Saturday 21st of December 2024
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singing the national anthems.......

Arms dealer Viktor Bout inspired the 2005 film Lord of War. In that movie, a federal agent fanatically pursues the fictional arms dealer “Yuri Orlov,” (Nicholas Cage). In prison, the criminal confidently tells the agent who caught him that he will be released. Orlov is useful. He arms people the US government can’t afford to be seen supporting. He claims that the man at the top of his industry is the President. We are to believe that the top arms dealers in the world are the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. [USA, RUSSIA, FRANCE, UK, CHINA....]

This week’s events turned that on its head. The Biden Administration traded Viktor Bout, known as the “Merchant of Death,” for black WNBA player Brittney Griner. This may be the first WNBA trade most people have ever heard of.

 

BY 

 

Brittney Griner is a black lesbian and leftist activist in a league that prides itself on radical politics. She said the national anthem should not be played before games and that it “didn’t even represent all Americans when it was first made.” She refused to be on court while the anthem was played. This was to protest “police brutality.”

In February, Brittney Griner went to Russia. Customs found cannabis oil, which she claimed she packed by mistake. A Russian court sentenced her to nine years in prison.

The Biden Administration negotiated for her release for months, and now Russia got a national security asset back while we got an ingrate. Mr. Bout is almost certainly an agent for Russian intelligence. In 2014, he told The New Yorker that he’d “get back to Russia” while “your empire will collapse.” President Biden fulfilled the first part of his prophecy; we wait for the second.

CNN’s Van Jones, a onetime Obama Administration appointee ousted for his extremist views, praised the trade: “You can’t allow a black female icon to be traded like garbage and the U.S to do nothing about it.” Evidently America exists to make sure the entire world adores our black female icons.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, another black lesbian, said Brittney Griner represents “the best of America.” “On a personal note, Brittney is more than an athlete, more than an Olympian,” she said. “She is an important role model and inspiration to millions of Americans, particularly the LGBTQI+ Americans and women of color.” (Miss Jean-Pierre’s wife is CNN anchor Suzanne Malveaux.)

Fox News’s Peter Doocy asked whether giving up Mr. Bout for a “professional athlete” meant Russia got the “better deal.” “Our choices [were] Brittney or no one at all,” sad Mrs. Jean-Pierre. She also reminded Mr. Doocy that Brittney Griner was an American citizen. One wouldn’t expect the Biden Administration to care about that given its record on immigration.

Let us not forget another American citizen. In 2018, a Russian court convicted former-marine Paul Whelan of espionage, and sentenced him to 16 years. Mr. Whelan sayshe’s innocent and the trial was a “sham.” The American ambassador to Russia under President Trump agrees. “This secret trial in which no evidence was produced is an egregious violation of human rights and international legal norms,” said Ambassador Jake Sullivan in June 2020. Both the Trump and Biden Administrations failed to win Mr. Whelan’s released

“We never forgot about Brittney, and we’ve not forgotten about Paul Whelan, who has been unjustly detrained in Russia for years,” insists President Biden. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Mr. Whelan’s case was harder “because of the nature of the sham charges against him, which were based on espionage.” Unfortunately, said Mr. Kirby, “[W]e’re just not able to deal with him the same way.” Why not?

Mr. Whelan disagrees with Brittney Griner about many things. “He gets up every morning and sings the national anthem, I think as much to irritate the guards as to keep his own morale up,” said his brother David Whelan. David also thinks the Marine Corps taught him techniques like this as a survival strategy. Patriotism keeps Mr. Whelan going.

We shouldn’t assume Brittney Griner will now feel any differently about the national anthem. Her story may become another legend about American racism. Despite the Biden Administration’s extraordinary efforts, as an article in truthout tells us, “Journalist Dave Zirin says the sports world was slow to rally to Griner’s cause due to sexism, racism, and homophobia.” “The amount of erasure and deliberate ignoring of Brittney Griner’s case was apparent to anybody who listens to sports radio or watches sports television.”

