Thread: Victor Bout - Russian Businessman (?) facing 25 years in US prison

Originally Posted by Doomer

What probably going to happen - some Americans guys will get "randomly" arrested in Russia, maybe not know maybe in a year and then an exchange will be made

Frankly, I wouldn't think it was such a pity if that happened. This has got to stop. The USA has to get the message - it is not ok to kidnap citizens of other countries for crimes comitted in other countries, and throw them in prison for 25 years for political reasons.

That is the sort of thing that even the most villified enemies of the USA, like Cuba, Iran and North Korea only stretch to on rare occassions. It is really apalling - the crime and the criminal had nothing to do with the USA.

The arrest would have been justified if Bout was American, or if he was carrying out his activities in the USA. Neither was the case.

Here is an equivalent scenario if it was played out with other countries:
Iran kidnaps an sales director of Bofors, a Swedish weapons maker. He is thrown in prison in Iran for 25 years. The motivation is given as "he was plotting to kill Iranian citizens". Bofors sells weapons to Saudi Arabia which has been propping up the inpopular regime in Bahrain. Iran on the other hand, supports the uprising in Bahrain and has agents there, similar to the American agents in Columbia. It's a like-for-like scenario. But I doubt even Iran would do a thing like that.

How much is Bout's nationality related to this? What would have happened if he had been an EU nationality, British in particular, Australian... or Chinese?

And arresting him will not change anything. Victor Bout was "recycling" old weapons, there is any number of corporations peddling brand new and much more efficient weapons then the ones he was using. On a scale of "evilness" I'd say any corporation that is in the weapons industry for profit is equally evil and does more harm than Victor Bout did.

While reading comments in this thread I changed my view on this. At first I did not care much, but everything taken into consideration, I now do. And btw, I liked Rockzmom's comment. I realise that most Americans don't reflect on this type of stuff at all, or they just make the assumption that she outlined, or they accept the version of events as presented in US media.

Originally Posted by Hanna

And arresting him will not change anything. Victor Bout was "recycling" old weapons, there is any number of corporations peddling brand new and much more efficient weapons then the ones he was using. On a scale of "evilness" I'd say any corporation that is in the weapons industry for profit is equally evil and does more harm than Victor Bout did.

There is a chance that he is a wrong guy in a wrong place
And maybe Russian officials just set him up to hide the truth