7 hours ago, lynched1 said:

Biden's "Art of the Deal".

As opposed to the "Art of Sitting on Your Ass and Eating Big Macs."

8 hours ago, lynched1 said:

Biden's "Art of the Deal".

Trump had two years to work his magic, and yet when Biden took office, Whelan was still in Russia.

While you drove drunk and put others at risk. How about you crawl back under your rock?

15 hours ago, Dave Moss said:

Dallas countries 

Dallas eats a big deek

9 hours ago, lynched1 said:

If Brittany Griner is "a role model to millions" where are they?

I can tell you where they aren't.

Sitting in the stands of WNBA games. 

2 hours ago, 20dawk4life said:

You can keep saying dishonored marine all you want but he’s still more valuable than she is. 

This says it all right here. Only one reason to think this. 

so, whats the over/under on days until bout's mysterious death ? 

2 hours ago, 20dawk4life said:

But I get it, you can’t criticize Biden for anything for some weird reason. 

I didn’t vote for the guy but o give hime credit when it’s due. 

2 hours ago, 20dawk4life said:

I keep saying terrorist because that’s what he is and she isn’t worth giving up a terrorist for. 
 

You can keep saying dishonored marine all you want but he’s still more valuable than she is. 
 

Also not getting the Marine back isn’t what makes this a bad trade. Trading a terrorist for a wnba player who committed a crime in another country because she’s a moron makes this a bad trade. 
 

But I get it, you can’t criticize Biden for anything for some weird reason. 
 

Take emotion out of it and this is a sheet trade. We had the leverage and blew it. We had a high valuable Russian asset and traded it for something of little value to the US. 

Unless you know whether Whelan is actually guiltily, then I'm not sure how or why you'd say he's anymore "valuable" than Griner is. 

2 hours ago, 20dawk4life said:

You can keep saying dishonored marine all you want but he’s still more valuable than she is. 
 

 

why is that ? he took a sheet on the marine corp and all of its values. she's a dumbarse basketball player who seemed to be pissed off at the country because nobody cared about the wnba. 

When was the Russian actually slated for release? I keep seeing conflicting info. Some places say he had 3 years left on his sentence and others say he served 15 years of a 25 year sentence 

1 minute ago, Jsvand12 said:

When was the Russian actually slated for release? I keep seeing conflicting info. Some places say he had 3 years left on his sentence and others say he served 15 years of a 25 year sentence 

Bout was sentenced 25 years. He went to prison in 2012, served 10 years, but some sources say he was eligible for parole.

Quote

DEA agent who helped put Viktor Bout behind bars slams Brittney Griner swap: ‘We couldn’t even get two people for the world’s most notorious weapons trafficker’
 

Tom Pasquarello’s phone started buzzing around 7 a.m. on Thursday.

"Did you hear the news?” a friend asked.

"What news?” Pasquarello responded.

The news turned out to be the undoing of one of Pasquarello’s proudest achievements from his tenure as a regional director with the Drug Enforcement Administration. The U.S. had released the notorious Russian arms trafficker who Pasquarello helped take down 14 years ago with an audacious sting operation.
 

Viktor Bout, the so-called "Merchant of Death” and the inspiration for the 2005 Nicolas Cage film, "Lord of War,” is who Russia received back from the U.S. on Thursday in a prisoner swap for American basketball star Brittney Griner. Bout, 55, was serving a 25-year sentence in an Illinois federal prison on charges of providing weapons to terrorists and conspiring to kill Americans.

To Pasquarello, freeing Bout early was a troubling decision with potential "huge repercussions.” The former DEA agent argues that the U.S. State Department has a responsibility to figure out how to bring Griner and other wrongfully detained Americans home without offering a prisoner exchange or making other major concessions.

"I’m kind of in disbelief that someone with the potential to orchestrate arms deals that can kill Americans anywhere in the world would be traded for a prisoner,” Pasquarello told Yahoo Sports on Thursday. "I think this sends a terrible message that the U.S. will negotiate, that the U.S. will make concessions and that, if an American is held overseas, there’s always the potential that the U.S. will acquiesce to the demands of people like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and bail them out.”

