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diplomacy cold war

Saturday August 6, 2022

August 7, 2022 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 6, 2022

Nine Years? Brittney Griner Is a Political Prisoner

Brittney Griner has been sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony for possessing a tiny amount of cannabis oil. Griner’s case was never about a minor offense against Russia law (which was real, for what that’s worth). It’s about what kind of country Russia has become as its president, Vladimir Putin, has descended into anti-Western hysteria while initiating foreign wars and ramping up internal repression.

August 12, 2021

Griner was arrested just days before the invasion of Ukraine, which is to say that she was grabbed after Putin and his circle had almost certainly made the decision to go to war. She was perfect for the part that the Russians wanted her to play as a possible bargaining chip. She is a prominent American, but not too prominent. She is gay, Black, and covered in tattoos, the kind of defendant for whom the average Russian will have no sympathy. Detaining her for a minor drug charge must have been an easy call for the Russian intelligence services.

Better yet for the Kremlin, the American determination to get her back home serves a Russian-propaganda purpose. Russia does not value all its citizens equally; some Russians matter and others vanish without trace. The efforts to spring Griner, however, almost certainly feed into a Russian narrative that America, too, does not care about all of its citizens equally and that we value racial or sexual minorities disproportionately—exactly the case that anti-Western hysterics like Putin have been making for years. Look at the effort the Americans put into getting this person back, the Russians will say later. That’s who they care about.

Posted in: International, USA Tagged: 2022-25, Brittney Griner, chess, diplomacy cold war, Russia, USA, Vladimir Putin

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This website contains satirical commentaries of current events going back several decades. Some readers may not share this sense of humour nor the opinions expressed by the artist. To understand editorial cartoons it is important to understand their effectiveness as a counterweight to power. It is presumed readers approach satire with a broad minded foundation and healthy knowledge of objective facts of the subjects depicted.

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