“The Game Is Over”
I’ve been wondering, ever since Viktor Bout got arrested, what he meant by his sole public statement at the time: "The game is over." Who knows in what language he uttered the statement or how well it was translated, but the statement seemed to convey the closure of a particularly finite project rather than a long life of eluding death and the law. Getting rich, after all, is not a game, it’s a presumably boundless process. Whereas a game–that implies a beginning and an end, winners and losers.
Suffice it to say that I’m wondering even more now, as I hear news of the wrangling between Russia, the US, and Thailand. First, there’s the story (admittedly told by Bout’s lawyer and brother, not independent observers) that the Thais tried to ship him off the US immediately upon his arrest.
Thai authorities tried to force Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout to get on a plane to the United States hours after his arrest in Bangkok earlier this month, the legal counsel for the alleged "Lord of War" claimed on Monday.
Bout, dubbed the "Merchant of Death" by his detractors, was arrested in Bangkok on March 6 in a US-led sting operation that allegedly caught him making a deal with Colombian rebels.
On March 7, Thai police said Bout, 41, would remain in the kingdom to face possible charges of committing illegal activities in the country. If Thai courts turn down the case, Bout faces extradition to the US.
But Bout’s Russian lawyer Dasgupta Yan on Monday told a press conference in Bangkok that Thai authorities had tried to force his client to board a plane to the US immediately after his arrest. He said US officials were also present at the time.
"Some government officials at the moment of his detention tried to send him to the United States without proper extradition procedures," said Yan, of the Gridnav & Partners law firm.
"They told my client you need to take an aircraft to the United States, they want to talk to you there. But my client was saying I’m not ready to go, because I don’t understand why I’m arrested and secondly I didn’t have any plans to go to the United States," said Yan. [my emphasis]
Granted, after confirmation that Abu Zubaydah was shipped off secretly to Thailand to be tortured, Bout ought to be more worried about being whisked from the US to Thailand rather than being whisked from the Thailand to the US (though who knows anymore, really). But the possibility (which I consider unconfirmed) that the US wanted to ship Bout off to the US without extradition proceedings is rather curious, not least because we seem to be taking our sweet time in issuing an extradition request now.
Add in the news (via the Blotter) that the Russians are getting cranky with the Thais over their treatment of Bout.
Russia has protested to Thailand over alleged violations in the rights of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, recently arrested in a police operation in Bangkok.
"On April 11, Supot Theerakaosal, the ambassador of the Kingdom of Thailand, was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry, and a representation was made to him over the violations of the rights of Russian citizen V. Bout, arrested in Thailand at the request of the U.S.," the Foreign Ministry said without elaborating.
Bout, 41, was arrested in March in a joint police operation led by the U.S. Washington is seeking Bout’s extradition on charges of illegal weapons deals with militant groups, including the Taliban and al-Qaeda, in Middle East and African countries.
Bout’s brother said on Thursday U.S. officials had tried to take him to the U.S. without the move being sanctioned by a court.
Thai authorities said on Wednesday that they would not bring charges against Bout, but would keep him in custody pending a decision on a U.S. extradition request.
Again, this could just be the kind of intervention any country might make for a prominent–albeit crooked–citizen arrested and held without charge for a month. But the alleged irregularities sure have me wondering, again, what Bout was referring to when he referred to the game. And it makes me wonder whether the Russians are rather more active participants in Bout’s game than they’re making out, and whether Bout’s efforts to arm FARC weren’t backed by Russia somehow (which would, in turn, suggest the cross-border raid from Colombia into Ecuador might be part of the game, too).
If so, given Russia’s growing influence and the US’ declining influence, the game may well not be over yet.
Sheesh, when I saw your post, I thought tonight’s Red Sox v Yankees game
was postponed due to inclemency…
You’ll be fairly safe in assuming, even in the midst of baseball season and even if the Tigers do well, that my references are not references to baseball.
It’s a way to keep one’s life uncluttered,limiting your attention to just one spectator sport.
Does rugby qualify as a spectator sport?
Yes.
