Is He a Player in the War on Terror?

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Victor Boot supplied weapons to some of the worst warlords on the planet. He transformed these young adolescent warriors into insidious, mindless, maniacally driven killing machines that operated with assembly line efficiencies. Do we have any idea how many people his arms may have killed? I don't think anyone's ever done that calculation. The most recent case where American officials were colluding with Victor Boot was during the Iraq War.

US officials are sending the “Merchant of Death” — a notorious arms dealer named Viktor Bout — back to Russia in exchange for the WNBA star’s release. We revisit our conversation with author Douglas Farah, author of “Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible.”

This episode was produced by Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Paul Mounsey, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.

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