From Mother Jones:

"Former Soviet military officer Viktor Bout, the inspiration for Nicholas Cage's character in the Lord of War, remade himself as an international arms dealer and blood diamonds trafficker following the break-up of the USSR. Using his air charter business to smuggle weapons into the world's conflict zones (circumventing U.N. embargoes), Bout traveled the world with a precious gems expert and accountant in tow, supplying arms to a notorious clientele: Liberia's Charles Taylor, a cast of Congolese warlords, and the Taliban, among others. More surprising, journalists Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun report in their new book on Bout, Merchant of Death, is that the shadowy Tajik-born arms dealer has also provided his services to the U.S. military and several U.S. contractors in Iraq, including Halliburton parent company Kellogg, Brown & Root."

Uh, please note the Halliburton (as in Dick Cheney) connection.

In some ways, this fascinating book about the ultimate arms merchant, Viktor Bout, provides a well-documented, intriguing, engrossing birds-eye view into a merchant of death.

But, it would be wrong to think that Bout is anything other than one of the most colorful and visible international arms merchants -- and don't think he's doing his dirty work without the knowledge and tacit permission of Western nations, whatever their claims to try and hunt him down. After all, the Pentagon, through Cheney's Halliburton, did lots of business with him during the Iraq War, and even the U.N. is implicated in using his airplanes to ferry about personnel in hot spots that he has helped create by arming both sides.

Although Bout came to fame for his notorious bartering of arms for diamonds that kept African wars aflame -- and hundreds of thousands, even millions, killed and maimed (the movie "Blood Diamond" is a good Hollywood introduction into this horror), remember that there is an enormous legal international arms industry that regularly holds "trade shows." And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Remember the Iran-Iraq War, when the Reagan Adminsitration provided arms to both sides (although mostly to Saddam Hussein)? And remember Central America, where we did and still do make sure that right wing military leaders and death squads don't run out of ammunition?

In fact, when it comes to wars, if you follow the small arms stories that pop up, Iraq is currently the epi-center of profiteers selling weapons to all sides.

It's not some sort of idealistic peacenik notion, but the reality is that the war (now war/terror industry in the U.S.) can't make enough money in times of peace. Weapons can last a long time unless they are used and destroyed in armed conflict.

Think of Viktor Bout not as a rogue arms dealer, but as an entrepeneurial capitalist. We're sure that's how he thinks of himself.

And at the highest levels of the CIA and America's national security apparatus, he's probably considered a very useful asset at times. Not to mention the Russian government, where former KGB head Putin seems more than glad to provide Bout with free rein.

After all, Bout's just an ambitious arms merchant. Top-tier countries are used to countries and national intelligence agency "cut-outs" doing the dirty work.

When the Busheviks claim that they are trying to catch Bout, you can put it in the same garbage can of lies that led us up to the Iraq War.

Bout is too potentialy useful to the war profiteers.

And if they ever decide to snuff him because he's stop playing by the rules of the game, you can be sure that the U.S. will ice him, not capture him.

Dead men carry no secrets.