A Cause for Celebration

 

The deal we made to bring home wrongfully detained Americans would not have been possible without our allies.

They stepped up and stood by us.

So for anyone who questions whether allies matter, today is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world. pic.twitter.com/KSikbcgnUA

— President Biden (@POTUS) August 2, 2024

In an historic multinational effort months in the making, 16 prisoners detained in Russia were exchanged for eight people held in the US, Germany, Poland and Slovenia. It is a testament to the power of diplomatic relationships and teamwork, and a great day for the former prisoners and their loved ones. 

The above message from President Biden acknowledges our allies, but let's give him his due--this is his expertise and dedication in negotiations finalized while he was making the decision to end his candidacy, knowing there was yet more things he wanted to accomplish and irons that might be left in the fire. This is a man who may be old, but doesn't live in the past and has done his part to try to shape the future. 

A swap like this doesn't occur overnight, and Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, and Alsu Kurmasheva would not have been released without Russia getting prisoners of their own in exchange. It speaks volumes about the nature of the negotiations that Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian dissident was part of the exchange, and that Alexei Navalny could have been (was he murdered so as never to be released--one can't help but wonder). It shows the concern for Russia's pro-democracy possibility.

This diplomatic success is a cause for celebration.

But this wouldn't be my blog if I didn't speak to the response of the 2024 Republican presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, who had his own very special concern about his ability to get at least one of these prisoners released in several statements earlier this year. 

Clearly, Trump's assumptions about what Putin would do only for him, owing to their unique relationship, was badly overstated.  Because Evan Gershkovich (and others) are now going to be HOME, SAFE, AND WITH THEIR FAMILIES before the election takes place, rather than feel gratitude and thankfulness that these innocent people are safe, he wants to see the "long-form prisoner swap agreement". 

His various Republican lickspittles like Doug Burgum and presumptive running mate JD Vance (unless he has some mishap with stairs or a window, an elevator shaft or a very dodgy cup of tea) have tried to workshop how it might look like the Biden/Harris Administration achieved this success, but really it was because Putin fears Trump doing a way more savvier deal in the event--quite obviously in the coming--that he should win. Or something. It's gibberish.

(Post-Biden withdrawal, in the ascendence of Harris' poll numbers, doesn't that copium feel very intangible?  Elusive traces in a particle accelerator working overtime?)

The fact is, these people are HOME now. Diplomacy is WORK, not gimmicks. Something like this should be bigger than partisan politics and for TrumpWorld, it isn't because they lack the equipment for it. They can't fathom the time that matters to the prisoners and their families. They openly fail to grasp that there is a relationship with other countries that is a true alliance, not an arrangement of bullying and bullied. Do they understand that anything is greater than partisan politics? 

Probably not. No, definitely not. And for me, that makes all the difference.