Max Boot is generally an OK guy these days - at least he's kinda rehabbed from his previous wingnut persona.
But just like practically all the other jaw-flappers, he never mentions the possibility that a guy like Viktor Bout may have been turned while he was in US custody, and that Putin needs to get him back in order to figure out whether or not he's some kind of double agent now, &/or to find out how much he told the Americans about Russia's shady deals - and that gives the US a chance to fuck with Putin's head some more, and blah blah blah, and ain't it fun to play this stupid cloak-n-dagger game all the fuckin' time.
I don't know enough about any of it to think I could offer up any kind of guidance.
I only know that nobody knows much of anything about the spy-craft shit, and that includes the spies and the spy masters.
I just think it'd be nice if we could count on our government to go to bat for us without thinking we're all just geopolitical pawns.
Opinion -Max Boot
It’s good that Griner is home. But the hostage bazaar has to close.
I am very glad that basketball star Brittney Griner is back in the United States after having been imprisoned in Russia on trumped-up charges. But I am also very uneasy about the method of her release. In return for her freedom, President Biden agreed to set free Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer who was serving a 25-year prison sentence on charges of conspiring to sell weapons to kill Americans.
We need a serious discussion about whether this is the right policy for Washington to follow. Should we be winning the release of those currently detained at the risk of creating more hostage crises in the future?
There is legitimate cause for concern that such deals make us more vulnerable, as Republican critics now charge, but they didn’t start with Biden. President Ronald Reagan traded arms for hostages with Iran. President Barack Obama set free five senior Taliban leaders from Guantánamo Bay to return U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from Afghanistan. (Obama, however, refused to pay a ransom to the Islamic State to win the release of four U.S. hostages, ordering instead a rescue mission that failed. The hostages were subsequently killed, while many European hostages were ransomed out.)
Now, Biden has chosen to pay a disturbingly high price for Griner’s freedom. It’s not entirely clear why Russian dictator Vladimir Putin wanted Bout back so badly, but he is closely linked to Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU. Although it’s been 12 years since Bout was arrested in Thailand and extradited to the United States, he might still have smuggling networks that could be of use to Putin in waging the war in Ukraine.
Besides setting free a dangerous international criminal known as the “merchant of death,” the deal sent a message to the entire world that the United States remains in the business of paying off hostage-takers. That can only encourage more unlawful detentions of Americans.
We need a serious reconsideration of the right policy on hostages. But that’s exactly what we’re not getting. Instead of engaging on the merits of Biden’s difficult decision, MAGA Republicans are displaying breathtaking (if entirely unsurprising) bigotry, cynicism and political opportunism in their desperate desire to deny a Democratic president credit for any achievement.
We need a serious discussion about whether this is the right policy for Washington to follow. Should we be winning the release of those currently detained at the risk of creating more hostage crises in the future?
There is legitimate cause for concern that such deals make us more vulnerable, as Republican critics now charge, but they didn’t start with Biden. President Ronald Reagan traded arms for hostages with Iran. President Barack Obama set free five senior Taliban leaders from Guantánamo Bay to return U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from Afghanistan. (Obama, however, refused to pay a ransom to the Islamic State to win the release of four U.S. hostages, ordering instead a rescue mission that failed. The hostages were subsequently killed, while many European hostages were ransomed out.)
Now, Biden has chosen to pay a disturbingly high price for Griner’s freedom. It’s not entirely clear why Russian dictator Vladimir Putin wanted Bout back so badly, but he is closely linked to Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU. Although it’s been 12 years since Bout was arrested in Thailand and extradited to the United States, he might still have smuggling networks that could be of use to Putin in waging the war in Ukraine.
Besides setting free a dangerous international criminal known as the “merchant of death,” the deal sent a message to the entire world that the United States remains in the business of paying off hostage-takers. That can only encourage more unlawful detentions of Americans.
We need a serious reconsideration of the right policy on hostages. But that’s exactly what we’re not getting. Instead of engaging on the merits of Biden’s difficult decision, MAGA Republicans are displaying breathtaking (if entirely unsurprising) bigotry, cynicism and political opportunism in their desperate desire to deny a Democratic president credit for any achievement.
Fox “News” host Tucker Carlson suggested that Griner was set free, and former Marine Paul Whelan was not, because she “is not White and she’s a lesbian.” This is nonsense. It’s a tragedy that Whelan remains in a Russian prison, but if it was so easy to release him, why didn’t Donald Trump get it done while he was in the Oval Office? Whelan has been in prison since 2018.
Now, right-wing commentators who never mentioned Whelan’s ordeal before are suddenly bringing him up to score partisan points. Likewise, Republicans who regularly applauded Trump’s hostage-release deals are expressing concern that, as House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) said, the Griner-for-Bout deal “made us weaker.”
As president, Trump took hostage deals to a whole new level — making them, for the first time, a pillar of U.S. foreign policy rather than a disreputable necessity. He boasted that he was “the greatest hostage negotiator … in the history of the United States,” crassly featured six freed prisoners at the 2020 Republican National Convention, and elevated his chief hostage negotiator (Robert C. O’Brien) to the role of national security adviser.
Trump now has the gall to attack the Griner deal as “one-sided” and a “‘stupid’ and unpatriotic embarrassment,” but he paid a substantial price for many of his own prisoner releases, which involved deals with such unsavory partners as the Taliban, the Iranians and the Houthis in Yemen.
The wheeling and dealing continues under Biden. In addition to Bout, he released a Russian cocaine smuggler in exchange for Trevor Reed, another former Marine held in Russia; an Afghan drug lord in return for Navy veteran Mark Frerichs, who was held by the Taliban; and two relatives of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro who were convicted of drug trafficking for seven Americans held in Venezuela.
All of these deals, however well-intentioned, are, unfortunately, creating inducements to seize more Americans in the future. It’s a vicious cycle that is nearly impossible to break. But we need to try. Biden, while continuing to negotiate for the release of Whelan and others who are currently imprisoned, could announce that in the future all Americans who go to Russia, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Afghanistan and other countries on the State Department’s “do not travel” list are on their own. If they are seized, we aren’t going to give up anything to get them back.
That might sound harsh and hardhearted — and may be politically impossible — but it could actually protect Americans abroad. Perhaps that’s not the right approach. But some course correction is needed if the U.S. government is to stop inadvertently offering aid and encouragement to hostage-takers.
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