by starroute » Mon Dec 12, 2005 1:11 pm
Please let's not have this thread become a catch-all for anyone and anything tied to arms dealing. There is something very specific going on here -- a rise to power of international criminal enterprises. These are sometimes used for outsourcing purposes in the shadier operations of existing nation-states, but they are fundamentally independent of any nation. They seemed to have picked up all the arms smuggling/drug running/money laundering techniques pioneered by the CIA and turned them to private profit. They are extremely ruthless, thrive on chaos, and are very, very frightening.<br><br>Many of the components of this global underworld are referred to as Mafias of one sort of another. There's the Russian-Israeli Mafia, of course (which also has major tentacles throughout Eastern Europe, in South Africa, and in the the US.) There's a Mafia consisting of Moslems in India, which is patronized by the Pakistani ISI and is tied in with various terrorist operations. Just this week I saw a reference to a Chinese Mafia in Italy, which has linked up with the Sicilian Mafia and is terrifying Italian authorities because they suspect it's operating independently of the Triads. (Anybody who can make the Triads look good by comparison has got to be going some.)<br><br>And then there's Viktor Bout, international bad boy supreme. I was collecting notes on him last winter -- tried screaming about him on Democratic Underground a few times but couldn't get anyone to take notice. For anyone who's interested, the <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://yorkshire-ranter.blogspot.com/2005/06/all-viktor-bout-stuff-is-here.html">Yorkshire Ranter</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> regularly posts on Bout's operations and movement of planes believed to be his.<br><br>As the power of nation states continues to decline in this brave new world of globalization, these guys are going to stake out increasing territory. They already have a free hand in much of Africa and powerful patrons in the Middle East. It can only get worse.<br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=starroute>starroute</A> at: 12/12/05 10:12 am<br></i>