Britney Griner Released In Prisoner Swap

[CJD]

(12-13-2022, 05:37 PM)GMDino Wrote: See DJT  *WOULD* have gotten Whelan out...he just, uh, didn't.

https://truthsocial.com/users/realDonaldTrump/statuses/109497743181890776

The Right's rationale when it comes to guns is so scatter brained and nonsensical. The man who sold guns for a living killed untold numbers of people...but we should not do background checks before selling guns to people and, also, if someone bought a gun and shot up a school, we should not blame the person who sold him the gun and did not run a background check because, after all, guns don't kill people. People kill people.

Trump is such a ***** idiot.

[HarleyDog]

(12-14-2022, 10:15 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: The Right's rationale when it comes to guns is so scatter brained and nonsensical. The man who sold guns for a living killed untold numbers of people...but we should not do background checks before selling guns to people and, also, if someone bought a gun and shot up a school, we should not blame the person who sold him the gun and did not run a background check because, after all, guns don't kill people. People kill people.

Trump is such a ***** idiot.

But you don't think its odd, ironic, senseless, contradicting or stupid Biden and the left would exchange a basketball player who disobeyed the laws of a foreign nation and got arrested for the merchant of death, a convicted terrorist? I thought the left was all about gun control? So, we shouldn't hear anything more regarding school shootings and other misuse of firearms from the left going forward. Or at least I would think so because if they did, who could possibly take them serious?

[CJD]

(12-14-2022, 11:02 AM)HarleyDog Wrote: But you don't think its odd, ironic, senseless, contradicting or stupid Biden and the left would exchange a basketball player who disobeyed the laws of a foreign nation and got arrested for the merchant of death, a convicted terrorist? I thought the left was all about gun control? So, we shouldn't hear anything more regarding school shootings and other misuse of firearms from the left going forward. Or at least I would think so because if they did, who could possibly take them serious?

I think releasing a prisoner was a requirement of the trade. The left knows what he did is wrong (illegally sold arms), he was arrested and convicted and then, due to circumstances, was used in a prisoner exchange despite being a criminal. He is a criminal, literally, because of the concept of gun control.

There is no contradiction in this line of thinking.

The right, on the other hand, is opposed to many forms of gun control. After any given school shooting, they say you shouldn't blame the person who sold the guns or neglected to do a background check because it is not their responsibility to know or care what the gun is used for. It's the person who bought the gun who is responsible for their actions. The very idea that we should restrict who is and is not allowed to own a gun based on their behaviors/past/intentions is something that literally drives millions of right wingers to the polls every 2 years. 

...and yet, we are getting this performative outrage about an arms dealer being the equivalent to a mass murderer now, seemingly for the first time ever from the Right?

There's definitely a contradiction in this line of thinking.

Like I said to Brad, I think the right would have found a way to be angry regardless of who we used in this exchange. If it was a spy, a murderer, an arms dealer, a bomb maker, whatever. We would have gotten the same performative outrage.

We weren't going to be able to trade a Russian girl scout for her. We had to give up someone who committed a crime. That's the way hostage/prisoner exchanges work.

At the very least, this is an arms dealer who has been out of commission for 14 years. In a business that is all about connections and an understanding of how to keep deals under wraps/undetected/away from the authorities, being locked away for nearly a decade and a half likely means he's long since been replaced in those circles and/or he is no longer familiar with the technologies and tactics used today. Not to mention, we know what he looks like, how he operates, who he knows and who he is indebted to. I think there's a fairly good chance he is not able to restart his operations or will be a fairly low level offender for the remainder of his life. And you know he'll be on every watch list on the planet. 

[basballguy]

(12-14-2022, 11:47 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: The right, on the other hand, is opposed to many forms of gun control. After any given school shooting, they say you shouldn't blame the person who sold the guns or neglected to do a background check because it is not their responsibility to know or care what the gun is used for. It's the person who bought the gun who is responsible for their actions. The very idea that we should restrict who is and is not allowed to own a gun based on their behaviors/past/intentions is something that literally drives millions of right wingers to the polls every 2 years. 

...and yet, we are getting this performative outrage about an arms dealer being the equivalent to a mass murderer now, seemingly for the first time ever from the Right?

