Is the “Merchant of Death” a spy, a stooge, or a patsy?

Alleged arms dealer and so-called “Merchant of Death” Viktor Bout was convicted in a Manhattan federal court room earlier this month on charges of conspiracy to kill US citizens. Since his apprehension in Thailand in 2008 in a DEA sting and his subsequent extradition to the US in 2010, few have doubted that prosecutors would convict Bout, who has been deemed one of the world’s most-wanted men since a series of reports by the UN Security Council beginning in 2000 accused him of arming dictators, fueling wars and enabling war crimes everywhere from Angola to Somalia to Liberia to Afghanistan.

The two major stories on Bout diverge wildly, with the US, the UN Security Council and others accusing Bout of becoming the kingpin of the largest arms smuggling operation in the world, and Bout’s defenders claiming it was all a setup. There are indications, however, that Bout is neither the lone wolf criminal mastermind alleged by the prosecutors in his case, nor the innocent patsy in a geopolitical power struggle as alleged by his defenders.

This is our EyeOpener Report by James Corbett, presenting lesser known and rarely talked about aspects of Viktor Bout, and delving into questions and the enigma surrounding this labyrinth of illusion.

Watch the Preview Here:

Watch the Full Video Report Here (Subscribers Only):

*The Transcript for this video is available at Corbett Report: Click Here

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Mainstream Media Assists Government in Cloaking Evidence of an Ugly Duplicity in the So-Called Drug War

On Saturday, October 1, 2011, investigative journalist Bill Conroy of the Narcosphere reported scandalous and highly troubling new developments in the criminal case against accused Mexican narco-trafficker Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla. The breaking story unravels the U.S. government’s ugly national-security interests in the drug war by exposing a quid pro quo deal between the US government and the most powerful international narco-trafficking organization on the planet- the Sinaloa “Cartel,� and the US government’s recent attempt to cover this up by filing a motion in the case seeking to invoke the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), a measure designed to assure national security information does not become public during court proceedings.

Zambada Niebla, son of one of the leaders of the Sinaloa “Cartel,� arguably the most powerful international narco-trafficking organization on the planet, argues in his criminal case, now pending in federal court in Chicago, that he and the leadership of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug-trafficking organization, were, in effect, working for the U.S. government for years by providing US agents with intelligence about rival drug organizations.

In exchange for that cooperation, Zambada Niebla contends, the US government granted the leadership of the Sinaloa “Cartel� immunity from prosecution for their criminal activities — including the narco-trafficking charges he now faces in Chicago.

The government, in court pleadings filed last month, denies that claim but at the same time has filed a motion in the case seeking to invoke the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), a measure designed to assure national security information does not become public during court proceedings.

CIPA, enacted 30 years ago, is designed to keep a lid on public disclosure in criminal cases of classified materials, such as details associated with clandestine FBI or CIA operations. In this case, however, the invocation appears to be for the purpose of covering up a scandalous and shady quid pro quo deal between the US government and a drug cartel. Not only that, the Niebla case also threatens to further expose another US government scandal:

It is important to note again that most of the weapons allowed to cross from the US unimpeded into Mexico by ATF’s Fast and Furious were going to the Sinaloa “Cartel,” according to a report issued in July by Issa and Grassley.

So, given Zambada Niebla’s claim ithat “some of the [Fast and Furious] weapons were deliberately allowed by the FBI and other government representatives to end up in the hands of the Sinaloa “Cartel,â€� it seems his attorneys may want to pose some serious questions to witnesses suspected of having knowledge of that alleged act, including DEA’s Roberts, as well as the special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Mexico operations, Carol K.O. Lee and the U.S. Attorney for New Mexico, Kenneth J. Gonzales.

Such a prospect can’t be very uplifting for the prosecution in Zambada Niebla’s case and might explain, in part, why there is an effort afoot by the US law-enforcement and intelligence officials to cloak the revelations, the evidence, that might surface in the case under the seal of national security.

Prosecutors on Monday, Oct. 3, filed a motion in federal court in Chicago rebutting the accused Mexican narco-trafficker’s argument that he has been denied access to critical evidence in preparing his defense:

In their pleadings, prosecutors again affirm the government’s position that there was no immunity deal offered to the accused narco-trafficker or to the leadership of the Sinaloa drug-trafficking organization. The pleadings filed by the prosecution do not address directly why the government is seeking to invoke national-security procedures for Zambada Niebla’s case
…

Monday’s filing by prosecutors confirms that Zambada Niebla’s case does raise national security issues that require, according to those prosecutors, that special procedures be established by the court — under a 30-year-old law known as the Classified Information Procedures Act — to assure that classified materials do not become public during the court proceedings.

There seems to be another equally troubling and scandalous angle to this story: the US media’s synchronized and orchestrated black out of this massive scandal, most likely at the behest of the US government: Read more È

The Mighty Agency on it’s Knees in a Legal Battle

After 15 years of legal battles the CIA agrees to pay $3 million to a former DEA agent who accused a former CIA official of illegally eavesdropping on him as part of a joint CIA and State Department effort to thwart DEA’s anti-narcotics mission in Burma in the early 1990s.

Richard Horn was stationed in Burma in the early 1990s as the DEA country attaché to Burma, a nation that is ranked as one of the top opium poppy producing countries in the world. He was in charge of overseeing DEA’s mission in Burma involving eradication of the opium poppy, which is used to produce heroin.

Bill Conroy of Narco News covers the latest on State Secrets Privilege recipient Richard Horn. As always Conroy dares to dig and cover this significant story when the rest of the media stenographers are avoiding it like the plague and as they are told by their mighty government sources above.

“The CIA’s efforts to undermine Horn’s work in Burma in getting that nation’s government to stem the flow of heroin to the United States should come as no surprise to those who are familiar with the “Agency’s� history. It seems the CIA, over the decades, has often found itself in the corner of narco-traffickers and thugs who support the Agency’s covert objectives in areas deemed critical to U.S. special interests – whether that be in Southeast Asia, Central Asia or Latin America.�

The CIA list of hotshots involved in the case includes former CIA Director George Tenet and recently retired Acting CIA General Counsel John Rizzo. Tenet and Rizzo played major roles in setting up the legal basis to justify the CIA’s use of torture. Here is Mr. Rizzo in action during the agency’s cover up operation on torture:

Conroy sums up the latest status of the case and the potential deserved sanctions that may be brought against Tenet, Rizzo, and other current and former CIA culprits:

And now, as part of the Horn case filed in a Washington D.C. federal court, we find a U.S. District judge, former FISA court member Royce Lamberth, opening the door for sanctions to be brought (as a result of the fraud, or lie, perpetrated on the court) against Tenet and Rizzo — as well as several other current and former CIA officials, among whom is Robert Eatinger, the current Acting Deputy General Counsel for Operations in the CIA’s Office of General Counsel (OGC).

If Lamberth’s judicial opinions in the Horn case are allowed to remain in the court record — to be recalled and cited going forward by other lawyers, judges and academics — then untold damage could be done to the reputation of the CIA and its leadership. Those judicial opinions memorializing the CIA’s fraud on the court also would serve as a permanent reminder of the occasionally dubious credibility of the Agency’s pronouncements invoking national security and the state-secrets privilege.

As part of this article Conroy provides a complete timeline and background on Horn’s case, involved CIA culprits, and of course, the mind-boggling and nauseating conclusions and implications. I highly encourage you to read Bill Conroy’s A+ piece: Click Here. Afterwards we will have plenty to discuss over here, and plenty to show those who write off CIA’s long past and still present involvement in global Narco-Trafficking as fiction or conspiracy!

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