Pasquarello’s personal connection to Bout may color how he views Thursday’s prisoner swap, but he is hardly alone in his assessment that the Biden administration gave up too much to get Griner home. Other foreign policy experts also wince at the obvious imbalance between Bout’s crimes and Griner’s.

The U.S. alleges Bout smuggled military-grade weapons to rogue leaders and insurgent groups across Africa and beyond, elevating conflicts from machetes and one-shot rifles to grenade launchers and AK-47s. Russia alleges Griner flew into Moscow on Feb. 17 with vape cartridges containing less than one ounce of cannabis oil in her luggage.

Yuval Weber, an expert on Russian military and political strategy, told Yahoo Sports that Bout’s release may "incentivize rogue state and non-state actors to kidnap or imprison on trumped-up charges more Americans.” Weber also expressed concern that Bout might reprise his former role as an operative who exported arms to Russian allies at the Kremlin’s bidding.

"In sports terms,” said Weber, a distinguished fellow at Marine Corps University's Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare, "we just traded a GOAT first-ballot Hall of Famer who still has many years of productivity left for a hometown Division III star."

How Viktor Bout became an arms trafficker

Exactly how big a threat is Viktor Bout? The answer depends on who you ask. Russian state media calls him a "businessman” and an "entrepreneur.” His former website said he’s a "born salesman with undying love for aviation.” A longtime DEA agent once described him as "one of the most dangerous men on the face of the Earth.”

Bout’s rise to prominence began during the early 1990s when he astutely saw opportunity amid the chaos of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Piles of weapons and ammunition lay discarded in dusty warehouses. Military planes sat abandoned on Soviet runways because there was no money for maintenance or fuel, and no one to fly them.

Relying on military and intelligence connections he had previously made, Bout acquired several Antonov cargo planes known for their heavy airlift capacity and ability to land in treacherous terrain. Those became the starting point for a private fleet of more than 50 Soviet cargo planes and a network of air-freight companies that hauled goods to and from far-flung conflict zones.

Bout’s planes reportedly carried anything from fresh-cut flowers, to frozen food, to U.N. peacekeepers, but authorities say he raked in most of his profit delivering arms and ammunition from old Soviet stockpiles. At Bout’s peak, according to the U.S Department of Treasury, he had "the capacity to transport tanks, helicopters and weapons by the tons to virtually any point in the world.”

The ability to supply that sort of firepower rapidly and with pinpoint accuracy helped Bout build a client list that included some of the world’s most notorious leaders. He made $50 million supplying the Taliban with military equipment, according to the U.S. Department of Treasury. He also allegedly inflamed conflicts in Liberia, Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Sudan.

Angola was one country where Bout allegedly defied United Nations sanctions prohibiting arms trafficking and U.S. peace-making efforts. A former high-ranking U.S. State Department official told Yahoo Sports in May that in the mid-to-late 1990s, Bout sold Soviet-era arms to both sides of the Angolan Civil War — the Marxist government and the UNITA rebels seeking to overthrow it.

"He was undermining our efforts to create peace in Angola,” the former State Department source said. "He didn't care what side of the issue he was on. He was in it for profit.”

Bout consistently stayed one step ahead of international investigators by repeatedly registering and re-registering his planes in far-flung countries, enabling him to avoid inspections and oversight. It also helped that Bout had the protection of the Russian government, enabling him to retreat to Moscow after global law enforcement agencies shined a spotlight on the work he had long been doing in the shadows.

By 2007, the U.S. deemed Bout such a threat that it tasked the DEA with setting up a sting operation to catch him. The DEA crafted a plan to have agents pose as members of a violent Colombian rebel faction seeking missiles that could shoot down American aircrafts and arms that could kill American forces.