“Brittney Griner Freed, Fight For Wrongly Incarcerated Black Women Must Continue,” argued Shaun Harper in Forbes. He explains how awful America is:

UCLA and Columbia University law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw has helped courts, legal scholars and social scientists, and law students understand how racism, sexism, poverty, religious discrimination, homophobia, transphobia, and other social forces co-mingle to place Black women at particular vulnerability for the miscarriage of justice in legal processes.

In a separate piece for Forbes, he suggests Mr. Biden had good reason to leave Mr. Whalen behind:

[M]ore than 90% of Black women voted for Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Hence, if there was in fact a choice to make, would it have been entirely wrong of the president to demonstrate loyalty to an often taken-for-granted group who was the most loyal to him?

He has an even more convoluted argument:

But what about those who protected the U.S. through their military service? Shouldn’t they be higher priority than a Black woman who plays on a professional basketball team? These two questions could be met with this important one: What about Black women who bravely serve in the U.S. military, but are systematically denied opportunities for promotion; who aren’t believed when they report their experiences with sexual harassment and sexual assault; who are forced to hide or lie about their sexual orientations if they’re queer; and whose contributions are routinely overshadowed by those of their white male counterparts? Griner hasn’t served in the U.S. military, but perhaps putting her ahead of a man who has is one act of restorative justice on behalf of all those Black women servicemembers who’ve been mistreated over time.

Mrs. Griner never served.

No one is spinning elaborate theories to help Paul Whelan. His brother David saysmedia influence and public sentiment don’t have the same impact in his brother’s case: “Miss Griner can bring her name and her energy to making sure the U.S. government is proactive and being more assertive to resolve these cases quickly, like they did in her case.” He adds generously that the Whelans “do not begrudge Ms. Griner her freedom.”

However, he thinks his brother Paul lost “any hope that a government will negotiate his freedom at this point” and that the federal government has “no concessions the Russian government will take for Paul Whelan.” The US shot its wad for the ball player.

Will Mrs. Griner campaign for Paul Whelan? Will we see protests during WNBA games for Mr. Whelan’s freedom? Will Brittney Griner stand for the anthem simply out of respect for a man who served the country that freed her? Don’t count on it.

Another case virtually identical to Brittney Griner’s is Marc Fogel’s. He faces 14 years for having less than an ounce of medical marijuana. His sister says she’s “disenchanted” with the federal government. His mother is too. “I really thought in my heart that they would lump the three of them together because they’re trading for a dangerous, real criminal,” she said. These three people aren’t criminals. It just doesn’t seem like an even trade to me.”

He’s not just in any jail; the court sentenced him to hard labor. The man is 61 and the reason he had the marijuana was because a doctor prescribed it for “severe spinal pain.” Hard labor for an older man who is already in severe pain could be a death sentence.

The State Department has not even classified him as “wrongfully detained,” a designation the department used to justify pressure for Mrs. Griner’s release. “I will continue to relentlessly advocate for Pittsburgh native Marc Fogel’s release and for the State Department to classify him as wrongfully detained, something they have failed to do since his detainment in August 2021,” said Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA). Former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said that Mr. Fogel, who taught at the American school in Moscow, is “a real patriot.”

Maybe that’s the problem. Our media look down on patriotism. If a foreign country arrested a white conservative on phony charges, right-wing media would talk about it, but it would never become a movement. Whites (liberal or conservative) don’t have the sense of moral outrage non-whites enjoy when they say the government isn’t helping them. White conservatives wouldn’t want to embarrass the country, but a black celebrity accusing the White House and America of racism is a PR disaster that must be fought with all means available.

Some have said Brittney Griner would have been freed earlier if she had been NBA star Lebron James. If that’s true, it means that celebrity is all that counts, but that’s the wrong comparison. What would happen if the White House had freed a patriotic white man instead of a black celebrity? There would probably be riots.

American patriotism means you matter less to “your” own government. A patriot doesn’t ask “what your country can do for you;” he sacrifices for it. Loyalty to a united American identity surpasses racial identities. That’s a political liability because you can’t accuse the government of discrimination. With no “racism” angle, there’s little media attention. Patriots stand for strength, unity, or victory. Our rulers cater to victimhood.

