Fair Swap?

In the USA and the leftie woke press (like the BBC), the release of the previously largely unknown black lesbian basketball player Brittney Griner, in a prisoner swap, has been greeted as almost like the release of Nelson Mandela .....

Griner For Bout - A Fair Swap?

..... with almost minute by the minute reports of her progress westward.

But, there has been very little condemnation of her drug habits, nor the undisputed fact that she attempted to go through Russian security with a vaping machine and hashish oil. She apparently thought that because this was legal in many parts of the USA, then it was legal everywhere else in the world .... a belief that many other Americans continue to make at customs stations across the globe.

However, Russia like many other countries takes a firm stance against drug usage and transportation across its borders. A fact that Ms Griner must have been well aware of, as she had been playing basketball in Russia (during the US women's leagues off season) since 2014. So her arrest, freely given confession, and eventual jail sentence, were all legal (this wasn't a kidnap or hostage taking exercise), and by people doing their jobs, and in line with the sentences given to Russia's own citizens.

Now if this had been a white US tourist arrested for drug offences, they would be getting ready for a decade of hell trying to survive in a Russian Gulag, with no chance that they would be swapped for an internationally renowned arms dealer. They also wouldn't have US liberals or sports stars, lobbying President Biden on their behalf.

But, Ms Griner is a black American, lesbian and a sports star (albeit in a very minority niche sport of women's basketball), and in these times, BLM + LGBTQ + SPORT = Democratic Presidential interest. So as soon as she was arrested the regime showed some interest and when she was found guilty and faced a decade in a women Gulag .... well that set the Biden government in to action. The proposal was mooted that an arms dealer, Victor Bout, whose nickname of the "Merchant of Death", tells you most of what his life has been like, be swapped for the drug taking basketball player. 

So who is Victor Bout? Well he was sentenced to 25 years in prison in April 2012, having been found guilty of conspiracy to kill Americans and US officials, by delivering anti-aircraft missiles and aiding a terrorist organisation (FARC).

Russia has been trying to get him back from various prisons since 2010, but his arms dealing had been in operation since the late 1990's (after the collapse of the USSR) ... he even lived in Belgium for a while (until the authorities there issued an arrest warrant and he fled), but since then he used aliases to travel across the globe. His alleged activities include:

• Shipping arms to both governments and insurgents in Africa (including Liberia and Angola).
• Shipping arms to Afghanistan when the Taliban were in power (he claimed they went to the warlords who opposed them). This is contrary to Media reports in the Middle East that claimed he was a gun-runner for both al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
• Involvement in efforts to destabilise Sierra Leone and gain illicit access to diamonds.
• Attempting to sell arms to Colombians (FARC) - which is how the US caught him in Thailand.
  

His activities have undoubtedly led the deaths of thousands, or tens of thousands (and maybe hundreds of thousands) of people, manly in black Africa ... and many people on that continent will not hail his freedom. But all her liberal supporters only think that black lives matter in the USA (and western countries), and don't really give a damn about Black African lives.