POLL: Should the US trade Viktor Bout for Brittney Griner?

this is simply unbelievable. The US needs to make it very clear to anybody that travels to these countries that they are on their own and should not expect the US to aid them if they are in trouble

War and Griner’s Arrest Don’t Deter U.S. Men From Russian Basketball - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

The war in Ukraine and the imprisonment of the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner in Russia have roiled geopolitics and all but shut down the pipeline of American female professionals playing in Russian leagues to earn far more than they can make in the United States.

But Russians can still see Americans on their courts: Dozens of male players, including some with N.B.A. experience, are looking past the international conflicts and signing deals there, saying their careers and potential earnings are separate from politics. At least one American woman is also playing in Russia this season, for the same club that Griner played with in the country.

“Russia wasn’t my first choice to come to,” said Joe Thomasson, 29, one of the American men playing in Russia. “It wouldn’t have been anybody’s first choice to come to if you were American, just dealing with the situation of Brittney Griner.”

Although several agents did not respond to requests to be interviewed about their players in Russia, those who did identified roughly 30 American men’s basketball players who were competing or planning to soon compete in the country, about twice as many as usual. They can earn more than $1 million and often receive free housing and cars.

 

A warning clearly is not enough. Congress needs to pass a law banning U.S. citizens from working there as surely as U.S. citizens are banned from selling Russia microchips.

 

Former Trump NSA Bolton says that Trump turned down a Whelan for Bout swap; Trump couldn't have cared less about Whelan.

Trump was not interested in Paul Whelan’s case, his former national security official says

 

Trump himself said the same thing the other day, that he personally refused such a deal. Of course, the man is so full of BS that you never can tell what is true, what is just truthy, what he wishes were true, what he merely dreamed but believes is true, or what he is straight-up lying about. I would say that Bolton’s words in this case confirm Trump’s story is at least mostly true. Personally, I think it was a rare moment of good judgment from the former President (whatever his actual motivations were). I also would have denied such a trade. Not because I don’t care about Whelan but because of the moral hazard presented by these kind of trades. A spy for a spy, sure. A wanted criminal for a wanted criminal, sure. A political prisoner for a state-sponsored criminal, no. What’s done is done, but I dread the future ramifications of this.

 

Nice statement from her today.
It is always nice to see people who are genuinely thankful to those that helped them.

'Grateful' Griner: 'Intend to play basketball' in '23

 

Agree. She has handled the situation with grace so far.

 

Full credit to her, she continues to handle things with class, even while dealing with her own trauma.
If I had to guess, making this an important cause might be helping with her own recovery.
Britney Griner asks fans to 'advocate for' wrongfully detained American prisoner Paul Whelan | Daily Mail Online

 

more disparity. disgusting the difference in the way Griner was given special treatment vs others. they ahve ahd to set up a gofundme account to try and raise funds to repay the US for her plane ticket home while Griner flew home for free on a gulfstream with a crew of people to attend to her after much less time in prison

US teacher speaks out after release from Russia the same day as Brittney Griner (msn.com)

Krivanek, 46, had moved to Russia in 2017 to teach English. Fluent in both languages, she said she ended up enjoying a successful career teaching at elite schools in Moscow. Following a broken wedding engagement, she briefly lived with roommates, one of whom was a man who Krivanek said beat her. In December 2021, she was arrested and detained for attacking him with a knife that she said she used to defend herself.

A trial in February without a jury resulted in a 15-month sentence to a Russian penal colony, a verdict even her attorney told her was extreme for the circumstances, she said. Krivanek said she believes she became "a sacrifice" for the Russians to use to send a warning to the U.S. about intervening in the conflict.
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Krivanek disputes that claim and says that she was put on a commercial flight by deportation center agents from Russia and had to sign paperwork that required her to repay the U.S. government for the travel costs. She said she was given only $100 in cash and was forced to travel alone.

She said she didn’t hear from anyone from the U.S. government during her imprisonment, except for a brief call that she made on the smuggled phone to a U.S. official who said they were working on her case and would send someone to visit her, but that visit did not occur. She only met with U.S. officials during her single deportation hearing.

 

I don’t see it. Two completely different situations.

 

US citizen falsely imprisoned. Abused American woman defends herself from beatdown and is sentenced to harsh sentence for self defense. Not even a free plane ride home

 

You are making some pretty big assumptions about the facts of the abused American woman. I don’t know whether there was a political motivation for her sentencing, but it could very well be that there was no political motivation. Americans get convicted of crimes all over the world. It is a positive thing that the United States government tries to help these people out, but many of them have committed crimes. Often, their sentences seem to be way too severe by our standards, but that is not necessarily the case under the foreign countries’ standards. Of course, in the United States, we have locked up people and thrown away the key for relatively minor infractions of the law. Chances are, that we have done the same thing in the United States for foreigners. Brittney Griner was obviously a political situation, so, she was traded for a Russian criminal. That looks to me like it conceivably differs from the case of the abused American woman.

 

Probably the biggest thing I admired John McCain for was refusing to be released from a pow prison until those pows before him were released. That took guts courage and conviction.

 

There was a little more to it than that, of course. They wanted him to sign a letter of criminal responsibility to embarrass his father who was Commander in Chief, Pacific if memory serves. It was not a simple matter of, “You’re free to go if you want.” But the bottom line is, he did refuse.