This makes Brittany Griner a custom-made political hero. She had an angry movement backing her. Whom do Marc Fogel and Paul Whelan have on their side? The United States gave Russia a victory in exchange for Brittany Grier. It wouldn’t do the same for two white men.

There are two different kinds of objection to a trade that Russia clearly won. Conservatives are angry because our country has shown weakness to an enemy. Any who is angry that “our” government will sacrifice for blacks but not for whites had better keep quiet.

Maybe this will get some Americans to wonder whether the regime in DC represents “our country” or just occupies it. When Paul Whelan sings the national anthem each morning, he honors his country. The prisoner exchange makes it clear his country, or at least the regime, doesn’t honor white men.

Republished from American Renaissance

 

 

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FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW.... SHOULD AUSTRALIA MAKE A DEAL WITH THE US?

an experiment......

Recently-released Russian businessman Viktor Bout told RT on Saturday that his case was an “experiment” in the legal persecution of Russia, with the US deploying sanctions against him and his home country alike.

“What happened to me happened to my country,” he said, in his first TV interview after he was returned to Russia in a prisoner swap for US basketball star Brittney Griner.

“They tried this experiment with me first,” he stated. “I’ve been under sanctions since 2000. I was unable to make any bank transfers;... so I’ve seen it all.”

“There is nothing new about this,” he continued, referring to the unprecedented economic sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and its allies in the wake of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. “They started this undeclared war against me and my family,” he said, adding that the war "spilled over to encompass everyone.”

Bout served 12 years in a number of US prisons on arms-trafficking charges. While he accepted a plea deal in exchange for 25 years behind bars, he denies the charges.

Back in his native Russia, Bout told RT that he “fully supports the special military operation” in Ukraine, which, he argued, Moscow should have launched in 2014. However, he conceded that “not everyone was ready” for such an operation back then.

“If I could, I would share the skills I have and I would readily volunteer,” he declared.

However, Bout said that contrary to some reports in the US media, he does not see himself as particularly valuable to Russia or to President Vladimir Putin. Instead he suggested that he was merely caught up in a larger geopolitical game, and that there are “probably thousands and thousands and thousands” of cases like his in Russian history.

 

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https://www.rt.com/russia/568013-viktor-bout-russia/

 

 

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FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW.... SHOULD AUSTRALIA MAKE A DEAL WITH THE US?

smoking pot......

 

By Binoy Kampmark / CounterPunch

Prison exchanges and swaps are never entirely satisfactory affairs.  The appropriate measure in such cases is the degree of dissatisfaction that arises from them. In the instance of the exchange of US basketballer Brittney Griner for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, the Russian negotiators may well count themselves richer in the bargain.

Griner, a two-time Olympic champion, was detained in February this year at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport possessing cartridges for vapes with hashish oil.  Her argument was that these had been prescribed.  The court was not convinced, sentencing her to a brutal nine-year prison sentence for drug smuggling.

Bout, invested with Satanic-like qualities of influence by US authorities and Hollywood, where his role is given a celluloid form by Nicolas Cage, was convicted in 2011 on four charges that included conspiring to kill US citizens.

He was arrested three years prior in Bangkok after attempting to sell surface-to-air missiles to members of the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) posing as arms buyers for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. This very fact gave Bout cause for consternation and suspicion: the sting operation, the smell of politics.  For his part, it was all business.

More popularly, he was accused of something other powers and entities have done repeatedly since decolonisation: spread the murderous joy of armaments across the African continent through the 1990s and early 2000s.  Throw in claims by US authorities that he was a former officer of the Russian military intelligence directorate, the GRU, and we have a character with form.

Bout’s ventures were more complicated than merely shipping weapons.  In the 1990s, he launched his own air-freight company Air Cess, acquired a fleet of military aircraft, and shipped televisions, air-conditioners, furniture, textiles, electronics and weapons to a number of countries in conflict from his operating base in Sharjah.  He was positively catholic in acquiring his clients: from officials in Washington to war criminals such as Liberia’s Charles Taylor.

