Merchant of Death case is a pantomime – author
Viktor Bout has to be Houdini to get a fair trial in the US, told RT best selling Canadian author Daniel Estulin, who is working on a book that exposes a US conspiracy against Russian businessman Viktor Bout.
RT: Today we are talking to a best-selling Canadian author of Russian origin and one of the most famous globe-trotters of our time – Daniel Estulin. His book “The True Story of the Bilderberg Group” has been sold over three million copies in the world. So, what was this book about? This book was issued in 2005 if I’m not mistaken, right?
Daniel Estulin: That’s right. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. The first edition of this book, The Bilderberg Group, came out in Spain in September 2005 and we sold 40,000 copies, I think, within the first three days. Ever since then it’s been a tremendous success. It’s now being sold in 79 countries and translated into 49 languages. In fact, the only other Spanish author that has sold more books than I have, ironically, enough was Cervantes. He’s sold more copies, but I have sold in more languages. It’s a very strange situation. But yes, this book, the Bilderberg Group, one of the world’s most powerful secret societies, has turned into a sort of an enigma, let’s say, of the early part of the 21st century.
RT: So, what does it mean being a globe-trotter in the modern world? I saw you here in Thailand six months ago and I understand you have been here for six months, right?
DE: I have been here for six months. I’ve been here since the end of August investigating the Viktor Bout story. It’s a fascinating story because, again, to finish my new book “The Shadow Masters” I needed the Viktor Bout story. And I said that the first draft of my manuscript was an indictment of Viktor Bout and the entire voracious operation of arm dealers and gun traffickers. Because I’ve spent a lot of time in Africa and I know what these people do there, because, as I say, I am a globe-trotter and I’ve been to all these countries. I heard the name “Viktor Bout” back in the 1990s, and we all have heard his story and we all have seen the film “Lord of War”.
So, I came to Thailand thinking to myself: “Well, this guy is here. Now, I’m going to get it out of him one way or another.” When I got here and I started investigating the Viktor Bout truths or lies of the story, I realized it’s just a pack of lies. There is nothing behind it. There are shadow masters of the shadow world, run from behind the scenes by very powerful people and foundations, and think-tanks, and governments with far-sided agendas, because, again, what they’ve sold us, you know, the damaged set of goods, is that one man, Viktor Bout, is smarter than every intelligence agency in the world, who’s allegedly after him; smarter than every government on the planet, who has been able to outwit all of these people collectively and run circles around them while selling guns and arms to all these drug traffickers and international terrorists.
RT: And he comes to Thailand and he gets caught.
DE: And he gets caught in the stupidest way. This is the man who is a shadow. The you-can’t-find-elusive man and he gets caught in the most stupid way. And not only does he get caught in the most stupid way, but also the alleged evidence points to him being an idiot, because he was so absolutely careless. So, when they try and actually to sell you a story of, you know, an elusive man, who is smarter than everybody else, who is at the same time a degenerate fool – you cannot be both things at the same time. So when I came to Thailand, I just needed something, a fingerprint of Bout’s on a weapon sold to the Taliban. But there was none of the proof, none of the evidence. None of it existed any more. And the more I delved into it, the more, to my horror and relief, I realized: that’s pantomime. This guy is not guilty. He was set up. There is a big system behind him, a juggernaut who needed a Bout as a patsy to get at Russia.
RT: There are people who insist that Viktor Bout is the world’s biggest merchant of death. One of them is Douglas Farah who wrote together with Stephen Braun that now very famous book “The Merchant of Death”. And you’ve read it. Did you try to contact Douglas Farah or someone?
DE: If the people insist that Viktor Bout is guilty, all I want is one piece of proof. Now whether Douglas Farah, who failed to answer one of my emails; or Braun, who failed to answer one of my emails; or Michael Braun – namesake, but no relation – the DEA agent in charge of the entire operation, I actually called him and discussed the entire conversation, and when I pushed him and pinned him against the wall with some serious questions about the entire Bout affair, he suddenly forgot the evidence. He said he could not hear me on the phone. I sent him an email with very specific, case-specific ten questions. First, he did not answer. Then he said I was a conspiracy theorist, and he was only dealing with investigative journalism. What’s more we have Bout co-conspirator Andrey Smolin, who actually disappeared from Bangkok’s Sofitel hotel where he was guarded by forty commandoes, handcuffed, no shoes, no wallet, no passport. We are supposed to believe the American version of events that: Smolin escaped without anyone noticing; makes it out of the hotel without anyone paying attention; a hotel surrounded by 200 commandoes and special forces – you were here, you know what it was like; makes it into a taxi, handcuffed; goes to the airport, handcuffed without a passport; somehow eludes the taxi driver without raising suspicion; not paying for his taxi drive; gets a ticket without a passport, handcuffed, to the only place in the world, if convicted he’s going to serve three life sentences. Now, if Michael Braun calls me a conspiracy terrorist, then what is he?
