Remember how endless the hand-wringing and pearl-clutching over Brittney Griner was? How there was a new statement of some sort or another, whether from Team Brandon or some leftist in the corporate press or education establishment seemingly every single day?
Well that’s how America treats its law-breaking, anthem-protesting, pot-smoking WNBA players apparently. To paraphrase Kennedy, America shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of an unwatched WNBA game and player that under 1,000 people in the country can probably say what team she’s on and number she wears.
But what about Paul Whelan, the (white, Trump-supporting) former Marine who was in Russia on what was probably an intelligence mission and was caught and locked up? What does he get from an America so focused on racial “justice” and “equity”. Not much, and certainly not the great lengths to which Biden went to release Brittney Griner. She got the “Merchant of Death” released in exchange for her…at a time when Russia is waging a war in the Ukraine and needs weapons and those who know how to transport them.
Instead, all Whelan has gotten is a few statement from Team Biden that they’re still fighting for him, such as the recent “Statement by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on the Four Year Anniversary of Paul Whelan’s Wrongful Detention”. In that statement, Jake Sullivan said:
Today marks four years of wrongful detention in Russia for American Paul Whelan and, as the President and I have told the Whelan family, we will not stop, we will not relent, we will not cease until all Americans can celebrate Paul’s return. Paul and the Whelan family recently showed the entire country the meaning of generosity of spirit in celebrating a fellow American’s return while Russia continues its deplorable treatment of Paul as a bargaining chip. I am grateful for the partnership of the Whelan family as we work to reunite them with Paul. And I am thinking about them, and about Paul, on this day, especially.
Similarly, Biden Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said “Today marks four years that Paul Whelan has spent wrongfully detained, away from his family, suffering through an unfathomable ordeal. His detention remains unacceptable, and we continue to press for his immediate release at every opportunity.”
David Whelan, brother of Paul Whelan, remarked on his brother’s continued detention, saying:
“How do you mark such an awful milestone when there is no resolution in sight?”
“It is both awful and mundane, just another day that Paul has to suffer in a Russian labor colony for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Another day that our parents have to suffer without being able to see or be with their son.
“It is both a culmination of lost life – four years of missed birthdays, Christmases, and other experiences – and also not an end point. It’s merely a marker of their suffering, not an indicator that the suffering will come to an end before another milestone, another year passes.”
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