Your point about the relative simplicity of the planes (and the relative simplicity of obtaining spare parts) is terrific. Especially if they’re flying around sand and grit. I have no concept how the US Air Force keeps its planes serviced; in fact, I don’t even want to think about it.

Back in the late 80s or early 90s, the Christian Science Monitor did an article on former USSR military officers committing suicide because their pensions would at least support their families if they were dead. And that was several years after the CSM had reported about how, after years bogged down in Afghanistan, soldiers in the Soviet Army were so desperate to forget their lives and get high that they were painting bootblack on their toast; apparently the effect of the heat in the bootblack got them high.

Around that time, or a bit earlier, I’d been in an Alaskan village where after a big storm several people were so desperate for alcohol that one overdosed from drinking over-the-counter cough syrup.

I suppose those Russian pilots saw enough in Afghanistan to be impervious to bad weather, alcohol, and substance abuse. Which would probably be precisely the sort of ‘employee’ Bout prefers to hire.

Bout is indeed an arms dealer and smuggler (as well as a player in the blood diamond trade). But he is not just about weapons. He also has a whole fleet of shady airlines. The CIA has used his aircraft (planes and helicopters) in Afghanistan. The various mercenary outfits (Blackwater, CACI) and contractors have used them extensively in Afghanistan and Iraq. So Defense and State Department people probably flew with Bout’s aircraft and pilots pretty regularly over the last few years. Aid agencies charter his aircraft to fly maize in Africa. The UN probably hires him to carry peace keepers into conflict zones where he sells weapons.

Bout’s aircraft–ex-Soviet military transports and airliners, with a smattering of older Western airliners–are ideal for third-world, clandestine, and criminal use. They are non-descript–old and commonplace enough to be unremarkable. They are mostly optimized for operation from rough fields and at high temperatures and altitudes. They are unsophisticated and easy to maintain. They are deniable.

Bout’s services are cheap. As with most Russian oligarchs, it isn’t always clear how he got title to the former state assets that he holds–the ex-Soviet air force and Aerflot planes and helicopters. He probably paid little or nothing for them. The collapse of the Soviet Union left a surplus of unemployed pilots. So his prices cannot be beat.

Bout can and will fly into places in the war-torn third world where nobody else will. Both his planes and his crews come so cheap as to be practically disposable.

Finally, the sheer number of Bout’s ever-changing companies gives his government clients the fig leaf that they need when hiring an outlaw. The money that they give Viktor Bout the airline entrepreneur goes in different pockets from the money that he makes on weapons and diamond smuggling, so they act as if it is not going to the same person.

I’m thus not surprised that the DoJ has not had much luck with the Thais, particularly since the rightist coup. The Thais know that we used Bout. Why shouldn’t the Thai generals stay on Bouts good side? They might find a use for him themselves, after all. Their Burmese counterparts are doing well out of the dope trade, and a discrete airline could become useful.

FYI, Bout’s airline operations are not that hard to track. The plane spotter web sites–hobbyist sites that record the registration numbers and identifying features of transiting planes–make it possible to follow a surprising amount of his activities, just as they did with the Bush rendition flights. It seems to be very hard to operate aircraft without valid registrations and impossible to hide their origins and travels once they are registered.

Thailand has been chasing it’s ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra for sometime now but just can’t “catch” him despite surely knowing lots about where he is much of the time. He has been wheeling and dealing quite well despite being a convicted felon/fugitive and seems quite able to secure passports,fly in and out of countries and remains fully engaged in Thai politics,media and currently is gaming the Thai people to get a royal pardon from HM the King of Thailand.

This Russian has landed in a land where money talks and mai pai ren walks.

WashingtonDC surely knows this to be so too. Very likely the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing here which may be a feature–not a bug. CIA fingerprints on any of this? More likely than not. Thailand is also denying it had anything to do with WashingtonDC doing torture yet it is very likely someone like ex-Thai PM Thaksin would have signed off on that kind of thing. This is a Thai PM who had over 2,500(3,000?) Thais killed on a summary execution/extra-judicial basis for just maybe being drug dealers or users.