There's definitely a contradiction in this line of thinking.

This is the most CNN spin I’ve seen around here in a long time.

Conservatives appreciate 2A because it gives them the right to defend against foreign and domestic….including the government and you know this.

Bout sold guns to governments and armies, not the local gun show convention.

Sheesh

Now my opinion is posted above l so if you reply don’t lump me into the people outraged over this. However, I’m not discounting their outrage as it’s a completely fair response given the circumstances.

[CJD]

(12-14-2022, 12:15 PM)basballguy Wrote: This is the most CNN spin I’ve seen around here in a long time.

Conservatives appreciate 2A because it gives them the right to defend against foreign and domestic….including the government and you know this.  

Bout sold guns to governments and armies, not the local gun show convention.

Sheesh

Now my opinion is posted above l so if you reply don’t lump me into the people outraged over this.  However, I’m not discounting their outrage as it’s a completely fair response given the circumstances.

Yea, like MTG said, they would have used guns against the government employees if she had led January 6th.

Nothing but rational takes about guns on the right XD.

[Dill]

(12-13-2022, 11:59 PM)basballguy Wrote: The chances of Bout contributing to the the death of another human being (within the next 7 years) are far greater than the chances of Griner contributing to the death of a human being….well unless youre married to Griner than the odds are probably the same.

Her sentence was stupid an excessive…I think she was an idiot for risking it.  (It’s possible to think both)

Yay she’s home, sucks she ignorantly put us in a position to have to make a stupid trade like that.

I think it’s totally fair (though I doubt Biden intended it) that she had to stay over there for almost a year to contemplate her choices.  Sorta like missing the bus to school and your parents making you walk the first mile and then they drive you the rest.

I don't read this as the case of a privileged American taking her safety for granted and getting a wake up call in a foreign country. Rather I think this is just hostage diplomacy. Otherwise the usual corruption would have managed her arrest and release in two days.

If I understand your "pros" and "cons" here, leaving the relatively harmless Granger to rot and perhaps die in a Gulag is the better option than freeing Bout because the likelihood of his "contributing to the death of another human being" is greater. The "con" here seems a bit to general, since it could include our own military members, U.S. mercenary corporations, and foreign "friends" who sell arms to the people we want them too. I'm assuming you'd be ok making your "con" more specific--Bout is more likely to contribute to the death of human beings we don't want killed. 

From Nixon to Obama, the U.S. had a policy of NEVER negotiating with "terrorists" to reclaim hostages.* The rationale behind that was that paying ransom would just incentivize hostage taking. That changed in 2014 when Obama traded 5 Taliban for Bo Bergdahl** and a U.S. journalist was beheaded on video by "Jihadi John." Families of hostages developed a stronger lobby for negotiating to get prisoners back. Trump then opened the floodgates, actively negotiating for hostages everywhere, except for Whelan in Russia. Many photo ops there. 

The Bergdahl exchange was more like the conventional exchange of prisoners during war; Griner seems to be on that model, except only one side of the exchange could remotely be cast as a state actor. Now that Biden is president, we should expect people who ten years ago faulted Obama for any kind of negotiation with "terrorists" will now come down on Biden for not doing it enough. 

I tend to agree with C-Dawg here: Bout is only different in degree from any gun merchant who wants guns sold without background checks and other limits, though coordinating his sales with a state's policy agenda; and it is not likely that he will ever be able to step back into the arms trade in his former role.

*The big exception to this was, of course, Reagans trade of arms for hostages--though his intent was to do that quietly. Maybe.
**If you watch Fox, you know the "real" reason for the exchange was to get Iran to sign the no-nuke deal. lol

[Dill]

Bout's politics seem vaguely familiar, in his recent interview by the also notorious Maria Butina, convicted spy and now "journalist."

https://www.aol.com/russian-arms-dealer-viktor-bout-162813502.html

“In America right now, there is reverse racism. To be a normal white person who wants a family, who wants children, who wants to love, is very difficult,” Bout said at one point. He also criticized efforts to find and prosecute organizers and perpetrators of the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

“Look at what they did to the participants of the so-called armed insurrection on Jan. 6,” he said, effectively mirroring the arguments of hard-line conservatives like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, who have depicted the rioters as the victims of political attacks.

