Brittney Griner Freed from Russia!

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Russia releases US basketball star Brittney Griner in prisoner swap

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20221209_04/
(Watch video)
US President Joe Biden has announced that US professional basketball player Brittney Griner has been freed from prison in Russia, and is now safe in American custody.

Biden said Griner was on a plane on her way home. He made the announcement alongside Griner's wife, Cherelle.

Griner was detained at an airport near Moscow in February. Authorities accused her of carrying cannabis oil in her baggage.

The 32-year old American was sentenced to nine years in prison in August for alleged drug possession.

Griner was freed in an exchange for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was held in the US.

Bout was known as "The Merchant of Death." He had been sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2012 for conspiring to sell arms that would be used against Americans.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: Brittney Griner Freed from Russia!

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I know I’m likely in the minority here;
but personally, I think Victor Bout has been locked up enough. He’s a gun runner that pretty much every state (including the US) used to do their dirty work and work around their own sanctions regimes. He was convicted for running guns to the FARC in Colombia, a group with National Revolution ambitions, not an international terrorist group. I’ve been researching him since my undergraduate years. He only difference between him and a state is that he isn’t a shadowy government operative, he was a freelancer.

I also don’t trust Russia that they “found”
Hashish oil in Brittny Griner’s vape. That’s some BS that they could have planted for sure. She got caught up during the start of the war and the Russians needed to grab anyone they could for leverage.

I’m glad that we got her back for basically a political prisoner in trade.


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Re: Brittney Griner Freed from Russia!

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What she did was illegal in Russia. I don’t particularly care to have other countries legal systems undermined by our politics and disdain for the country in question. People need to realize you go to a foreign country, their laws govern and their system of justice governs whether you like it or not. Another “ugly American” circumvents their punishment by playing the we are always right card. This is not a vindication of her innocence, it can’t be. The court was not ours, it was Russian and their rules and their judgment is what mattered. The media and our propaganda pressured another individual from serving their time. The only way I would agree this is a fair result is if she serves her sentence in a US federal prison. Ok, said my thoughts, I hope she at least learned some lesson about this and I hope she doesn’t make a show of professing her innocence.
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Re: Brittney Griner Freed from Russia!

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sikacz wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 11:14 pm What she did was illegal in Russia. I don’t particularly care to have other countries legal systems undermined by our politics and disdain for the country in question. People need to realize you go to a foreign country, their laws govern and their system of justice governs whether you like it or not. Another “ugly American” circumvents their punishment by playing the we are always right card. This is not a vindication of her innocence, it can’t be. The court was not ours, it was Russian and their rules and their judgment is what mattered. The media and our propaganda pressured another individual from serving their time. The only way I would agree this is a fair result is if she serves her sentence in a US federal prison. Ok, said my thoughts, I hope she at least learned some lesson about this and I hope she doesn’t make a show of professing her innocence.
I agree, just because she was a WNBA star in the US doesn't mean she's exempt from laws in other countries.
Griner was arrested in a Moscow airport in February after airport officials discovered vape canisters and cannabis oil in her luggage.
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/12/08 ... %20country

Stars like Griner earn $1-$1.5 million per season playing in international leagues especially in Russia, there are no salary caps. They didn't pay attention to the international politics, it was the money and apparently a party culture.
Today, countries such as Russia and Turkey are some of the most popular destinations for WNBA players. 2021 WNBA Champion Stefanie Dolson’s favorite place to play has been Turkey. “I mean everyone loves Turkey because it’s the party country.
https://queenballers.club/basketball/ov ... all-salary
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Brittney Griner Freed from Russia!

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It entirely likely that the Russians security services planted that on her -or did the old switch-a-roo.” I don’t trust them and they could have completely done this to sow discord in the US. As much as they are terrible at conventional warfare they are good at disinformation ops in the US. They know that the racists and anti - LGBTQ people would be furious at the USG for “picking her” over an WHITE ex- marine (not former) who received a BCD for larceny.


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Re: Brittney Griner Freed from Russia!

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We could have better spent our capital, that's for sure. Don't have much truck or empathy for those US citizens that take personal risk in a foreign country. Glad Griner is home, but was a costly endeavor IMHO.
"Being Republican is more than a difference of opinion - it's a character flaw." "COVID can fix STUPID!"
The greatest, most aggrieved mistake EVER made in USA was electing DJT as POTUS.

Re: Brittney Griner Freed from Russia!