The prospects for seeking an exchange involving Bout were already circulating in July, when it was reported that he might be exchanged for Paul Whelan, serving a 16-year sentence in Russia on espionage charges, along with Griner.  Even the original sentencing justice, District Judge Shira Scheindlin, argued that “the situation has changed and this is a trade we should make.”  Bout had most likely lost his place in the pecking order of arms trafficking.

Former chief of operations at the DEA, Michael Braun, expressed his alarm at the very idea.  “Before going through this trade, it would behoove US President Joe Biden to remember just how dangerous Bout was – and how much damage his release could do to US national security.”

The Russian negotiators, refusing a job lot offer, drew the line at Whelan, leaving the Biden administration to accept the return of Griner while raising questions about the currency of such exchanges.

The air of disagreement from the smokestacks of commentary in the US was certainly palpable.  But Griner’s return came to be seen as morally necessary, given, as a CNN report put it, her sentence “to a Russian penal colony for possession of a single gram of cannabis oil.”  Bout’s release became a justifiable move because of Griner’s “blatant seizure as a geopolitical pawn on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”.

Russian human rights lawyer Arseny Levinson also thought the sentence political in nature.  “She should not have been sentenced to a real prison term at all.  Moreover, such a severe punishment should not have been imposed, it was motivated solely by raising the stakes in the exchange, making a mockery out of the hostage.”

The Griner-Bout exchange has thrown up an unwelcome mirror for the Biden administration.  The failure to secure Whelan’s release led former President Donald Trump to fume at “a ‘stupid’ and unpatriotic embarrassment for the USA,” while House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called it a “gift to Vladimir Putin” and imperilling to “American lives.”

US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) argued that the trade gave another reason to “impeach” the President.  Biden “traded Russian terrorist arms dealer, Viktor Bout, left a US Marine in a Russian jail, and brought home a professional basketball player.”

The sentiment was echoed in gloating fashion by RT editor Margarita Simonyan, who thought Whelan a “hero spy” as opposed to Griner, a “drug-addicted black lesbian who suffered for vaping hashish”.

Then came that rather uncomfortable fact that marijuana, while legal in 21 US states, has also seen prisoners serve life sentences for possessing small amounts of the drug.  Neuroscientist and drug reform advocate Dr Carl Hart celebrated Griner’s release, but suggested the need to do more: “Now let’s free all drug war political prisoners.”

Being righteous over the release of Bout is an easy thing.  The arms-trade has a far more obvious lethality to it than drugs or the pet obsession of wealthy countries with “people smuggling”. But that ignores the muddy picture of deals, collaborative alliances and understandings known as the international arms market.

Singling out Bout as the cartoonish gangster who endangered US lives ignores the fact that the United States remains the world’s biggest arms exporter, thereby endangering the lives of citizens across the globe.  Between 2017 and 2021, the US accounted for 39 percent of the major arms transfers globally.  This was twice that of Russia, and almost 10 times what China sent its customers.

Another excruciating point is that one can only become a merchant of death if the merchandise, and the interest in buying and using it, is there.  As Bout himself put it, if you were going to prosecute a figure such as himself, you might as well prosecute US arms dealers whose weapons eventually end up being used against US citizens.  (The National Rifle Association, take note.)  “They are involved even more than me!”

 

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https://scheerpost.com/2022/12/12/basketball-viktor-bout-and-troubling-exchanges/

 

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FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW......

viktor wins.....

Russian businessman Viktor Bout, who was released last year from a US prison in a prisoner swap, has secured a seat in the legislative assembly of Ulyanovsk Region in regional elections on Sunday. 

Bout’s victory was reported by the press service of the regional election commission in a statement to the TASS news agency on Tuesday. 

The businessman represents the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), which received 13.56% of the vote in elections to the Ulyanovsk Legislative Assembly, coming in third after United Russia, which scored 49.91%, and the Communist Party (16.96%). 

