigators from among the multitude corps of arms experts have traced several serial numbers from individual weapons once consigned to Warsaw Pact inventories to war material delivered to areas under control of the Northern Alliance. (See: Merchant of Death, Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun, 2007)
Pentagon’s War on Drugs goes Mercenary: As with few endeavors, weapons and drug trafficking provide enormous funding for off-the-books financing of covert wars, and often provide individual wealth to many that wield the levers of power as well. And as such, those swaddled in officialdom and are willing to sell their oath of office oftentimes wield the power to frustrate and veto investigations and resolutions that seek to examine and or eradicate illicit activity. Under the title and auspices of the Counter Narcotics-Terrorism Program Office (CNTOP), the U.S. has once again contracted with the nefarious, private mercenary contractor Blackwater to administer and enforce its counter-narcotics program from an American base, a base euphemistically-named ‘Camp Integrity.’ While configured to appear as a U.S. military base, in reality, Camp Integrity remains the current headquarters of the scandal-ridden private security firm Blackwater, an administration security contractor who recently changed its name to ‘Academi’ in order to appear as a newly established corporation and thereby mask its sordid reputation and presence on the world stage from independent and enterprising journalists and from forthright, concerned Members of Congress.
And while the fact that the Taliban had virtually eradicated opium cultivation prior to the American invasion is inarguable, a fact gone unreported by a biased media, yet eradication, an oft-stated, public assuaging goal of the Obama Administration, a goal which has, not surprisingly, escaped the notice, articulation and criticism of the major media organizations, the facts indicate otherwise. Opium cultivation has risen 20% alone in the past two years since the American invasion and occupation, a result of America’s alliance and dalliance with and willing acceptance of drug trafficking under Northern Alliance drug lords who are the major traffickers since the advent of the promiscuous licensing arrangement created by their American/NATO allies’ occupational presence. (See: Pentagon wants to keep running its Afghan Drug War from Blackwater’s Head Quarters, ‘Wired’, by Spencer Ackerman, ’Danger Room’, 11/23/12, and ‘American War Machine, Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connections, and the Road to Afghanistan’, Peter Dale Scott, 2010)
Residual (Cold War) Arms Smuggling Returns: In addition to what can be only described as an inexhaustible weapons supply, traffickers inherited the USSR’s fully operational systems of clandestine transport, banking, and document (forgery) specialists organized and administered by a sophisticated criminal element who understand how to use them and have established decades-old contacts into countries in conflict or under UN embargo. Of those, the ‘Lone Wolf’, a.k.a. the ‘sanctions buster’ and or ‘the Merchant of Death’, as Russian citizen Victor Bout is also known, undoubtedly is the most notorious.
Who is Victor Bout? Born in Dushanbe, Bout attended the Soviet Military Institute for Foreign Languages in Moscow, where at age 18, is said to have met for the first time General V.I. Varrenikov’s protégé, Ahmad Shah Massoud. An enterprising student, Bout graduated at a young, impressionable age from the learning institutions of the KGB to achieve the rank of Major. Among his close and personal friends (clients): the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, B. Rabbani, Qanooni, Abdullash Abdullah, Khalili, Muhammad Fahim, Rashid Dostum, General Atta, General Daoud Daoud, Engineer Saleh and amongst Africans, Mobutu, Jonas Savimbi, and Jonas Taylor of Sierra Leone are but a few examples of Bout’s clients addicted and engaged in weapons and drug trafficking to facilitate and advance personal and or political ambitions and wealth while operating in secret, curiously immunized from international scrutiny and prosecution. (See: Merchant of Death, Douglas Farah, Stephen Braun, 2007, pp. 10, 15, 46, 59, 118, 126, 195)
During a recent interview with a Norwegian journalist, Victor Bout boasted of his association with the world’s most notorious, and in the words of the interviewer spoke ‘glowingly’ of Massoud and said that together they and a cadre of Russian flag officers often ‘hunted the rare, exotic and wild Marco Polo (Ovis Polii) sheep’, prized for its exquisite spiraling horns from helicopters in the Pamirs. Bout also referred to a ‘major contract with Burhanuddin Rabbani,’ signed during the war against the Taliban and while the Northern Alliance was in the service (allies) of the U.S. invasion force.
Invoices were produced and examined by the interviewer which covered one of a multitude of such shipments, prepared on the letterhead of San Air General Trading based in Sharja, one of a burgeoning number of front companies used by Bout. The invoices enumerated the following military equipment: 2 MI8T helicopter gunships, 4 missile launchers, 3 helicopter FAB 250 bomb dispensers, ammunition and spare parts, total cost: 2 billion dollars. San Air General Trading as a U.S. contractor flew 4 shipments a day over several months in accordance with the terms of the ‘Rabbani contract.’ Thus, as a matter of record the U.S. entered into an extra-legal contract with a notorious international arms smuggler, hired based on his vast knowledge of the multiplicity of clandestine airstrips and landing sites in the Panjshir, home to his fallen friend, Ahmad Shah Massoud. (See: Merchant of Death, Douglas Farrah and Stephen Braun, 2007, pp. 10, 15, 46, 59, 118, 126, 195)
Arms Profits: Non-Sectarian. During August 1995, one of Bout’s jet transporters leaden with millions of rounds of ammunition was forced down in Kandahar. The enterprising Bout seized the opportunity to contract with Taliban for the supply of arms. Thus, Bout, while in the service of the U.S. and under contract to Rabbani became a major weapons supplier to all sides in the conflict. During his KGB tour of duty, Bout corroborated his role as a supply-side link between the Soviet military and Ahmad Shah Massoud. He reiterated as to the fact that he, with Soviet Government complicity, had supplied large consignments of ‘hardware’ to Massoud during the Soviet occupation. (See: American Raj, Liberation or Domination, Resolving the Conflict between the West and the Muslim World, Eric S. Margolis, 2008, p. 196)
Bout also confirmed that he had ‘leased aircraft to both the Najibullah and Taliban regimes.’ When pressed for details of Moscow’s role in weapons re-supply to Massoud, he replied ‘my clients are the governments and I keep my mouth shut.’
