It was like a scene from the Cold War.\u00a0\u00a0A business jet from the US pulled onto one side of the tarmac.\u00a0\u00a0A similar jet from Russia landed and pulled up several yards away.\u00a0\u00a0The doors open, at the same time, and two huddled groups emerge from the planes and approach each other.\u00a0\u00a0One person from each group steps to the other, and the groups head back to their planes.\u00a0\u00a0The US and Russia exchanged prisoners on the runway in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thursday the United States of America freed a Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout. He is a friend of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and was serving his eleventh year of a twenty-five year prison sentence at the US Federal prison in Marion, Illinois. He was traded for Brittney Griner, the Women\u2019s National Basketball Association superstar, born in Texas and two-time American Olympic Gold Medalist. Griner was arrested in Moscow Airport last February, accused of bringing in marijuana oil vape cartridges, legal in the US but not in Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Griner was sentenced to nine years in a Russian Penal Colony, and was just beginning to serve her sentence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a moment of some celebration. An American, unjustly held and dramatically over sentenced, is out of a Russian Penal Colony and back safely in Texas. It\u2019s also a moment of concern. \u201cThe Merchant of Death\u201d, Viktor Bout, is free to resume his life of arms sales to the highest bidder, even to both sides of the same conflict, to gain more profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Paul Whelan, an American (and British, Irish and Canadian \u2013 he has passports for all four countries), a former US Marine and businessman, is still in Russian prison; four years into a fifteen year sentence for espionage. The American negotiators hoped that they could create an \u201cequivalence\u201d between Bout and Whelan, a \u201cmy Bishop for your Bishop\u201d kind of trade, then add Griner in. But the Russians regarded Whelan is far more than the equivalence of Bout. So Griner was the best the US team could do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are a few things to point out about all of this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, it takes two to tango. The US might think their deal for Griner and Whalen was great, but unless the Russian\u2019s had the will to get Bout back, they were just dancing by themselves. Regardless of Bout\u2019s \u201cMerchant of Death\u201d label and his close ties to Vladimir Putin; he obviously wasn\u2019t of great enough value to spring for the \u201ctwo for one\u201d deal. The Russians went to a great deal of trouble to charge Whelan with espionage, of being a spy. They want a spy back for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to sources, the United States doesn\u2019t have a Russian spy to trade.\u00a0\u00a0There are Americans who spied for Russia in the US, but they aren\u2019t likely trade fodder.\u00a0\u00a0There is someone the Russians want:\u00a0\u00a0Vadim Krasikov, a Colonel in Russian Intelligence convicted of murder in Germany.\u00a0\u00a0But the US doesn\u2019t have him:\u00a0\u00a0the Germans do, and aren\u2019t interested in trading for him for an American.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the deal was Griner for Bout, a superstar basketball player who may have had vape cartridges (or may have been set up), for a heinous arms dealer responsible for many deaths.\u00a0\u00a0The American right-wing was brutal in their criticism.\u00a0\u00a0The deal, they said, showed Biden\u2019s weakness; willing to trade away a bishop to get what they consider a pawn.\u00a0\u00a0Brittany Griner is gay, a Black woman, who kneeled during the National Anthem in protest of the murder of George Floyd at\u00a0\u00a0WNBA games. So she made an easy target for the right-wing media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Biden administration was deeply sympathetic to the Whalen family\u2019s disappointment, and vowed to continue to work to find a way to bring him home. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken also made it clear: there was never a deal that would include Whalen, even in a one for one for Bout. Whalen was never \u201con the table\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It takes two to tango. And the Russians aren\u2019t dancing for Whalen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"