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highdesert wrote: Fri Dec 09, 2022 10:22 am I agree it wasn't an even exchange and I have no doubt politics entered into it, it's Washington. And I agree Paul Whelan is a sketchy character, he has citizenship from 4 countries was he spying for them?
Haven't kept up with this case, but multiple pass ports are not rare or unusual. I was once offered forged passports if I were to accept a job working throughout Mid-East area in 1980 (Iran, Iraq, et al) since American wasn't real popular or safe to be during that time and area. Even on my foreign travels I would tell some people I was Canadian just to avoid the hate America crap that was prevalent during the 70's and 80's.
"Being Republican is more than a difference of opinion - it's a character flaw." "COVID can fix STUPID!"
The greatest, most aggrieved mistake EVER made in USA was electing DJT as POTUS.

Re: Brittney Griner Freed from Russia!

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Glad she's back, that was some bullshit. Sorry it cost us a real POS, but we'll find that POS again (he won't be able to help himself, and Putin will want to put him right back to work), so we'll either catch him, or he'll eat a Hellfire from a drone. Meanwhile, Brittney can go back to making a lot of money and being a productive member of society.
“I think there’s a right-wing conspiracy to promote the idea of a left-wing conspiracy”

Brittney Griner Freed from Russia!

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Wino wrote:
highdesert wrote: Fri Dec 09, 2022 10:22 am I agree it wasn't an even exchange and I have no doubt politics entered into it, it's Washington. And I agree Paul Whelan is a sketchy character, he has citizenship from 4 countries was he spying for them?
Haven't kept up with this case, but multiple pass ports are not rare or unusual. I was once offered forged passports if I were to accept a job working throughout Mid-East area in 1980 (Iran, Iraq, et al) since American wasn't real popular or safe to be during that time and area. Even on my foreign travels I would tell some people I was Canadian just to avoid the hate America crap that was prevalent during the 70's and 80's.
He got a Bad Conduct Discharge for the The USMC. He’s not a great guy. You have to be horrible to get a BCD or a Dishonorable Discharge. Convicted in a courts martial of larceny.

Lots of troublesome service members are separated under “other than honorable” or “general discharge.”

With a BCD: Military members who receive a bad conduct discharge are ineligible for GI Bill benefits, VA housing programs, and are unable to join any branch of the military in the future. Most of the veteran's benefits are forfeited with a bad conduct discharge.

This guy was a criminal.

We don’t get to know the specifics, but likely Brittany Griner was a much more deserving person.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local ... 463709002/

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Re: Brittney Griner Freed from Russia!

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Came across this interesting article yesterday. I honestly didn’t know this was a thing until I read it, thought everyone was behind trying to get her released from Russia as a political prisoner. I’m genuinely surprised that some here would use the BS drug charge to justify her detention and slavery in Putin’s Russia.

https://www.insider.com/brittney-griner ... tic-2022-8
Dani Gilbert, an expert on hostage taking and recovery and a Rosenwald Fellow in US Foreign Policy and International Security at Dartmouth College's John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, told Insider, before Griner's release, that her research suggests that "how someone came to be in need of assistance affects whether or not the public thinks that person should receive it."

This phenomenon, she said, is called the "deservingness heuristic."

Gilbert used poverty as an example for her explanation. People who believe that poor people are simply unlucky are the ones who are willing to support programs that provide assistance. But those who deem poor people lazy are less likely to support those same programs.

Her research, which she conducted along with a colleague at the University of California San Diego, suggests that that same theory applies to the public perception of hostages and wrongfully detained people. Griner was no exception.

"The fact that the American public might be really focused on the alleged drug possession and the outlandish accusation of drug smuggling might make the American public less willing to pay attention to this case," Gilbert said, adding that the public may also be "less supportive of government efforts to bring her home."

She continued, "That's the kind of dynamic that might really be in play."

"It's unfortunately quite predictable that Americans respond this way," Gilbert added.

Gilbert further explained that personal characteristics could have had an effect on the way the public regards Griner's situation: Though "gender tends to be less influential in how the American public and how the media care about, sympathize with, pay attention to Americans who are held hostage abroad" than some other factors, "race is a huge deal here."

This concept is aptly called "the missing white woman syndrome," Gilbert said.

"A white girl or a white woman who is taken captive or arrested or something like that elicits tons of sympathy from the American public in a way that women and girls of color do not," she explained. Gilbert believed that the fact that Griner is Black could have been "a huge part of the lack of attention to her case."

"And then there are other demographic characteristics, including the fact that she is openly gay, that she is gender nonconforming, not traditionally feminine — all of these work against public sympathy for someone in her position," Gilbert added.

"What we should really be focused on is the fact that she was wrongfully detained and is sitting in Russian prison in illegitimate arrest," she added. "And that any American in that situation deserves help to come home."
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

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