Bout additionally made criticisms of transgender rights (“Imagine it, in American schools they’re now teaching — to first graders, 6 or 7 years old — that there are 72 genders”) and criminal justice reform (“Look at what’s happening in San Francisco. Look at what’s happening in Chicago. Look at what’s happening in New York”).


LOL "Look . . . Look . . . Look!! --everywhere but Russia, where some 500,000 have fled conscription for an illegal war and people are jailed and killed for protesting their governments authoritarian turn. 

But there are still officially only two "genders" there 

[hollodero]

(12-14-2022, 11:02 AM)HarleyDog Wrote: But you don't think its odd, ironic, senseless, contradicting or stupid Biden and the left would exchange a basketball player who disobeyed the laws of a foreign nation and got arrested for the merchant of death, a convicted terrorist? I thought the left was all about gun control? So, we shouldn't hear anything more regarding school shootings and other misuse of firearms from the left going forward. Or at least I would think so because if they did, who could possibly take them serious?

I don't think exchanging a Russian arms dealer for an imprisoned American has anything to do with gun control in the US.

[*Nately120*]

(12-17-2022, 02:40 PM)hollodero Wrote: I don't think exchanging a Russian arms dealer for an imprisoned American has anything to do with gun control in the US.

Everything has everything to do with guns in the USA.  I live in rural PA and everything from CRT to unions to covid to gas prices to game restrictions regarding the harvesting of road kill deer antlers has to do with guns according to folks 'round these parts.

[Leon]

i just dont get why she was so important that we gave up a arms dealer to get her back. i have to think cause shes a minority and gay played a big part cause it plays into what the left is trying to sell. that they are defenders of those groups. would they have done the same deal if she was straitght white man? i dont know but i doubt it to be honest

[CJD]

(12-17-2022, 04:30 PM)Leon Wrote: i just dont get why she was so important that we gave up a arms dealer to get her back. i have to think cause shes a minority and gay played a big part cause it plays into what the left is trying to sell. that they are defenders of those groups. would they have done the same deal if she was straitght white man? i dont know but i doubt it to be honest

People aren't trading cards. We didn't trade an ultra rare, foil Arms Dealer card for a Common, non-foil WNBA player card.

We negotiated for the freedom of an American citizen who was wrongfully imprisoned across seas and that freedom has a cost.

[StoneTheCrow]

(12-17-2022, 06:04 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: freedom has a cost.

$1.05

[Leon]

(12-17-2022, 06:04 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: People aren't trading cards. We didn't trade an ultra rare, foil Arms Dealer card for a Common, non-foil WNBA player card.

We negotiated for the freedom of an American citizen who was wrongfully imprisoned across seas and that freedom has a cost.

i think you missed my point

[CJD]

(12-17-2022, 09:44 PM)Leon Wrote: i think you missed my point

No, I don't think I did.

[Dill]

(12-17-2022, 04:30 PM)Leon Wrote: i just dont get why she was so important that we gave up a arms dealer to get her back. i have to think cause shes a minority and gay played a big part cause it plays into what the left is trying to sell. that they are defenders of those groups. would they have done the same deal if she was straitght white man? i dont know but i doubt it to be honest

“The left” does defend those groups, along with working class white males and all groups who aren’t oppressing others. That’s their job.

What makes Griner important is that she is an American citizen and a human being. I value her life over an arms dealers—especially an ultra nationalist who shares Putin’s homophobia.

[CJD]

(12-17-2022, 08:39 PM)StoneTheCrow Wrote: $1.05

Legitimately a great song and movie :)

[*Nately120*]

(12-17-2022, 04:30 PM)Leon Wrote: i just dont get why she was so important that we gave up a arms dealer to get her back. i have to think cause shes a minority and gay played a big part cause it plays into what the left is trying to sell. that they are defenders of those groups. would they have done the same deal if she was straitght white man? i dont know but i doubt it to be honest

Hell, republicans didn't even bother trading an arms dealer for an important straight white man who is over there.  So if things really are as black and white as the GOP is looking out for useful straight white males and the left is looking out for not that important gay black females, well...one side is holding up their end of the bargain and the other isn't.