Basketball, Viktor Bout and troubling exchanges

US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) argued that the trade gave another reason to "impeach" the President. Biden "traded Russian terrorist arms dealer, Viktor Bout, left a US Marine in a Russian jail, and brought home a professional basketball player."

The sentiment was echoed in gloating fashion by RT editor Margarita Simonyan, who thought Whelan a "hero spy" as opposed to Griner, a "drug-addicted black lesbian who suffered for vaping hashish".

Then came that rather uncomfortable fact that marijuana, while legal in 21 US states, has also seen prisoners serve life sentences for possessing small amounts of the drug. Neuroscientist and drug reform advocate Dr Carl Hart celebrated Griner's release, but suggested the need to do more: "Now let's free all drug war political prisoners."

Being righteous over the release of Bout is an easy thing. The arms-trade has a far more obvious lethality to it than drugs or the pet obsession of wealthy countries with "people smuggling". But that ignores the muddy picture of deals, collaborative alliances and understandings known as the international arms market.

Singling out Bout as the cartoonish gangster who endangered US lives ignores the fact that the United States remains the world's biggest arms exporter, thereby endangering the lives of citizens across the globe. Between 2017 and 2021, the US accounted for 39 percent of the major arms transfers globally. This was twice that of Russia, and almost 10 times what China sent its customers.

Another excruciating point is that one can only become a merchant of death if the merchandise, and the interest in buying and using it, is there. As Bout himself put it, if you were going to prosecute a figure such as himself, you might as well prosecute US arms dealers whose weapons eventually end up being used against US citizens. (The National Rifle Association, take note.) "They are involved even more than me!"