The sting operation culminated in March 2008 when the DEA successfully baited Bout into leaving his Russian safe haven and flying to Bangkok to finalize the deal. After Bout's meeting with undercover operatives ended with him shoved up against a wall with his hands in the air, Pasquarello entered the room.

"Do you have anything to say?" Pasquarello asked Bout.

"The game’s over," the arms trafficker coolly responded.
 

Russia plays hardball

Bout might have served the entirety of his 25-year sentence in federal prison were it not for what Griner has called an "honest mistake.” The U.S. had repeatedly rejected the Kremlin’s prisoner exchange proposals involving Bout until one of America’s most well-known women’s basketball players went on trial in Russia for drug possession and drug smuggling.

In July, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the U.S. had offered Russia a "substantial proposal.” The offer was believed to be a two-for-one trade exchanging Bout for Griner and Paul Whelan, a retired Marine detained in Russia for the past four years on espionage charges that both he and the State Department say are bogus.

While Blinken spoke directly to Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and urged him to agree to the proposed exchange, Russia refused to include Whelan in a deal then or in subsequent negotiations. President Joe Biden said Thursday that the U.S. either had to agree to trade Griner for Bout or there would be no deal at all.

"Sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul’s case different than Brittney’s,” Biden said. "And while we have not yet succeeded in securing Paul’s release, we are not giving up. We will never give up.”

The Bout-for-Griner trade is the second high-profile prisoner exchange the U.S. and Russia have negotiated this year despite mounting tensions between the two former Cold War enemies. In April, the U.S. secured the release of Marine veteran Trevor Reed in exchange for a Russian pilot serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into America.

How problematic these prisoner swaps are is a subject of debate. Some foreign policy experts insist that high-profile prisoner exchanges like this one incentivize Russia and other countries to seize more Americans, but former State Department foreign services officer David Salvo told Yahoo Sports he’s unconvinced that’s the case.

"Maybe I’m being naive or overly optimistic, but I don’t think you’re going to see an exponential rise in cases of Americans being jailed to extract leverage over us,” said Salvo, the deputy director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and an expert on Russian foreign policy.

"These cases are still exceedingly rare. This happens so infrequently that incentivizing it shouldn’t factor into the calculus. We had to do what we had to do to bring our people home. We got one of the two back so far. It’s a bittersweet victory in that regard, but that has to be the ultimate goal.”

Experts say that securing Bout’s release was a point of pride for Putin because the arms trafficker is a former intelligence agent who displayed loyalty to Russia. Bout operated with state protection throughout his arms trafficking career and often served the government’s foreign policy interests once Putin rose to power.

Whether Bout is still as dangerous today as he was at the peak of his power isn’t fully clear.

Salvo admits that Bout "didn’t get his ‘Merchant of Death’ nickname for no reason,” but he points out that Bout has been on the sideline for 15 years.

"While I still think it’s possible he can be used again by Russian authorities to activate his network and wreak havoc,” Salvo said, "I’m skeptical he’s going to reemerge as the biggest arms dealer on the planet as soon as he lands in Russia.”

Pasquarello warns not to underestimate an adversary as crafty and experienced as Bout.

"I think it’s very easy for him to get back into business,” Pasquarello said. "I’ve heard that Viktor’s not a threat, that he can’t travel anymore, that he’s going to be isolated. He was like that for 10 years before we arrested him. He knew he couldn’t go anywhere and he still operated from his safe spots.”

It frustrates Pasquarello that the efforts of the DEA and its allies couldn’t keep Bout behind bars for longer. He doesn’t understand why the U.S. couldn’t get more detained Americans back in exchange for Bout, if the State Department had to include him in a deal at all.

