The Cost of Chaos: The US Case for a Former Marine, the Taliban and the Frerichs Case for an American Worker in Afghanistan

Editor’s Note: Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. Bergen wrote “The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World.” The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinion on it.

Griner is simply the most famous example of this and has served to bring the issue to the attention of many who otherwise might not have been aware of the dangers that face Americans who travel to countries such as Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela – countries that are known to detain Americans to gain leverage over the United States.

We used to think primarily of American hostages being taken by terrorist groups like ISIS or al Qaeda, but in the past few years we have seen an increase in governments taking Americans as de facto hostages, according to a recent report by the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, which advocates for Americans who are held hostage and “wrongful detainees.”

This is the year where the Biden administration has had to make some difficult decisions about which to release, in order to get Americans home.

The case of the former US Marine who was arrested by the Russians for espionage is a great example of how difficult it is to clear your name. In April, Reed was exchanged for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a convicted Russian drug smuggler who had been serving a 20-year prison sentence in the US since 2011. Yaroshenko has denied the charges.

Or consider the case of Mark Frerichs, an American contractor working in Afghanistan, who was held for more than two years by the Taliban (now the de facto Afghan government). Frerichs was released in exchange for clemency for Haji Bashir Noorzai, who was in prison in the US on drug trafficking charges for 17 years. A year before his arrest, the Bush administration described him as one of the most-wanted drug dealers. The Taliban regard Noorzai as a key ally, and have been seeking his release for some time.

Two months ago the seven Americans held in Venezuela for many years were exchanged for two people in the US who were imprisoned for conspiring to smuggle cocaine. Both of the convicted drug dealers are nephews of Venezuela’s first lady.

My own view is that getting wrongfully detained Americans home from countries like Russia is generally worth the price. And hopefully the Griner prisoner swap will help set the stage for a similar deal for Whelan.

When Biden personally informed Cherelle of the release of her spouse from Russian custody, aides came to the same conclusion: She was securely out of Russia and on the phone.

Because of the matter’s exceedingly high profile, it was certain those conditions had been set by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, one US official said.

It became obvious recently that Putin would not relent in his refusal to agree to a deal over the case of Paul Whelan, a former US Marine who was arrested and sentenced to sixteen years in prison for espionage.

In July, Griner wrote a letter to Biden saying she was “terrified I might be here forever.” She asked him to do all he could to bring her home. Biden met with the wife of the person he was responding to for the first time at the White House.

The case of Cherelle Griner: winning the freedom of a convicted espionage dealer to end their life in the Middle East

The inability to secure Whelan’s freedom and blowback over the release of one the most prolific arms dealers of the past decades would pose a threat to any victory.

The situation was complicated further when senior law enforcement officials, angry at the prospect of releasing a notorious figure it had taken years to capture and alarmed by the precedent Bout’s release would set, raised strong objections.

Moments earlier in Abu Dhabi, Griner had stepped from her transport plane into the Middle East air – fifty degrees warmer than Moscow – and smiled, a US official said.

It was later in the month that the White House made the unusual move of revealing that it had placed a large offer on the table to secure their release. They were willing to exchange Viktor Bout, who was convicted of conspiring to kill American citizens, for the two men.

Cherelle Griner waited at the White House for a short period of time before it became clear the planned meeting with Sullivan had shifted. One person in particular wanted to deliver the official news that Griner’s nearly 10-month ordeal had come to an end.

The release of Griner marked the beginning of what is likely to be a difficult and very emotional process for the professional athlete in the weeks and months ahead. Over the years, the US government has created a number of support programs to address the needs of prisoners and hostages returning to the US.

He said that the woman lost her life, experienced a trauma and needed time to heal from her time being wrongly imprisoned.

Her case also served to amplify the plight of Whelan, whose arrest on espionage charges led to a conviction in 2020 and a 16-year prison sentence. US officials have called the trial unfair and say the charges are manufactured.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/politics/biden-griner-whelan-decision/index.html

Biden-Ggriner-Whelan Decision: “Not a Security Threat to the United States”, a senior US official told CNN

A senior administration official explained that the US had tried to explain other options, other categories of options, as well as the other categories involving individuals in US custody.

The official said that you are getting closer if you are haggling. “And instead we have had no change or softening of a response that is simply a demand for something we just can’t provide because it’s not something in our control.”

As it became evident that Whelan would not be released, a group of US government officials visited his sister in person to share the news. Another senior US official spoke with Whelan.

He said he had been arrested for a crime that never happened and was being held in a remote part of Russia. I don’t understand why I’m here.

The Biden administration conducted a security assessment in the lead up to Biden giving the final go-ahead for the trade. The assessment concluded that Bourbon was not a security threat to the US, a US official told CNN.

One reality was taken into account, according to the official, is that Bout has not been engaged in any criminal activity in over a decade.

Other than to say that the security assessment conducted on Bout was “thorough,” the official would not elaborate further on how the US was able to be certain that the Russian arms dealer wouldn’t pose a future risk to the country.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/politics/biden-griner-whelan-decision/index.html

No Bridge of Spies: Brittney Griner, Viktor Bout and the rise of an American prisoner swap in the Cold War

The Russian price for the release of Griner appeared to increase after celebrities posted criticism of the Biden White House on social media, according to law enforcement officials.

That added to concerns that the deal increases the likelihood that Russia, Iran and other countries could use the arrest of Americans to try to use the publicity to gain concessions the US otherwise wouldn’t give.

Speaking Thursday, an administration official rejected the notion that Bout’s release set a new precedent for securing the release of Americans and said hostile governments would be mistaken if they interpreted Thursday’s swap that way.

“Any inference that somehow this has become the norm would be mistaken, and I don’t think governments around the world would be wise to draw that inference,” the official said. Sometimes an imperative to Americans home is so important that there is no other alternatives left, and a heavy price has to be paid.

As I grew up in the 1980s, my image of a prisoner swap was the old one from the Cold War: Two men, agents caught by the enemy, standing on opposite ends of a bridge in Berlin. The American and Soviet officials who surround them have done this all before. After crossing the bridge, the agents go home because there is always a glance at the middle.

Yet what happened yesterday on the tarmac with Brittney Griner and Viktor Bout was no Bridge of Spies. The ritual was the same, but the players weren’t. On one side, there was Griner, a young, female basketball player. Her conviction was for carrying a small amount of hash oil. On the other side was Bout, an arms dealer who spent decades fueling wars by selling weapons he smuggled out of the former Soviet Union. He was convicted in a sting operation where he believed he was making a deadly deal with Colombian rebels.

Griner would have been impossible to imagine as a celebrity at the height of the Cold War. Now she speaks to a social change taking place in the U.S. — one some don’t want to see — where divisions certainly remain sharp but where many of us don’t see gender, race and sexuality differences as something new anymore, but as just an ordinary part of being American. What I loved about Griner was just how normal she was in some ways. She talked about growing up in Houston and eating Lunchables.