US-Russia Prisoner Swap Smells Bad

We welcome the release last week of Black/American professional basketball star, Brittney Griner, from a Russia jail. But the price was high as Putin outsmarted President Biden, getting a notorious, murderous Russian international arms dealer, Viktor Bout, in exchange. The Russkie, whose nickname was “The Merchant of Death,” and accused of having the blood of tens of thousands of victims on his hands, walked free to partake once again in the international arms trade in exchange for this woman who had been jailed back in February for entering Russia with some hashish.

The problem is that our negotiators neglected to fight for the release of another American, Paul Whelan, a former Marine, who had been languishing in Russian prisons for nine years on trumped up charges of espionage. The perplexing situation here, which includes Biden’s ineffectual ability to deal with major problems of this sort is that Mr. Whelan Whelan did not have much backing for his release. He was merely anon-political, white, straight male, which doesn’t count too much in the current trend of Woke thinking. In contrast, Ms. Griner fit all the requirements for celebrity and special status. She’s black, female, a sports star and she’s also gay and married to her wife, another woman. In addition, she had fighting for her release, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama and reportedly, school union head honcho, Randi Weingarten, all major leaguers in the Biden advisory camp.

We must ask though, with the importance of Mr. Bout to Russia’s arms needs in Ukraine and his knowledge of international terror, why couldn’t the Biden team have negotiated for the release of both American hostages? The imbalance obviously between Griner and Bout relative to Russia’s needs should have been a key factor for the Americans to get them both out without much bartering necessary. But you have to go back to 2014, and President Obama’s poor sense of business dealings when he released five major Taliban commanders from Guantanamo in exchange for a shamed, American deserter, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Who knows where Bergdahl is now but the five terrorists were active in Afghanistan, doing their thing, when we left that nation in ruins. Compare the business sense of President Trump and these other two guys and you see why politicians should be recruited from industry not law offices.

We’re concerned that under Biden’s leadership, American passports do not mean much to rogue nations. Americans traveling in countries such as China, Cuba, Venezuela, Russia or any totalitarian ruled nation are all vulnerable to being imprisoned and used as hostages to be traded for terrorists. Our embassies in such countries are helpless to come to the aid of Americans arrested and jailed under bogus charges. The world knows that we are a paper tiger in this area. We are no longer a nation whose power and authority must be respected.

We wish Ms. Griner well and urge her to confine her basketball skills to within our own borders. We’d also like to remind her that her vocal dislike for this nation was not used against her by our government. Some time back she urged her team-mates to disrespect the American flag and to disregard the playing of our National Anthem at games. No matter what, she is home free and an American hero, Paul Whelan, a Marine veteran is still languishing in a Russian gulag. Enough for American values. What does that tell us?