"We couldn’t even get two people for the world’s most notorious weapons trafficker,” Pasquarello said, "for a man who has been responsible for more carnage and blood diamonds and insurrections and threats to democracy than anyone else in the world. How is that a negotiation? That’s like a free deal.”

https://sports.yahoo.com/dea-agent-who-helped-put-viktor-bout-behind-bars-slams-brittney-griner-swap-we-couldnt-even-get-two-people-for-the-worlds-most-notorious-weapons-trafficker-220232108.html

11 minutes ago, Jsvand12 said:

When was the Russian actually slated for release? I keep seeing conflicting info. Some places say he had 3 years left on his sentence and others say he served 15 years of a 25 year sentence 

It’s 15 of 25, but he ***might*** have been eligible for parole. Judging by the comments of the DEA agent who actually caught him, it doesn’t sound like the parole thing was true, or at least likely to be given.

48 minutes ago, Tnt4philly said:

This says it all right here. Only one reason to think this. 

What is that reason?

45 minutes ago, Tnt4philly said:

I didn’t vote for the guy but o give hime credit when it’s due. 

It’s not due here

41 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Unless you know whether Whelan is actually guiltily, then I'm not sure how or why you'd say he's anymore "valuable" than Griner is. 

 

28 minutes ago, Alpha_TATEr said:

why is that ? he took a sheet on the marine corp and all of its values. she's a dumbarse basketball player who seemed to be pissed off at the country because nobody cared about the wnba. 

Because Putin wouldn’t trade him for The Merchant of Death. 

4 minutes ago, 20dawk4life said:

What is that reason?

 

3 minutes ago, 20dawk4life said:

Because Putin wouldn’t trade him for The Merchant of Death. 

Actually, this puts your "value” comment in a different context.

13 hours ago, ToastJenkins said:

So why give him a victory and allow him to appear strong?

Are you asking why I would do it? I probably wouldn't have. 

Just now, Gannan said:

Are you asking why I would do it? I probably wouldn't have. 

No not you specifically. More in general to the audience

39 minutes ago, 20dawk4life said:

 

Because Putin wouldn’t trade him for The Merchant of Death. 

putin tried to before, but trump said no to the deal. 

1 hour ago, 20dawk4life said:

 

Because Putin wouldn’t trade him for The Merchant of Death. 

That denotes value to Putin, not value to us. You're confusing the two. If he's actually guilty, obviously a convicted spy (not at our behest) would be of far more value to Putin than he would be to us. It's pretty straightforward stuff. 

4 hours ago, 20dawk4life said:

I keep saying terrorist because that’s what he is and she isn’t worth giving up a terrorist for. 
 

You can keep saying dishonored marine all you want but he’s still more valuable than she is. 
 

Also not getting the Marine back isn’t what makes this a bad trade. Trading a terrorist for a wnba player who committed a crime in another country because she’s a moron makes this a bad trade. 
 

But I get it, you can’t criticize Biden for anything for some weird reason. 
 

Take emotion out of it and this is a sheet trade. We had the leverage and blew it. We had a high valuable Russian asset and traded it for something of little value to the US. 

Agree with all except the value part

Don't really care that some are glued to the dishonored marine part. It was a bad trade. Don't know eithers value but both aren't worth giving up Bout

Hopefully giving him up doesn't end up biting us in the ass later

1 minute ago, Mike030270 said:

Don't really care that some are glued to the dishonored marine part.

Only to counter people who are glued to the, black, lesbian, basketball player part.  Strip away all that crap and they are both Americans wrongly or excessively convicted. 

1 minute ago, Tnt4philly said:

Only to counter people who are glued to the, black, lesbian, basketball player part.  Strip away all that crap and they are both Americans wrongly or excessively convicted. 

Interesting because all @20dawk4life kept saying was we were giving up a terrorist and you kept bringing up the dishonored marine part like that mattered

His dishonorable discharge only matters in so much as the right keeps using the "we left a marine behind" narrative. My social media feeds are full of whiny Trumptards who want to make dopey political points about Biden prioritizing a black lesbian over a wholesome marine (completely ignoring the fact that their orange god didn't lift a finger to help said marine for 2 years of his presidency).

Yeah, and Trump didn't get Whelan out. Russia isn't willing to make a trade for Whelan at this time.