veteran’s corner

Tom Krabbenhoft

Greetings all and thanks to Les Bakke for covering my six while I was down.

Recently in the news we have had the murder of the Moorhead woman alleged by the hand of her son. We have also had the prisoner swap of basketball player Brittney Griner for “merchant of death” Viktor Bout. 

Those two events are interwoven by cause and effect. The Kollie family fled to the US to escape the Liberian Civil War.

The first Liberian Civil War started in 1989. Samuel Doe then president was overthrown then executed. 200,000 people died, many of them in the streets.

The charming Charles Taylor became president of Liberia. Taylor has a special kind of heinous evil reserved for Hitler and Stalin. Taylor became a player in the Sierra Leone Civil War. The term “Blood Diamond” was coined from this conflict. Taylor estimated stealing 200 million worth of diamonds and other resources in this conflict. The people he backed RUF (Revolutionary United Front) were infamous for their atrocities they committed. Often they would sever a hand or both of males, to ensure no diamond mining. Females, after raping them breasts were mutilated so no babies could be fed.

Under Taylor’s brutal and corrupt rule anyone speaking against the government was openly murdered, many times being hacked to death. Taylor is also dubious too for having the infamous “child soldiers” commit these acts at home and aboard. Most of those kids were under 15 years of age. They were taken from their homes and drugged making them easy to manipulate. Taylor also offered shelter to the 1998 Al Qeada US embassy bombers. He raped, mutilated, murdered and stole across a swath of Africa.

Not surprisingly the second Liberian Civil War broke out under Taylor, an estimated 250,000 died.  Taylor fled to Nigeria where pressure from the US and international society he was turned over to the UN. There he was convicted of much of the above and many other war crimes. He is imprisoned in The Hague.

Many of the arms that served as lubricant to the blood diamonds, child soldiers, civil wars and untold violence were in fact supplied by Viktor Bout. So yes, many of those Liberians that ended up here were a result of Mr. Bout.

Q: So how/what does Viktor Bout have to do with Veterans? A: Proxy wars.

Proxy wars are fought between two states, not their troops but mostly their weapons.

Currently Ukraine is a fine example. Proxy wars often turn into conflicts which involve our troops. Afghanistan was a proxy war which eventually led to a conflict involving US troops over 20 years. Guess who supplied $50 million in military hardware to the Taliban prior to September 11th, 2001? Our just released Viktor Bout.

Next week more on the fall out on Bout and Brittany and how he went back to work on his first day.

Anything else veteran related contact me at 11btwk@gmail.com.