A response to Davis Evans’ letter “Griner release comes at a cost” (Our Readers’ Views, Dec. 16): Russia is a terrorist state. Full stop. You wish to speak of the “cost” of trading the “Merchant of Death” for Griner. You leave out that he was to be released on his own in six years. He was not held for life.
This moral outage is misplaced and shortsighted, playing right into the hands of active measure propaganda, leaving out that we, in these United States, are still arresting and ruining people’s lives over cannabis to this day. We have over 400,000 Americans held in our own jails, often without charges or legal due process, held because they can’t make bail. Some of them have been there for years. Where is the morality of that? Do they just deserve to have their lives upended, much in the same way Griner was upended, so people can have 20 minutes of an outrage-fueled high?
Russia was never going to free Paul Whelan, if only to humiliate and weaken our already thin moral line. Russia actively abducts Americans, so they can free their terrorists. Russia is a terrorist state. Wake up. We’re not far off from their course.