RT: Well, you have met Viktor Bout how many times so far?
DE: I don’t know, 30-40-50 times. I’ve been here for six months, I have been coming to see him religiously for the last six months every week and a half – two weeks. I’ve been having interviews with him, long two-hour interviews, and again I am the only person from the western media, no one else is here. Stephen Braun is not here. Douglas Farah is not here. He has never met Viktor Bout; he has never actually talked to him. And the more information I gathered from Viktor and from other people around him and from my sources in the intelligence community, I realize that the whole thing was a pantomime. None of it was checked out. There was not one piece of evidence. I’ll give you one example: the American media – led by the New York Times or Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Time Magazine, Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal – this crème de la crème of Western international press were talking of Viktor Bout working for the American government in Iraq. I couldn’t find any proof of it. Everybody talks about, you know, they control the oil industry, they control the world, but who are these “they”? What I’ve done with Bilderberg, and just as I’ve done with the Shadow Masters, I put the names and the faces and the actual evil deeds to the “them”, so we know who does what to whom and we know how the American government in my book “the Shadow Masters” actually colluded with very important people in the United Nations, in the American press to create a monster out of a character whose idea was not to destroy Viktor Bout. He was just a poor man caught in a very big game, which is much bigger than he is. I am not saying he’s innocent, that’s not my obligation. That’s history’s obligation to judge Viktor Bout. My job in my book was to actually unmask the conspiracy behind the Viktor Bout campaign – that’s the whole point behind it.
RT: That was what I was about to ask you. We know that the Viktor Bout operation has gone badly wrong for the United States of America since the day when his extradition from Thailand was not performed. The Thai side, at least the court of the first instance, decided to give him a chance. They said that the indictment was not funded with any evidence; basically, what you are saying now. But if, for instance, the whole thing had worked in the way it had been planned, what would have happened?
DE: Well, I think it still can be, because in Thailand unfortunately the Supreme Court does not rule on these decisions. So the appeal court’s ruling is the final ruling. And if he is convicted, he will be sent to the United States. And if he is free, then he can obviously go back to Russia. But the point is that the United States government has shown plenty of times over especially the past decade since September 11 that it is no longer a republic that so many of us have looked up to as a beacon of freedom and hope for so many years. It has become a Nazi state of government which is not run by the president or the people, but by secret societies who understand that we are entering the end game. And Viktor Bout unfortunately is just an unwitting victim in this entire game. Had there not been Viktor Bout, there would have been another Viktor Bout out there.
RT: So, if Viktor Bout goes to the United States, if he is extradited to the United States, what happens then? You mentioned a possible secret tribunal. But how can a case of this magnitude which is absolutely famous in the world, how can a case of this size, of this fame can be hushed down or tried by a secret tribunal?
DE: First of all, famous in the world is not fundamental for America, because what might be famous to the rest of the world, the United States' attention span is very-very short. Famous in the world is something like Jackson's breast during the Super Bowl. Or some famous Tiger Wood love affair. That's famous for the United States.
The media, the world media – especially the Western media – forms part of the world's elite. And as I explained in the Bilderberg, all the most important media groups of out time: the New York Times, Washington Post, NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox – all of them form a part of the world's most famous secret society – the Bilderberg group. What these people have been able to do over the past 50 years, they have been able to convince people that what they see on television, on the nightly news, or what they read on the front page of their local or national newspapers, has to be the truth. And as the Americans believe what the mainstream press tells them, the fact is that they will spin the Viktor Bout story any way they want. And when everybody in unison tells the same story, with slightly different two degree of separation angle, they are going to say – Well, it has to be the truth, because all of the media are telling me the same story: that Viktor Bout is an arms dealer; he is a merchant of death; the proof is irrefutable. People like Daniel Estulin are conspiracy theorists. Not only that but he is not even allowed in the United States, so he has to be a terrorist, because again it's good and bad, it's us and them, it's American apple pie and everybody else, it's a very simplistic concept.
RT: Do you think that even the total lack of evidence in court will not help Viktor Bout to defend himself?
DE: In the United States – absolutely not. You have to be a Houdini, a magician multiplied by factor of ten million to actually have a fair trial, a fair shake. It's not about the truth; it's about getting a guy, a patsy, to go to prison, so America could feel safe and feel good about themselves, about being the beacon of truth and hope. And that's what it is all about. That's why people like Douglas Farah can actually live and prosper and be very-very wealthy in a country like the United States. There is no hope of Viktor Bout ever getting a fair trial in the United States. There is no hope of anybody getting a fair trial, who is what in Russian we call “inakomyslyashhi” somebody who thinks differently than what the main stream publications allow them to think. And that's unfortunately what's going to happen.
