Worse than Nicolas Cage

The first thing you need to know about Viktor Bout is that everyone knows that he's one of the most heinous gun-runners on the planet. He's openly supplied Charles Taylor of Liberia, rebels and terrorists in Colombia (FARC), Lebanon (Hizbullah) and Afghanistan (Taliban). He essentially has a fetish for giving guns to the most evil people he can find. And everybody knows it. President Clinton approved several operations to capture him, as did several European governments. The UN placed a travel ban on him, and Nicolas Cage's Lord of War was based on him. Everybody knew.

Which is why Bout's arrest in Bangkok as a result of a joint Thai-US operation is so disappointing. The Thai court ruled that since it did not consider FARC a terrorist organisation, it could not extradite Bout to the USA to stand trial. US lawyers and officials cried foul, but everyone's fingers are steeped deep in this pie.

The US themselves used Bout's services during their invasion of Iraq, to transport both military and civilian cargos, hundreds of times. Russia has actually officially stated that they're glad he's not being tried, and that he is "returning to the Motherland", and Thailand is standing firm in ruling that the only possible charge to bring against Bout is a connection to FARC.

Despite the fact that everyone knows. There's even a goddamn tape recording of him speaking to US agents (impersonating FARC), saying that he hopes the weapons he's selling them "will be used to kill Americans, who are my enemies too."

The man is estimated to be worth about $6 billion, providing yet another massive asterisk and energetic footnote to the old canard "crime doesn't pay".