Since it began in February 2022, the arrest and detention of American pro basketball player Brittney Griner for drug possession while passing through the Moscow airport has been a case study in the stupidity and selfishness of Americans. Griner was arrested on February 17, 2022 as she flew into Moscow when hashish oil was found in her baggage as she went through customs. In mid-March, Russia slipped her proceedings to mid-May, lengthening her detention. More delays eventually slipped her trial to July at which point she pleaded guilty but declared no intent to break the law.
So what else was going on at this time? (THINK…)
Oh yea, Vladimir Putin was telegraphing an invasion of neighboring Ukraine since some time in November of 2021 when satellite imagery captured a build-up of over 100,000 Russian troops on the Ukrainian border. President Joe Biden publicly threatened Russia with sanctions on December 7, 2021 if it invaded Ukraine. By the start of February, it was ABSOLUTELY clear Russia would be at war, it was ABSOLUTELY clear the stated rationale for that war directly reflected the criminal mind of Vladimir Putin and it was ABSOLUTELY clear Russia would NOT be a place to which any American should be voluntarily travelling -- for business or pleasure.
Yet Brittney Griner was stupid enough to travel to Russia during that period. To make a few extra bucks playing basketball off-season for a team in the Russian Premier League. And stupid enough to bring in a vial of hashish oil (marijuana extract) through customs. And expected to be released without incident cuz possessing hashish oil in America isn't that big a deal, it's legal in many parts of America.
American idiots take note…
Your rights and protections as an American are only a priority within the territory of the United States. And if you haven't been paying attention to the news over the last, oh, two hundred plus years, you might be shocked to learn those rights and protections are not always perfectly honored here within the United States. When you travel abroad, you are CHOOSING to subject yourself to much larger risks of arrest, detention, conviction and imprisonment for actions that might be completely acceptable in some or all of the United States but you are not traveling in a virtual bubble of US protections outside US borders. You're on your own.
What is particularly frustrating about the Griner case is the juxtaposition of her circumstances with another American being held by Putin in Russia, another private citizen Paul Whelan who was arrested on December 28, 2018 and subsequently charged and convicted of spying. Whelan's trip was ostensibly to attend a wedding of a Marine friend ( editor's note: what IS it with ex-military or active military personnel wanting to travel to Russia? Is there a Lee Harvey Oswald must-see museum somewhere?). Upon arrival at the airport, he had $80,000 in cash temporarily confiscated (uhhhh….) then a few days later suddenly encountered an old friend who gave him a USB drive with files containing details on Russian government security workers, after which Russian police arrived within hours to arrest him. Whelan was convicted by June 15, 2020 and has been serving a sixteen year sentence ever since.
Regardless of the circumstances of Whelan's case and his relative guilt or innocence, if you assume some metaphysical rule of first-in, first-out "fairness" should apply to freeing American citizens from foreign detainment and imprisonment, then clearly Paul Whelan had a two-year head start on Brittney Griner. In the first few months after her detention, it appeared as though American strategies would stick with a FIFO approach. However, as Griner's detention and trial mechanizations dragged on, stories began appearing in American media with themes ranging from:
- Griner's detention was an LBGTQ issue since Putin has a long-standing history of persecuting LBGTQ within Russia
- Griner's detention was an LBGTQ issue because the US government didn't care enough about her as a noted LBGTQ figure
- Giner's detention should be a rallying call for rationalizing American laws regarding marijuana to eliminate pot as a "gateway drug" leading minorities to a higher-than-normal rate of conviction / incarceration within the American justice system.
Finally, a letter written by Griner to President Biden was leaked on the July 4 holiday weekend (do you think that was a coincidence or driven by Putin?) then discussed in the news by her wife who directly accused Biden and the US government for failing to prioritize efforts to free Griner and others. Whether that pressure altered strategies or if events just moved at their own pace, it now appears a deal has been proposed to free both Griner and Whelan. But now we know the deal. And it doesn't sound remotely like justice.
As of July 28, it appears as though the US is proposing to gain the freedom of Griner (arrested for a drug violation) and Whelan (for at least a couple of suspicious events) in exchange for returning convicted international arms dealer Viktor Bout to Russia. Bout has a lengthy resume of arms trafficking including sales to the Taliban in the early 2000s, selling surface-to-air missiles to Kenya used in an attack on an Israeli jet in 2002 and operating a fleet of over 60 planes as part of an organized money laundering ring. He was arrested in Thailand in 2008 and eventually extradited to the US where he was charged and convicted on numerous trafficking and money laundering charges. Between the weapons dealing and money laundering, it seems pretty obvious that Bout contributed to the deaths of hundreds if not thousands around the world.
Negotiations for prisoner swaps among government and military personnel are fraught enough. American private citizens should not be complicating matters by becoming additional bait for remote powers to gain bargaining chips due to their stupidity or cluelessness. Compare the public statements from Brittney Griner's family versus the families of Americans who volunteered to go to Ukriane to train Ukriainians or fight alongside them… Several have been captured or killed but they stated clearly to their families beforehand they expected no special favors or promises of protection from the US government by engaging in the war and their families have publicly reiterated that stance.
If an American citizen is going to serve time anywhere for a crime committed (or alleged) anywhere, I would certainly prefer that time be served in America rather than a foreign country. However, if an American is going to be arrested, tried and convicted for a crime that would also be a likely crime in the United States, it is not serving the interest of justice or security for the American government to bargain away another convicted felon involved in crimes several orders of magnitude worse to improve the plight of someone who could have used far better judgement and avoided their plight entirely and chose not to.
WTH
