Biden to Free Al Qaeda/Marxist/Hezbollah Arms Dealer for WNBA Player

The worst administration ever keeps working hard to earn the name.

The U.S. has offered a deal to Russia aimed at bringing home WNBA star Brittney Griner and another jailed American, Paul Whelan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday.

Blinken said Washington would like a response from Moscow. Russia has for years expressed interest in the release of Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer once labeled the “Merchant of Death,” who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2012 on charges that he schemed to illegally sell millions of dollars in weapons.

Just so we’re clear, Biden is trading a WNBA player in trouble for drugs for a major Russian arms dealer.

And Biden isn’t even responding to a Russian offer, in the same style as his Iran negotiations, he’s just initiating the offer, all but encouraging the Russians to do demand more.

Viktor Bout isn’t just some arms dealer. Here’s why he’s in prison.

Bout was convicted of conspiracy to kill US citizens and officials, deliver anti-aircraft missiles and provide aid to a terrorist organisation.

During Bout’s trial, which began on 12 October, prosecutors said the weapons had been intended to arm the group against what Bout had called a common enemy: US forces supporting the Colombian government.

In the opening statements of his trial the prosecution alleged that Bout had agreed to deliver 100 surface-to-air missiles, 20,000 high-powered rifles and 10m rounds of ammunition to rebels in Colombia in 2008.

They told the jury that Bout had been told the weapons would be used to target US pilots working with Colombian officials.

Prosecutors say Bout replied: “We have the same enemy.”

Bout was providing weapons to the Marxist terror group FARC. A group that some lefties in the Obama and Biden administrations support.

And then there are the alleged Hezbollah ties.

That changed, he said, by the time Bout met with Hezbollah guerrilla leaders in Lebanon in 2006. That meeting apparently led to the delivery of late Soviet-era anti-tank weapons and rocket propelled grenades. Hezbollah immediately used these weapons in the summer 2006 war with Israel.

And then there’s Al Qaeda.

One of Bout’s first known missions on behalf of an al Qaeda-related entity occurred during the Bosnian War. In 1992, Sudan, which was then a hotbed for jihadism, helped arrange shipments of weapons to the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), which was arming jihadists in Bosnia.

The TWRA is one of those organizations that defies common myths about al Qaeda and how it has operated. On TWRA’s board sat Wael Julaidan, a co-founder of al Qaeda, and Hassan Cengic, a Bosnian official who served as an Iranian intelligence agent and organized arms shipments from Tehran. Meanwhile, the TWRA received tens of millions of dollars from Saudi sources, including the royal family.

In any event, Bout supplied the TWRA with arms. Farah and Braun quote from a detailed European intelligence assessment that reads:

The TWRA agency had their first big operation in September 1992. They hired a Russian transport plane, from well-known sanctions buster and arms trafficker Victor Bout, out of Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, to transport equipment over to the Maribor Airport marked as humanitarian aid. However, instead of humanitarian assistance, the plane carried over 120 tons of Soviet manufactured rifles, RPG’s, mines and ammunition.

Blinken has to know that this is a terrible deal, but the Biden administration is focused on its core constituencies, the Congressional Black Caucus and the Woke Left, and isn’t even pretending to give a damn about minor matters like national security and interests anymore.

Brittney Griner, an idiot who apparently doesn’t understand that Russia doesn’t work like the United States, became a social justice cause, accompanied by the usual clamor about systemic racism, and Biden is rushing to service the only people he cares about his, his activist base.

If Bout is released, people around the world will die. And the Free Brittney 2 idiots will have blood on their hands.

Meanwhile, the message will have been sent once more that any American abroad is a potential hostage.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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