Stephen BraunMerchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible

Do you want to understand the threats to National Security from Terrorist organizations and Mexican Cartels? Ready for some great detail and information not easily gathered into one source?Farah's book describes the methodology behind the movement of money, guns, drugs, and the structural foundations that prescribes war. Farah details the Taliban financing, called a "commodity-for-commodity exchange," which represents Taliban and al Qaeda trading opium and heroin for gold. Further, he details the transportation of multiple products into Belize's through a remote border with Mexico. Opium is transported from Afghanistan, over Colombian routes and by drug cartels, then by using Mexican drug cartels, the routes pass thru Ciudad Juarez and into the United States via El Paso, Texas. Farah offers a perspective that is not often available or explored.Then consider reading author Charles Bowden's book Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields. Bowden continues to report on the life and struggles of citizens caught living in border towns of Ciudad Juarez and El Paso. Bowden's investigative reporting highlights the events surrounding drug trafficking and increased violence. In just over a year, the death counts have escalated from 40 to just over 300 deaths a month. Statistically this rate exceeds that of Baghdad. Ciudad Juarez a short distance from El Paso, Texas represents a geographic location of a failed state. Bowden suggests that this condition will travel north, across the border to El Paso, challenging the security of Americans.Connecting the dots includes Steven Emerson's Jihad Incorporated: A guide to Militant Islam in the US and Ameridan Jihad The Terrorist Living Among Us.Emerson details the global growth of the Muslim Brotherhood, Taliban, and al-Qaeda cells. His compiled work is a tool used by many law enforcement agencies. Emerson has cited his work during testimony for Congress. The documentation, research, and network details, offer the direct illicit link for my research puzzle. Emerson identifies Hezbollah with ties to the U.S. Emerson, Bowden, and Farah's work when reviewed together, offers identification of drug cartels working with al-Qaeda cell members.Who really is the merchant of death? A good read if you are looking for detailed information on the subject matter with supporting documentation.Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing FieldsJihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the USAmerican Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us

I found several errors, one glaring, where the authors claim that Bout's aircraft had Lead shielding in order to stop bullets. The problem with that is that Lead shielding is used to stop nuclear radiation, not bullets. Russian military aircraft were designed to operate in nuclear war conditions, so bullets would not be the reason for Lead shielding. Ordinary bullets cut through Lead like a hot knife through butter.Another possible error is the author's claim that aircraft insignia were made of magnetic material so it could be changed more easily by peeling off the insignia, except that most aircraft skins are made of Aluminum and are non-magnetic. Assuming Russian military transport aircraft had steel skins, no magnets could withstand the tremendous air flow across the tail section. Magnetic insignia would be blown right off the plane.Finally, the authors presume that all UN decrees have the force of law no matter how ridiculous or undemocratic such decrees may be.All of which suggests the "Merchant of Death" may contain many more serious errors or presumptions that are not so obvious. Yet despite the uncertainty of the author's claims, the book does make interesting reading for those who assume incorrectly that the US government monolith is perfectly efficient.The hunt to pin something on Viktor Bout was almost comedic in its screwups, with the Pentagon relying on Bout's air fleet to resupply its forces in Baghdad and Afghanistan while the State Department was trying to seize his assets to prevent him from completing his Pentagon contracts. Quite a mess, and one that was successfully covered-up by the US government until this book was published.The book omits the illegal capture and kidnapping of Bout from Thailand under color of law, originally precipitated by Bout's alleged violation of UN bans on arms shipments to various nations in Africa, yet the deals were perfectly legal under the laws of those governments involved. The final deal that got Bout into a US prison is completely omitted from the book, a proposed delivery to FARC that was never made - a "crime" that was never attempted, a "conspiracy" without a second participant, because the second guy worked for the US government.(Yes, it still requires two or more people to form a "conspiracy", but one of those two happened to be a government agent whose intent was to NOT commit a criminal act.)One interesting question is how a UN ban on arms shipments should affect countries that did not agree to the ban. Some countries simply reject the decrees of an un-elected gathering of representatives of various nations.UN bans can have the force of law only for those nations accepting UN jurisdiction and which accepted the ban. Bout appears to not have done business with any nation which agreed to the arms ban, so how could he be held to have acted "illegally"?The murky fog of conflicting laws (2nd Amendment vs. UN arms ban) remains despite decrees of US agencies and the UN, and one wonders how Bout could be imprisoned by the US for arms dealing when the 2nd Amendment protects the sale of arms.US court cases have held many times that gun sellers are not legally responsible for the criminal acts of buyers involving guns, yet Bout remains in federal prison for merely offering to transport guns to South America. Has America's judicial system completely abandoned the doctrine of Stare Decisis? Or is there more to that story? Readers of this book will have to wait for a sequel, or until Mr. Bout writes his own version.What motivated Viktor Bout to be so obsessed about his companies?Why would former Soviet military men offer air transport services for hire?You won't know - it doesn't cover many details on that. But another book does.When the Soviet Union collapsed, funding for the armed forces evaporated, soldiers went without pay, without a place to live, the value of the Ruble collapsed, and families managed to survive living in tents, total poverty.Army platoons hired themselves out to whoever could feed them. Within months after the collapse, the military was near starvation and sold whatever they could to buy food. Officers traded vacuum cleaners, aviation fuel, whatever they could find, for food. This is what led to former Soviet pilots taking any job they could find. The reasons motivating guys like Viktor Bout can be found in the book, "Outlaws Inc." Perhaps one would have to experience that situation in order to understand that they did whatever they had to do, to survive.Operation Mockingbird, originally a US government black operation, is designed to change public opinion through planted media stories, scripted movies and t.v. shows, books (including college textbooks), radio talk shows, and other media. Anyone hunted by the government receives the full Mockingbird treatment, and Viktor Bout became #1 on Washington's list of approved targets.Operation Mockingbird is an ongoing program, and that begs the question of how much of the Viktor Bout story is true and how much is paid government propaganda, or based on inserted scenarios created in D.C. and Langley, planted news stories, etc. What do we actually "know" for certain?