Blowback Over Griner's Release Exposes Depth of America's Divisions

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

There was a time when the release of American citizens who had been unjustly imprisoned by a foreign adversary was a moment for bipartisan relief and celebration: the 2018 return of three men from North Korea, secured by President Donald Trump, or the 1991 freeing of Terry Anderson, an American journalist, after years of captivity in Lebanon.

Those moments felt like sepia-toned artifacts Friday as Brittney Griner, the women’s basketball star, slipped quietly into a military base in Texas for evaluation following her release from Russia, while a Fox News reporter peppered White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre with pointed questions about an exchange that he said had sent the “Merchant of Death” to Russia for a “professional athlete.”

Within hours of Griner’s release, much of the right wing was in full outrage mode, seizing upon both the man Griner had been exchanged for — Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms merchant serving time, in part, for endangering American lives — and the Biden administration’s failure to secure the release as well, or instead, of a former Marine, Paul Whelan, who has languished in a Russian prison since his 2018 arrest on espionage charges.

A considerable amount of attention was also paid to who Griner is: a Black woman, a celebrity, a married lesbian and, though it had gone largely unnoticed until now, an assertive liberal — one who, at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests, called to stop playing the national anthem at her team’s basketball games.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/blowback-over-griners-release-exposes-161105809.html

Paul Whelan was detained during Trump's watch. What did he do to try and get him back?

[70sEraVet]

1. Right wing media personalities always refer to "Marine Whelan", without mentioning his discharge

Bad Conduct discharge for big-time larceny of government money.
I read a Newsweek article :

Writing on Twitter, Omar Rivero, founder of Occupy Democrats, said: "The same Trumpers who are losing their minds right now because Biden freed a single Russian arms dealer in exchange for the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner didn't say a peep when Trump freed over 5,000 Taliban prisoners. You really can't make this sh*t up..."
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-5000-taliban-brittany-griner-biden-prisoner-deal-1765859

[mopinko]

9. 1 of the few times 'ex marine' is actually correct usage.

[Thomas Hurt]

2. The christofascists are squealing because she is a "dope fiend" (see also black lesbian)...

and Whelan is a somehow a vet and war hero, at least that is their justification.

Both of them are just people, neither are saints if their brushes with the law and marijuana use are true. Both of them were snatch up to be hostages. It is complete bullshit that one deserves to be brought home over the other.

The comment I found particularly amusing was the trumper squealing that people were going to get killed since Bout had been released.

Yep, the trumper was concerned and incensed that people might be killed with guns.

[Groundhawg]

3. I don't think anyone is upset she was freed,

Many just wonder if the trade was a good one considering the past and potential harm from the trade.
And I don't believe she was unjustly imprisoned, She admitted breaking their laws, but she most definitely
unjustly sentenced. She should have did 30 days for that offense.

[Solomon]

4. You said she not unjustly

imprisoned and then you proceeded to show she was indeed unjustly imprisoned. I believe you meant to say, she was not unjustly arrested.

[W_HAMILTON]

6. Oh, I see plenty of people (mostly racist and bigoted Republicans)...

...that are upset she was freed.

[W_HAMILTON]

5. Trump didn't care about Whelan and his administration refused a proposed Russian prisoner swap.

That's what he and his administration did.

...

For all their uncertainty about the exact origins of the case, U.S. officials understood perfectly how the Kremlin wanted it resolved. Russia’s Ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, was “unbelievably explicit” in meetings with White House officials, according to the former U.S. official. Initially, Antonov proposed trading Whelan for three Russians in U.S. prisons: Maria Butina, a woman who had grown close to Republican operatives and National Rifle Association officials, and was convicted of acting as an unregistered Russian agent, in April, 2019; Viktor Bout, a notoriously prolific arms trader who was apprehended in a sting operation in Thailand, in 2008, and convicted by a U.S. court three years later; and Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot serving a twenty-year federal sentence for a drug-smuggling plot.

In response, White House officials said that Butina’s case would be resolved in accordance with her eighteen-month sentence; in October, 2019, she was released from U.S. prison and returned to Russia. Freeing Bout, the arms dealer, was considered out of the question. As one U.S. official familiar with the case put it, “It’s like if a major-league team signed me up out of the blue and then tried to trade me for the best player in baseball—we’re not equivalents.”

Antonov kept pushing for Yaroshenko, the pilot convicted of the drug-trafficking plot. He argued that Yaroshenko’s health was deteriorating and cited Whelan’s own problems with an untreated hernia that was causing him great pain. At one meeting, the former U.S. official said, Antonov got “a bit snippy” making his pitch. As the official remembers, Antonov said, “I see your poor guy with a hernia, and here’s our guy with his teeth falling out.” Antonov suggested both Whelan and Yaroshenko could be freed under the guise of a reciprocal medical release.

However Whelan was to be freed, it was clear that any deal would require attention at the highest levels of the White House and the State Department. But that was not forthcoming. Shortly after Whelan was arrested, then national-security adviser John Bolton brought his case to Trump’s attention. “Trump clearly had no interest in doing anything,” a former senior U.S. official said.

Taken from: https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-american-prisoner-in-russia-trapped-between-putin-trump-and-thoroughly-soured-us-russian-relations

[niyad]

7. Why do none if the references to the "former marine", mention his bad conduct

discharge? His lies? Silly me, whatever was I thinking?

[gratuitous]

10. Because if that was mentioned . . .

Someone might say that he's no angel. And that's a blame-the-victim province used for Black victims.

[hatrack]

8. No, "Exposes Extent Of Synthetic Faux-Outrage Machine" is more like it . . .

Last edited Sat Dec 10, 2022, 11:41 PM - Edit history (1)

.

[lostnfound]

11. Or "Exposes Extent of Right-Wing Racism"

The story headline as usual paints an abnormality of the GOP as ‘partisan division’…a type of both-sides format.

[Samrob]

12. I said in the beginning of her release that Putin was doing without Whelan for this very reason.

It was move to continue Putin's nasty intention of dividing America further and we, as usual fall for whatever Putin does.

All you have to do is read my earlier post to know Putin is getting all that he wants with this trade and the MAGAs here are giving it to him again. https://democraticunderground.com/100217445199#post18

[Irish_Dem]

14. GOP MAGAs are working with Putin.

They are on the same side.

[Irish_Dem]

13. Putin/GOP have been very successful. Americans now hate each other.

This is the divide and conquer strategy.

[Genki Hikari]

15. It actually exposes

How bigoted certain citizens of the country have always been. Ms Griner happens to hit the trifecta of all that they hate: Black, woman, homosexual.

Thrown in how she's been successful despite all of that, and it's the perfect hate storm for that crowd.