I recently wrote to my congresswoman, Celeste Maloy, requesting her support for continuing U.S. assistance to Ukraine. Her response was classic political double-speak: “Given ongoing challenges such as the national debt, inflation, and border security, I have concerns about the continuous flow of aid without a clear, transparent strategy.”
Defeating Vladimir Putin’s power grab is the nation’s No. 1 national security challenge, and how it plays out will be the hinge point of this century. Maloy is shamelessly playing a most dangerous game.
Opposition to Soviet/Russian expansion has been bipartisan since 1946, and a declassified intelligence assessment sent to Congress on Jan. 22 reported that Russia has lost 87% of the total number of active-duty ground troops it had prior to launching its invasion of Ukraine and two-thirds of its pre-invasion tanks. U.S. and European support for Ukraine is the only thing preventing Russia from overwhelming Ukraine’s heroic resistance.
I commend to Maloy and Tribune readers David Frum’s excellent analysis of this dangerous, Trump-inspired foolishness in The Atlantic.
I’m old enough to remember that in 1968, Richard Nixon worked to sandbag the Paris Peace Talks initiated by President Lyndon Johnson following the disastrous Tet Offensive in an effort to end the Vietnam War. It’s not certain that the talks would have succeeded, but from 1969 through 1975, 21,202 more Americans became casualties of war. My party is at it again.
Maloy’s support for doing Trump’s bidding threatens to hand Ukraine to Putin, and with that the branding of Uncle Sam as an unserious, unreliable ally. And this for a man with such a keen strategic sense and discipline that he mouthed up a $5 million damage award by $83 million.
David R. Irvine, Bountiful
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