• Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?

    Go here:

    Edit Account Details and Profile

Europe under extreme duress

jmcquate

Well-Known Member
Contributor
At first I thought it was a flavor of SA-26, but it looks too small. Whatever it is, the yellow writing on the nose will tell you.
 

sevenhelmet

Low calorie attack from the Heartland
pilot
Any thoughts from the brain trust on trading an international arms dealer for a basketball player?

Seems pretty asymmetric to me. I have yet to find a quality analysis of the situation.
 

Mirage

Well-Known Member
pilot
Any thoughts from the brain trust on trading an international arms dealer for a basketball player?

Seems pretty asymmetric to me. I have yet to find a quality analysis of the situation.
A few points..

- The administration is repeatedly calling Griner "innocent" and framing this as releasing someone responsible for the deaths of countless actual innocent lives in exchange for an innocent American. BS. She plead guilty. We just don't agree with their law against drug trafficking being applied to hashish oil or whatever.

- why was she prioritized over an actual American-loving patriot in Paul Whelan? Politics. They claim it was Griner or nobody. BS. Giving up Bout gives us less leverage to get Paul or others.

- If you think Griner was wrongfully detained, then this just encourages Russia and others to wrongfully detain more Americans to use as bargaining chips. Especially if they happen to be lesbian minority females that will drive the political narrative wild in a way that jailing a white male former Marine will not.

Curious what I'm missing here.
 

taxi1

Well-Known Member
pilot
an actual American-loving patriot in Paul Whelan?
Wasn’t he thrown out of the USMC for something?

If he has been there 4 years, why wasn’t he traded for years ago? Particularly when the last admin had better relations?

We had a Penn State employee arrested there under similar sketchy auspices.

 

sevenhelmet

Low calorie attack from the Heartland
pilot
More to the story on both counts, clearly. Politics and emotions run high. Hope it’s more than political optics and narrative.

While I disagree with Russia’s sentence, making this kind of prisoner trade doesn’t make objective sense on the face of it, particularly with respect to future bargaining power, as stated above.

Hopefully the Jack Ryan types are watching this arms dealer dude closely from now on.
 

number9

Well-Known Member
Contributor
Wasn’t he thrown out of the USMC for something?

If he has been there 4 years, why wasn’t he traded for years ago? Particularly when the last admin had better relations?

We had a Penn State employee arrested there under similar sketchy auspices.

He got a Big Chicken Dinner on his way to being kicked out of the Corps, yes.
 

hlg6016

A/C Wings Here
Whelan is a turd, Griner is just plain stupid. If the Russians don't want Bout for selling arms to the Chechnyans then I would say we got played on this one.
 

skybert

Skybert
A few points..

- The administration is repeatedly calling Griner "innocent" and framing this as releasing someone responsible for the deaths of countless actual innocent lives in exchange for an innocent American. BS. She plead guilty. We just don't agree with their law against drug trafficking being applied to hashish oil or whatever.

- why was she prioritized over an actual American-loving patriot in Paul Whelan? Politics. They claim it was Griner or nobody. BS. Giving up Bout gives us less leverage to get Paul or others.

- If you think Griner was wrongfully detained, then this just encourages Russia and others to wrongfully detain more Americans to use as bargaining chips. Especially if they happen to be lesbian minority females that will drive the political narrative wild in a way that jailing a white male former Marine will not.

Curious what I'm missing here.
I’d say you described it all pretty well
 
Top