BREAKING: US has traded Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout (Merchant of Death) for Brittney Griner

[Dani Rose]

I think I've got a pretty good idea why conservatives wanted her to die in prison. Let me tell you, it's not the marijuana and it's not the so-called "bad trade".

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

"This man would only accept a diamond in exchange for fool's gold. It was always going to be an unfair trade."

I would simply not trade the diamond. Russia, quite understandably, hopes to buy many more.

This was a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for Biden.

If he lets Brittney Griner rot away in Russia, then people would say "If she was a straight White woman, Biden would do everything to get her out. Biden doesn't care about Black women or the LGBT community"

He'd catch some flak, but there's an easy answer to the hypothetical attack line you've put out. I think it's a weak line to begin with, but if it really troubled him, he could just point to the straight, white, male Marine who also wasn't being released.

I agree he'll have some (probably minor) domestic political gain from this, but in the long run, it is likely to hurt US interests, victims of people like Bout, and Americans in Russia.

[Santander]

The US government has a duty to provide consular assistance to US citizens who run afoul of the law abroad, but that does not include extremely lopsided prisoner swaps, especially when the person has actually broken the law and there are many other Americans imprisoned in hostile countries.

Meanwhile, thousands of people rot in American prisons for crimes not dissimilar to Griner's. Imagine how many people would get their lives back if the Biden administration stuck their neck out for them a tenth as much as they did for Griner.

[Joe Republic]

Good to see this innocent woman coming home.  Yes, innocent, because her "crime" is BS.

And yes it came at a heavy price, but that's unfortunately the way it goes when you are forced to negotiate with terrorists.

[Horus]

Good to see this innocent woman coming home.  Yes, innocent, because her "crime" is BS.

And yes it came at a heavy price, but that's unfortunately the way it goes when you are forced to negotiate with terrorists.

Who exactly was forcing us to negotiate?

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I am happy for Griner and her family that she is out, but over the long term I am not so sure that this is such a wise precedent to set.

It sends the message to Putin and other dictators that if you imprison random American citizens, that we will give you a reward to release them. It is not hard to see how that could encourage repeat behavior.

If I were Biden I don't think I would have done it for this reason, unless there is something we don't know. For instance if Griner were somehow secretly a CIA asset or something along those lines, that would justify it and not set that precedent, since she would not just be a random American citizen in that case. But otherwise, seems like a bad idea which may just make things worse in the future.

[Santander]

Happy for her. Terrible that Paul Whelan seems to have been left out in the cold.

The US should institute the highest possible travel advisory for Russia, equivalent to North Korea. Putin will be seeking more hostages.

Paul Whelan is not a good guy, though. While it is implausible that a guy with a Big Chicken Dinner for larceny and fraud would've been a spy, it's also implausible that he managed to get a security job at a Fortune 500 company merely 2 years after his BCD without lying. Given his track record, there is a high chance he was doing bad things during his visits to Russia, and the Russian government probably arrested him once they had no use for him anymore or he got on someone's nerves.

Not really a guy the US needs to sell the farm to bring back home.

[President Johnson]

That's good news, and she was clearly held hostage to have some kind of leverage. Obviously this deal isn't exactly what I consider a fair quid pro quo, though Biden has more of an obligation to take care of US citizens and therefore could afford less to walk off the deal.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

the United States also should not leave American citizens to rot in foreign jail cells to be used as a dictator’s political puppets.

That is easy to say, but hypothetically if the result is that more Americans end up rotting in foreign jails as a result of the precedent set by this, wouldn't that be worse?

Anyway, given that the deal has been made at this point, it occurs to me that what Biden could do now is suddenly give Ukraine some weapons system that he previously has not given like ATACMS or Abrams tanks or Gray eagle drones or whatever else. And then say "we are giving these weapons that we previously refused to give as punishment for Russia seizing Brittney Griner."

Something like this could maybe be the best of both worlds. On the one hand, Griner would be released, and on the other hand it would be clear that their are consequences to arbitrarily seizing Americans as political prisoners, so there would be a deterrent effect against similar behavior in he future while also having secured Griner's release. Hopefully Biden has something like that up his sleaves.

[ProudModerate2]

I'm glad she is coming home, but the swap was very, very lopsided.
Honestly, I don't know if I would have agreed to make this deal if the choice was mine to make.

[GP270watch]

 The Israelis who nobody would ever excuse of being soft, will trade multiple bad dudes to get back one of their citizens. They do it because they value their people and their citizens. I support what Biden did, Viktor Bout can be dealt with later.

