Take the Deal: Brittney Griner in Exchange for the ‘Merchant of Death’ | Hacker News Reader

Take the Deal: Brittney Griner in Exchange for the ‘Merchant of Death’

politico.com

6 pointsTomte14 comments

I think we have enough evidence now that the spirit of sports and sportsmanship is not magical enough to paper over geopolitical issues even temporarily, and there are no special people who are exempt from the realities of the world.

I find it disappointing that people's inability or willful refusal to "read the room" is being compensated for by governments like this. Of course they should help, but it is disappointing that this is happening. I wouldn't have travelled to Russia in February of 2022, and if she hypothetically did bring vapes she's even dumber than I give her credit for, although that fact may well be staged by Russia and we will never know. That said, people bring drugs to Indonesia for recreational use (where you get the death penalty for them) so maybe all bets are off.

When you travel to a foreign country you are agreeing to operate under their laws. If you go there without respecting their laws, I can't see having a lot of sympathy.

The idea that this notorious arms dealer is going to be completely rehabilitated because he has lost a few years of networking, in the network which he built by himself in the first place and certainly would be able to easily do again, is wishful thinking at its worst.

Yeah that was the other thing. Even if we accept the premise that this guy is a fossil in the arms world, he is still likely to roll into some cushy job in Russian industry, as many of his criminal predecessors have done, and I'm certain he would have stashes of wealth that western law enforcement did not get to.

Not to mention there's others in the same situation who don't get the same treatment:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61849579

Also Russia has offered actual spies in exchange for him:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-whelan-lawyer-...

Why is she so special? What is her special quality that makes her valuable enough to exchange for a man who is alleged to have sold weapons to Al queda.

She's famous. That's all it takes in life. If you're famous, you can get support from Google, you can be exchanged for prominent arms dealers, the world is just that much brighter and more interested in you.

> that fact may well be staged by Russia and we will never know

"She has pleaded guilty to drug charges...Griner has testified she has a doctor’s prescription for medical cannabis..." [0]

It seems wildly more likely she just committed the crime in question. If Russian authorities were going to set up someone, they could set up someone with actual knowledge or importance scientifically/militarily/etc. This seems like a convenient opportunity to overreact to someone that actually broke the rules and leverage it.

[0] https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/02/europe/brittney-griner-trial-...

Also the fact that her lawyers showed a prescription from her doctor stating she needed the drugs makes it more likely the accusations are true. Is anyone actually denying she has the drugs? The media, her teammates, her wife?

No, no one is denying she had the drugs. The issue is that she was sentenced far in excess of what is normal or reasonable, apparently for political reasons.

Really? What is the average time spent in jail for possession in Russia?

For these charges, according to my research, about a third of offenders get off on parole, and the average sentence is about five years. Ten years in the gulag for less than a gram of THC, with a prescription and a guilty plea is clearly an attempt to make a statement.

I do believe you. But is there a link I can check, or someone besides you who has researched this?

My research is just reading articles about the sentencing and appeal quoting her defense team like this:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/04/europe/brittney-griner-trial/...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brittney-griner-wnba-appeal-rus...

https://reason.com/2022/08/05/brittney-griners-9-5-year-sent...

It seems unlikely her lawyers would blatantly lie, given the context.

Thanks, that is useful. So 1/3 get zero years, and the average is 5 years. Speculating the time spent in prison is bell-shaped - and this is a huge if - 1/3 of the sentences could be over 10 years. I think we need more datapoints to conclude this sentence was an outlier.

I think the sentence is lengthy but not outrageous according to Russian standards, a country where unfair sentences happen constantly.

This is just a PR move with the sole aim of achieving more votes. Considerations such as whether this is fair towards other Americans in Russia, whether this makes the world more safe, whether she actually had the drugs on her, have been laughed out of the room.

If getting Paul Wheelan out was more popular, Griner would be rotting in Russia instead of Wheelan. USA has given up a war criminal for a very very stupid stupid mistake of someone who is clueless about how the world is out there.

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