Seems like we can hold several thoughts in our heads at the same time:

1) Her sentence was outrageous

2) I’m glad she’s home

3) It was a bad trade on the administration’s part and sets a pretty bad precedent.

Hi, jon.

Will you please give more detail about your third point?

Thanks.

Sure - bad trade because we let a guy go free who was convicted of conspiring to kill US officials, sells arms to terrorists, and earned the nickname “the merchant of death”.

Bad precedent because now dictators the world over now know that to get their prisoners back all you have to do is seize some American with with the politically favored profile of the moment and you’re good.

Makes sense to me.

Thanks again.

Alert: uninformed thinking happening in this thread.

re: #3, how many governments where the State Department allows travel would actually behave in this way? The State Dept issued a do not travel effective October 2022, so when Griner was charged she wasn't there under a do not travel order. (It's my understanding that if you ignore the travel warnings from State, you are de facto accepting the risks of travel and in particular, accepting that the State Dept may not intervene on your behalf.)

I was thinking about the more random stuff, like kidnappings by cartels in Mexico, where they target rich travelers for ransom. I'm not aware that they get a full State negotiating team, though I could be wrong. (Currently both Columbia and Mexico have a "reconsider travel" designation.)

Do not travel countries (not the full list) include Belarus, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Russia, Myanmar, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, Venezuela, Haiti, Somalia, for a variety of reasons.

While I agree that it does set a bad precedent, I'm wondering how many types that situation is likely to occur. I honestly don't know.

Israel has a stringent policy against releasing imprisoned Palestinians, almost uniformly proven terrorists, in exchange for kidnapped Israelis - even sometimes their dead bodies.

The supposed policy is if a soldier is captured, they understand their lives are forfeit to avoid
the potential benefit to the enemy of releasing Palestinian prisoners (and therefore, freeing them to resume terrorist activities as many have done). Of course, exchanges also encourage Palestinian activists to kidnap soldiers for their powerful potential as bargaining chips, in addition to their incalculable propaganda value.

Despite this, exchanges do take place, the most extraordinary one being the infamous case of young soldier, Gilad Shalit who had been kidnapped and immprisoned. His family mounted a massive, eventually successful PR campaign, years long, to free their son. Contrary to all Netanyahu's policies, he finally agreed to a massive - very controversial - prisoner release in exchange for Gilad's freedom.

In the end, 1,027 Palestinian prisoners jailed for terrorist activity, were released in exchange for this single soldier who had been imprisoned for 5 1/2 years!

From Wikipedia:

quote:

The 1,027 prisoners released [for Shalit] were mainly Palestinians and Arab-Israelis...280 of [whom]...were sentenced to life in prison for planning and perpetrating violent attacks against Israelis.[7][8] The military Hamas leader Ahmed Jabari was quoted in the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Hayat as confirming that the prisoners released as part of the deal were collectively responsible for the killing of 569 Israeli civilians.[9][10]

In October 2012, data compiled by the Israeli government indicated that dozens of the released Palestinian prisoners in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange had resumed terrorist activity. Many of them have joined the leadership of Hamas, other Palestinian prisoners have instead developed weapons and fired rockets at Israeli population centers, and some have recruited members to new terrorist cells in the West Bank. One of these cells in Hebron planted a bomb and plotted to kidnap an Israeli soldier. Prisoners in the West Bank have also engaged in violent activity, and Israel arrested 40 of them for rioting, hurling Molotov cocktails, handling funding for terrorism, and other acts.[11]

The Israel situation with kidnappings is perhaps the most extreme example of how hostage situations can be exploited and how complex governmental considerations are. In this cases, the famous Jewish maxim said to supersede all other laws, seems to have taken precedence: "Pikuakh Nefesh" - "for the saving of a single life".

But does this value apply in today's military situations? Ultimately, the Shalit family and their supporters' brilliant campaign swayed even Netanyahu at that point in his career.

Nina - China comes to mind.

quote:

Originally posted by Nina:
Alert: uninformed thinking happening in this thread.

Oh no! I just reread this and it reads as though I'm saying people on this thread are uniformed. What I meant, and what I should have written, was "uniformed thinking on this post. Meaning me, I'm uninformed. My apologies.

hhuummmppfff!!!