I thought the game’s being over was going to refer to someone’s judgment that Cheney was no longer going to be able to attack Iran — but that’s just due to my own choice of spectator sport these days. BTW, the picture of FARC that one gets from watching Univision is certainly horrific. I can’t see why Russia would want to soil their hands dealing with those people. Not that they wouldn’t decide to …
Wow. That might explain Bush’s hurry up with the Colombia thingy and the national security reference. Proxy wars. Everybody wants to get to all of the oil in all of the Americas…The powers that be want to take over all of the Americas ultimately….Cuba and Chavez and people like that who schmooze with the Ruskies are their major nemesis..
We should be hearing about AQ in South America very soon as ETeller noted over on FDL..
Actually, didn’t they already say that the Iranians have set up shop in Venezuela awhile back?
Oil wars.
Maybe the “Game” is something else…like…maybe he’s gonna squeal on somebody big..unless they torture him to death first.
No clue what ‘the game’ is, but it seems a reasonable assumption that it may well be somehow connected to what Sibyl Edmonds warns about (a secret network selling nuclear secrets and nuclear materials, including members of US government).
Not my field, not my area of expertise.
But given the currency that Gazprom and Lukoil must be generating for Russia in coming years, ‘ascending’ seems a reasonable adjective. The rules of the game are surely changing as a result of Russia’s ability (under Putin) to control oil and natural gas flows out of their landmass.
As an environmentalist, Russia worries me. It has no tradition of environmental stewardship, and as near as I can fathom, Cold War nuclear materials were left around in a fashion that must have made for a rather ‘Wild West Goes Gold Rush’ atmosphere the past fifteen years. It would take one hell of a global sheriff to take on that town.
Columbia + Thailand + planes = drug smuggling. Perhaps “the game is over” means that one of the CIA’s operations funded by drug smuggling is about to be revealed.
A lot of Afghany opium, I would think, travels through the hands of the Russian mafia.
I wonder if any South Americans have been renditioned to Thailand for torture.
Huh. Remember these MartyDidier posts a couple days ago?
I had forgotten about that cryptic post warning of something coming soon. Hmm, indeed.
Well, the USG-linked drug running angle is what made me think of it.
Vast right-wing conspiracy, anybody?
I wasn’t sure baseball was a sport. I though it was a pass time. Either way, 162 games is plenty of clutter.
The Jig is Up. To parse it with any precision requires a colloquial understanding of the actual phrase. This is as thin a clue as I’ve seen you work with but I’d never bet against your instincts. No never, always with!
“I’m wedecowating my Sun Woom, can you come help me?”
“Ah honey, I’m right in the middle of some of last years highlight reels, and I want us to go to the 181 Club after that. Can’t it wait?”
“No, follow me, and I’m tired of the 181 Club, too. All you and your fwiends do anymore is sit around there and complain about how tough your steaks are, and how warm is der beers.”
“But, sweetie, it’s still new, and the guys think it’s cool!”
“Okay, help me choose between these two pictures for the alcove. Here’s the first one, what do you tink?”
“Lions on the Plain! Wow!”
“And here’s the second…”
“Hippos in the Water! Awesome!”
OT – made me laugh:
Clearly Das Bout was talking about Max Mosely and his game of Nazi Prison Mistresses!
It does not stop for TV commercials.
American football would be a damn sight more interesting if the rules disallowed forward passing, and they took all the equipment off.
There is a lot of cyberinfo on this person, who, today, the Thailand foreign minister has declared will be the topic of a one-year process for extradition.
The Economist had an interesting book review last month which mentioned this trader in all manner of arms as part of an informal economy filled upon the creation of the Newly Independent States; in actuarial fashion, the reportage goes that 1/5 of the global domestic product actually is tinged by related transactions.
As for the game is over, my guess would be English poorly spoken by both the Thailand listener and Russian speaker. If in Russian, there are several possibilities that come to mind. The name of the game chess in the Russian language is “checkmates”, or “ШАХМАТы”, or simply ШАХМАТ, checkmate, as a declaration of surrender. A more ethnic and lyrical way to say it is untranslatable, though commonly rendered as “That’s all” or in one instance “all and everything”, “ВСё И ВСё”, which often is heard at the conclusion of a parent’s reading to children from a fable in a book about mythical deities or folk legends.
The Economist linked.
The arms sales person’s lastname phonetically rhymes with toot,
ВИКТОР БУТ
the Bout rendering is a classic French transliteration.