There is enormous sympathy for Brittney Griner, the basketball star held hostage by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Yes, hostage.
In view of the offense, the trial was a sham and the sentencing outrageous. If this were a legitimate law enforcement issue, Griner would have been fined – maybe a month in jail, at most – and sent home.
But this was not a law enforcement issue. This was an international chess game at the highest levels. Griner was not being held as punishment for a minor infraction, but as a bargaining chip to obtain the release of a notorious terrorist Putin pal, Viktor Bout – who was culpable in the deaths of thousands of people, including a lot of Americans, civilians, and military.
Any patriotic American would want to see Griner brought home – as well as the other hostage, Paul Whelan. But the issue is much more complex.
Rogue nations and terrorists take hostages to gain concessions – sometimes money and sometimes a prisoner swap. For many years, the United States had a firm policy to never pay ransom money – and prisoner exchanges would have to have a parity in terms of the relative importance of the prisoners.
It is a tough heart-wrenching policy but not without sound reasoning. To acquiesce to high demands makes taking hostages a successful strategy. That means whenever a nation like Russia, Iran, or terrorist groups – such as al Qaeda or ISIS – wants something, they grab American citizens. We have seen this movie before.
The Biden administration got Griner back – which is a good thing if you discount all the negative implications and outcomes. In return, Putin gets Bout, a major mass murdering terrorist at the highest level. In this exchange, Putin again trumped Biden because the Madman of Moscow got his prize terrorist protege back.
This is the kind of prisoner exchange that was – for good reasons – against U.S. policy. We get the release of a wrongfully detained American citizen – a major sports figure – and Putin gets a major figure in the spread of international terrorism, who can now return to killing innocent Americans on behalf of the Russian despot. (I am personally betting that Bout will turn up somewhere in the shadows of the Ukraine War.)
And what about Whelan?
Whelan is a fellow who has been languishing in a Russian prison for longer than Griner – and with less justification. For a while, Whelan was paired with Griner in search of a deal that would include both of them.
The fact that Whelan has been left behind is an unmitigated failure on the part of the Biden administration. Do you mean that a guy like Bout was not worth both hostages? Putin got off cheap – and he still has Whelan as a future bargaining chip.
Based on this outcome – and even the Biden response to Putin in the Ukraine War – Putin seems to have figured out that he can snooker Biden at will.
It is reasonable to wonder if woke politics played any role. Griner is a gay black female and Whelan is an older straight white man. If those were not the distinctions in determining who gets brought home and who does not, what were the relevant differences in the cases? Why did Biden agree to Griner and punt on Whelan?
I would love to see those questions put to Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, but I shall not hold my breath.
As can be expected, the left-wing media is in high praise of Biden – but not much talk about Whelan. For his part, Whelan did express disappointment that Washington had not done more to secure his release. He has every right to be bitter. He got sold out at the negotiating table.
There is reason to cheer about the return of Griner, but there are a LOT of elements that mitigate against unbridled joy. She is a big winner in this deal. The losers are Whelan, Biden, and America’s image of strength. The biggest winner in this exchange is Putin … once again.
So, there ‘tis.