Putin is no friend of the U.S.
To the editor:
How do we explain President Trump’s incessant toadying to Vladimir Putin?
He has stood with Putin, even against the advice of his own intelligence services; it’s clear that if Trump had his way, Ukraine would immediately surrender to Russia and end the war Putin started, with no provocation. He sees Ukraine’s Zelensky as the stumbling block, not Putin. Now Trump is planning to ignore Congressional legislation to buy Russian oil in an attempt to bring down our soaring diesel costs and help Putin’s war effort.
Of course, Trump wishes he could treat dissent in the same way Putin does: arrests on bogus charges, show trials, long prison sentences, concentration camps, even assassinations.
The Russian media serves the interests of Putin’s regime; Putin doesn’t have to deal with “fake news.” Trump admires Putin’s strength, but he sees strength as the ability to sow fear in his people, not in his humanity. Trump seems to admire North Korea’s Kin Jong Un in the same way, but there’s a special deference to Putin that Trump gives to no one else.
Trump was surely brought up to believe Russia is our greatest enemy, as Putin was surely brought up to believe the U.S. is theirs. The Cold War was fought against the Soviet Union and Putin was a diehard Soviet careerist. NATO was the only deterrence to a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. What has changed? Why does our president now see Putin as his greatest friend on the international stage and NATO irrelevant? Does anyone truly believe Putin thinks of Trump as his friend, not his puppet?
The only possible answer here is that Putin has some sort of hold over Trump: blackmail, if you will and the most likely possibility is that Putin has Epstein files material that has not been released, perhaps Epstein material that is not in the DOJ files. Given Trump’s sexual proclivities, it’s not difficult to imagine Putin having compromising videos of Trump in action, but Trump has survived even credible accusations of sexual misconduct. We know Trump has been eager over the years to do business deals in Russia; perhaps what Putin has is evidence of financial crimes committed by Trump: fraud, money laundering. Whatever Putin has, Trump is desperate to keep it concealed.
What we know is that Ukrainians are going to die in huge numbers as Trump withdraws his support for their fight for freedom. Most Americans support Ukraine; why is our president defying the will of the people to back the murderous thug who governs Russia with an iron fist?
Ray Clasen
North Fort Myers