Welcome Griner and push for Whelan

Welcome home, Brittney Griner.

That's the message that should resonate among all Americans after the basketball star was released last week from a Russian penal colony, where she was sent after being convicted of possessing vape cartridges containing hashish oil.

Instead, her release has become just the latest episode of America's running Rorschach test in which nearly every event is interpreted through a partisan lens. In this case, it's because of the asymmetric prisoner swap — a basketball player convicted for what in the U.S. might prompt minor drug charges in exchange for a notorious Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout, nicknamed the "Merchant of Death" for selling weapons to groups whose goals at times included killing Americans.

Further complicating the reaction is that the deal did not include Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine turned corporate security executive who was detained in 2018 and convicted in 2020 on espionage charges that the U.S. says are manufactured.

Some — particularly partisan Republicans loyal to former President Donald Trump — have castigated President Joe Biden, arguing that he prioritized Griner over Whelan. This cohort includes Trump himself, even though as president he also failed to gain Whelan's release.

The controversy's rising din is amplified because Griner happens to be a celebrity who is Black, in a same-sex marriage and outspoken in her liberal politics instead of a man who had admirably chose to serve his country in uniform.

Of course, as reasonable people know — including Whelan's brother, who has defended the release of Griner while still tirelessly advocating for the freedom of his imprisoned sibling — the issue isn't that simple.

Upon his release, Reed's family advocated for freeing Whelan, as did Griner's family. In turn, Whelan's family advocated for Griner, even though their loved one is still stuck in Russia.

"There is no greater success than for a wrongful detainee to be freed and for them to go home," Whelan's brother, David, wrote in an email to the New York Times. "The Biden administration made the right decision to bring Ms. Griner home, and to make the deal that was possible, rather than waiting for the one that wasn't going to happen."

"The one" was Griner and Whelan for Bout, which didn't happen because the Russian government doesn't value freedom, let alone life, the same way the American government does. Neither does the Chinese government, as evidenced by its seizure of Michael Kovrig, a diplomat-turned-foreign-affairs analyst, and Michael Spavor, a travel executive, on manufactured spying charges in order to garner the release of a Chinese telecom executive (the ordeal became known in Canada as the case of the "Two Michaels").

Nor the Iranian government, as shown in numerous cases, including a notable case more than a decade ago involving three American hikers (one a Minnesotan) who accidentally crossed the Iraq-Iran border. Other examples abound, including, notoriously, North Korea, which returned college student Otto Warmbier in a coma after his arrest and detention for the "crime" of stealing a propaganda poster.

The leaders of these countries — notably, not their citizens — value life less than U.S. leaders. That's clear from State Department Human Rights Reports and geopolitical actions like Russia's brutality in Ukraine and Syria, rightly described as war crimes.

Americans need to recognize that asymmetry and avoid becoming pawns in these repressive regimes' nihilistic games. Relatively inconsequential infractions in America and other like-minded, mostly Western, nations can become life- and geopolitical-changing events abroad. Americans should show exercise extraordinary caution when considering where to travel and how to behave once they arrive.