It annoys me that something as stupid as a marijuana vape gave Russia an excuse to secure the release of Viktor Bout without giving us Paul Whelan in return.
Frankly, Griner should’ve been the one to bear the costs of her fuck-up, not Whelan.
Nah whelan can stay. Dude was and is a piece of shit.
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I think the official US policy is and should be that US lives are more important than maintaining control of political prisoners. It’s unfair to say the Griner wasn’t “worth it,” and it’s especially not okay for the government to make that determination.
If the US government was ever at risk of saying (publicly) that someone “isn’t worth getting out of political prison” they’d lose all credibility in these negotiations for US citizens’ lives
This wasn’t political. She admitted she broke the law. Wtf are you smoking??? Lol
Right, and Russia always applies laws equally and impartially. No politically motivated selective enforcement here, no sir!
Yeah for real, the whole situation is just a cluster fuck of idiocy.
Are there no Americans left with rational thought?
If you go to a different country, and break a law, you’re responsible. You can’t just say oops. She brought drugs across an international border. She is 100% at fault.
Now what if she was a Dutch national traveling to the USA and did the exact same thing. A small amount of marijuana. Microscopic amount. Flying into a legal state even, say Colorado as Port of Entry. She’d GO TO FEDERAL PRISON. It’s a federal crime, the carry a Class 1 scheduled narcotic into the USA. She could be sitting in the US prisons for 25 years.
And the US does this to people all the time. Sometimes if you’re the proper shade of immigrant, they’ll chastise you and let you go. Or chastise you, cancel your visa, ban you from the country for 5 or 10 years (or forever) and fly you back to your home country. But often, you are arrested and charged.
I look forward to seeing this.