Bout joined the LDPR in December of 2022 after spending 14 years behind bars, including 12 years in a US prison, where he was serving a 25-year sentence. He ended up in Washington’s custody in 2008 after being arrested in Thailand and extradited to the US. He was then convicted on gun-running charges. Bout has consistently denied any wrongdoing. 

On December 8, 2022, Bout was released as part of a high-level prisoner swap between the US and Russia that saw the businessman exchanged for basketball star Brittney Griner, who had been sentenced to a penal colony in Russia on drug smuggling charges. 

As soon as he returned home, Bout announced that he would join the LDPR, stating that he sympathized with the party’s message and believed it to be a powerful party that is close to the people.

 

The LDPR is currently the fourth-largest party in Russia’s lower house of parliament, called the State Duma. It was founded by the late firebrand politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who passed away last year. The party focuses on patriotism and conservatism, and opposes both modern neoliberal capitalism and Soviet-style communism. 

Voting was held in roughly one-fifth of Russia’s 89 federal subjects on Sunday. Voters cast their ballots for local leaders and legislatures, including in the four former Ukrainian territories of Kherson, Zaporozhye and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. This marked the first time that regional and federal elections were held in these regions since they joined Russia last year following public referendums. 

A total of 45 million out of 67 million eligible voters participated in the elections, according to the Central Election Commission, which noted that Sunday’s turnout was the highest since 2017.

 

https://www.rt.com/russia/582861-viktor-bout-wins-seat/

 

 

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FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW..............

WSJ deceit...

Viktor Bout slams US media ‘hoax’
The WSJ is seeking to boost its ‘sagging readership’ with a fabricated report on an alleged arms deal with the Houthis, the Russian businessman has said

 

Russian businessman Viktor Bout has blasted a Wall Street Journal report about an alleged attempt to broker the sale of small arms to Yemen’s Houthi rebels, calling it a hoax. Bout, who spent 12 years in a US prison, accused the newspaper of bias and of having ties to the CIA.

The article published on Sunday cited a European security official and other sources as claiming that in August, Bout met with Houthi representatives who traveled to Moscow to negotiate the purchase of $10 million worth of automatic weapons from Russia. 

“If we look at the title of the article, and it is pointedly titled ‘Putin’s Arms Dealer,’ we naturally understand that this fabrication was specifically timed to coincide with the birthday of President Vladimir Putin,” Bout told RBK on Monday. 

“I would like to note that in the absence of significant media personalities, American media outlets are using the ‘Lord of War’ branding, which they once promoted themselves and which is known to a wide audience, and my name,” he said.

Bout added that by doing so, the WSJ is clearly aiming “to attract more public attention to their article and boost readership, which has apparently sagged.” 

The report claims that two Houthi representatives allegedly met with Bout under the guise of buying pesticides and vehicles while visiting a Lada factory.

The sources claimed that arms deliveries to the Yemeni port of Hodeidah could start as early as October. The first two deliveries will mostly be AK-74s, an upgraded version of the AK-47 assault rifle. During the trip, the Houthis also allegedly discussed other weapons the Russian side might potentially sell, including Kornet antitank missiles and antiaircraft weapons.

However, the “potential arms transfers stop well short of the sale of Russian antiship or anti-air missiles,” the paper wrote.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that Moscow considers the report on Bout’s alleged participation in arms sales to be fake.

Bout was arrested in Thailand in 2008 based on an Interpol ‘red notice’ requested by the US. He was extradited and convicted of conspiring to sell weapons to a US-designated foreign terrorist group and given a 25-year sentence.

Bout has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

In December 2022, he was released as part of a high-level prisoner swap between the US and Russia in which he was exchanged for US basketball star Brittney Griner, who had been sentenced to a penal colony in Russia on drug smuggling charges.

After returning home, Bout joined the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. Last year, he secured a seat in the legislative assembly of Ulyanovsk Region in regional elections.

 

https://www.rt.com/russia/605363-viktor-bout-slams-us-media/

 

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