How Many Innocent People Will Die Because of the Griner Deal?

Viktor Bout — “The Merchant of Death” or “The Lord of War” — is not a very nice man. He sells arms to groups that kill innocent people. And according to all accounts, he particularly loves killing Americans.

Just before he was arrested in a brilliant sting operation by the DEA in 2008, Bout told the informants who were just about to rat him out “that he had been fighting the U.S. for about 15 years and that the U.S. is an enemy,” and that “He was very eager and anxious to carry out this arms deal to kill Americans.”

Way to go, Joe.

Viktor Bout sold arms to just about any enemy of America who had the cash to pay him, including militants in Africa, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban. And now he’s free, and he owes Vladimir Putin and Russia big time.

How do you think Russia is going to want to be paid back? Bout now belongs to Putin — lock, stock, and both barrels.

Derek Maltz, a former Drug Enforcement Agency agent who helped lead the team that eventually took down Bout 14 years ago in Thailand, believes Bout now poses an even greater threat to Americans now than he did before his capture.

“The Lord of War is back in the game. He’s back out there with the ability to cause harm and destruction around the world,” Maltz said in an interview with Politico. “And now he’s going to be way smarter because he knows some of the techniques that have been used against him.”

Maltz is happy Griner made it home, as most of us are. But Vladimir Putin is probably laughing behind his hand after getting the best of Joe Biden.

“Russia’s plan worked perfectly. We folded, and we sent back an international terrorist,” he said. “I would love to ask President Biden what he knew about Viktor Bout back in 2009 when he was being briefed by his national security team, because they were all very supportive of what DEA was doing. It is just kind of ironic that now all these years later, he’s the president and there’s a political decision that’s been made, in my view, to do this swap.”

The point isn’t that Biden should have held out to get retired Marine Paul Whelan released instead of Griner. While Whelan had been in that Russian prison hellhole for four years while Griner had been in custody for less than a year, Russia knew that Biden was under pressure from black activists, LGBTQ activists, and feminists to exchange Griner by any means necessary, and national security be damned.

So Biden obliged them.

Russian state television knew exactly what buttons to push to mock Biden and the United States.

Fox News:

A program moderator referred to Whelan as a “spy,” saying that Whelan is a hero to Americans. However, the moderator specified three things against Whelan regarding the U.S. winning his release.

“His first problem is that he is white,” the moderator said, according to a translation obtained by Fox News Digital. “His second problem is he is a man. His third problem: He is a heterosexual.

“This is not something that can be forgiven today. It’s just a catastrophe. Yes, here Griner beats him in every aspect.”

Anyone who doesn’t believe that “what” Griner is instead of “who” she is got her released for an international terrorist who enjoys killing Americans is being dishonest. Biden can spin Griner’s release all he wants, but the fact is, Putin and the Russians took Biden’s obsession with identity politics and threw it back in his face.

Meanwhile, Paul Whelan starts his fifth year of captivity on trumped-up charges, with no relief in sight for him or his family.

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