[ProudModerate2]

What happened to the donald trump JR Tweet, that was right here, at this location in the thread.
It just disappeared.
It was not mine, but wondering if the mods deleted it (and why?).

[West_Midlander]

Wonder if she starts standing for the National Anthem now.

Almost certainly not.

[Ashley Biden's Diary]

What happened to the donald trump JR Tweet, that was right here, at this location in the thread.
It just disappeared.
It was not mine, but wondering if the mods deleted it (and why?).

I deleted it because I didn't want people to accuse me of supporting Trump again, though I agree with the sentiment of the tweet: https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1600850042872791040

[VBM]

I’d rather see a guilty person let free than an innocent person sent to the gulags. Bout already served a lot of his sentencing anyways, and there’s no guarantee that he’s gonna go back to being an arms dealer

[West_Midlander]

I’d rather see a guilty person let free than an innocent person sent to the gulags. Bout already served a lot of his sentencing anyways, and there’s no guarantee that he’s gonna go back to being an arms dealer

Why would Russia want him if he's not of any use to them, then?

[GP270watch]

I’d rather see a guilty person let free than an innocent person sent to the gulags. Bout already served a lot of his sentencing anyways, and there’s no guarantee that he’s gonna go back to being an arms dealer

And it's not like our intelligence agencies won't know exactly where he is and at this point with Putin floundering Bout is probably turned out anyways and will be a double agent.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I’d rather see a guilty person let free than an innocent person sent to the gulags. Bout already served a lot of his sentencing anyways, and there’s no guarantee that he’s gonna go back to being an arms dealer

Why would Russia want him if he's not of any use to them, then?

Proof to his successors that they can be looked after even if they're arrested by the USA.

[Aurelius]

I never understood why this basketball player is somehow equivalent to an actual arms trafficker. Could they not have exchanged her for some kind of spy or something?

Affirmative action. If she were a straight white man this would have never happened. It's pure political pandering and a totally shameful deal.

[Aurelius]

The rest of their response though ... I can only imagine what they've gone through, but I think a lot of their anger is incredibly misguided.

https://twitter.com/ArdenFarhi/status/1600850642821488640

There is absolutely nothing "misguided" about this lmao. Absolutely milquetoast response by Whelan's family.

[Santander]

I never understood why this basketball player is somehow equivalent to an actual arms trafficker. Could they not have exchanged her for some kind of spy or something?

Affirmative action. If she were a straight white man this would have never happened. It's pure political pandering and a totally shameful deal.

Blinken had not spoken to Lavrov in literally months and then picks up the phone just for this, lol.

[GP270watch]

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1600841306560937986

 Biden's tweet included these photos but the larger size captures the pure joy of bringing Griner back home.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

The Israelis who nobody would ever excuse of being soft, will trade multiple bad dudes to get back one of their citizens. They do it because they value their people and their citizens. I support what Biden did, Viktor Bout can be dealt with later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_prisoner_exchanges#2010s

From what I can see these Israeli exchanges were for Israeli soldiers, not civilians. Are there significant exchanges Israel has done to free Israeli civilians who were kidnapped/detained arbitrarily?

I think if Griner were a soldier (or a US intelligence asset), there would be no possible objection to trading for her return.

But trading for civilians is a different matter, and sets up the precedent that could possibly lead to open season for kidnapping American civilians abroad more generally. That will presumably not happen as a result of a single case, but if this is a pattern with how the US deals with these sorts of things, then we could start seeing an upsurge in hostage taking/kidnapping of random American civilians.

[Sestak]

I never understood why this basketball player is somehow equivalent to an actual arms trafficker. Could they not have exchanged her for some kind of spy or something?

Affirmative action. If she were a straight white man this would have never happened. It's pure political pandering and a totally shameful deal.

You think a white male prominent professional athlete in that situation would have just been ignored? What planet are you living on? If Jared Goff were being held in that position people would be up in arms calling for far more concessions to ensure his safety.

[Horus]

I never understood why this basketball player is somehow equivalent to an actual arms trafficker. Could they not have exchanged her for some kind of spy or something?

Affirmative action. If she were a straight white man this would have never happened. It's pure political pandering and a totally shameful deal.

You think a white male prominent professional athlete in that situation would have just been ignored? What planet are you living on? If Jared Goff were being held in that position people would be up in arms calling for far more concessions to ensure his safety.

Yeah, in this specific case I don't think there was that much of a racial aspect. This was far more a matter of celebrity privilege than anything else.