In 1996, Victor Bout was running the largest of the UAE air-cargo companies. His business plan incorporated a network of air-cargo companies in Central Africa, South Africa, South Asia and the Emirates that could operate under the cover of autonomy and legitimacy, a result of immunization from international sanction thanks to his high-placed government friends who sought to arm proxies and maximize profits while remaining anonymous.
The saga of Victor Bout raises serious questions. How and why can illicit arms transfers and drug trafficking occur with seeming impunity? Bout maintains a fleet of some 60 aircraft, supported by a large staff of aircraft mechanics, hangar and terminal facilities, office personnel and other of logistical requirements. Yet, officially the Russian Government disavows any knowledge of Bout’s nefarious activities. It was Bout that facilitated Massoud’s illicit transfer of arms to Somalia between 1992 and 1995. Are we to assume that this enterprise was profit-motivated? Or may we assume that the Russian Government harbored political motivations to assist Muhammad Farah Aideed against their Cold-War nemesis, the U.S. then engaged in Somalia?
In yet another dimension, energy analysts are quick to point out that competition for dwindling hydro-carbon and fossil-fuel energy sources and transport facilities in Central Asia are intensifying between the U.S., Russia, Iran, and China, and history dictates that to this end Moscow has long coveted Afghanistan’s minorities as a ‘divide and conquer’ tool of foreign policy and economic opportunity. The current conflict in Afghanistan therefore serves to discourage foreign investment and development from among their competitors in the quest for energy and transit rights. Continued arms transfers from Russian stockpiles to the Northern Alliance may well be predicated upon this strategy. It well may be the strategy of the U.S. as well, as they must certainly be aware of the fact that Bout is supplying all sides to the conflict. It is difficult to imagine that a $60 billion dollar annual intelligence apparatus would be unaware of Victor Bout’s illicit activities. Regarding energy development, it has long been construed that American intervention in Afghanistan was predicated more on failing negotiations between Taliban and UNOCAL for building the proposed Trans-Afghan-Pipeline and for regime-change to facilitate those negotiations, than the so-called ‘war on terror.’
Recently, Belgium has issued an arrest warrant for Victor Bout for crimes relating to arms and drug smuggling and to crimes relating to money laundering. Thai police arrested Bout in Bangkok in 2008. The U.S. demanded his extradition which had been approved by the Thai High Court in August of 2008.
In November of 2010, Bout was extradited to the U.S., and currently incarcerated at the MET Correctional Center located in NY. But Bout had pulled off the ultimate metamorphosis, from hunted international criminal to the U.S. military’s secret delivery man. In time, the hiring of Bout’s aircraft to arm the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance became a glaring embarrassment for the United States Government. (See: Merchant of Death, Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun, 2007)
As a point in fact, Victor Bout provided an air ferrying service for the U.S. Air Force, Army Corps of Engineers, and for KBR, a subsidiary of Vice President Dick Cheney’s Halliburton Corporation. Under contract with the U.S. Government, Bout flew 142 missions to Iraq.
Legal challenges for the prosecution of Victor Bout for arms and drug trafficking will face nearly insurmountable legal and ethical hurdles and inquiries. Given a public trial, Bout will decidedly prove a profound embarrassment to the U.S. Government as complicit in extra-legal arms transfers to Iraq and Afghanistan. Speaking truth to propaganda, the drug trade in Afghanistan is flourishing. The so-called ‘war on drugs’ represents nothing more than empty, politically expedient rhetoric created to assuage the public perception of the war in Afghanistan. (See: American War Machine, Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection and the Road to Afghanistan, Peter Dale Scott, 2010)
Under Taliban control, Afghanistan had virtually eliminated opium cultivation and harvesting. With the advent of ISAF forces, Afghanistan once again became the pinnacle of drug cultivation in the world. Afghan farmers are encouraged by the CIA and government representatives to harvest opium to assist with financing the war. Major U.S. banks, it is said, are recording record profits from the burgeoning illicit activity. (See: American War Machine, Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection and the Road to Afghanistan, Peter Dale Scott, 2010)
Motivation behind smuggling represents more than simple profiteering, though that is certainly a major consideration. Government motivation behind smuggling is more sinister and more complex. It has become a tool of foreign policy, a tool with which to wage covert war hidden from public view, Congressional scrutiny and discourse. Today, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin held a news conference wherein he stated that the U.S. led-war in Afghanistan is destabilizing the region and remains the principal cause behind the marked-rise in illegal arms and drug proliferation. See: Global Research, 9 May, 2013
Bruce G. Richardson