MY RURAL AMERICA‘s recent Opinion column declared, “Mixed Messages Risk National Security.” While considering Navalny’s death, let’s pair our thinking with how we in the U.S. are doing. Do we? Can we? Stand as firm together as Navalny’s supporters are doing?
Navalny’s supporters leave flowers, braving Putin’s murdering thugs; Navalny’s wife vows to carry on Navalny’s battle for freedom, and Navalny’s mother stands against Putin’s local lackeys as they try to blackmail her into having Navalny buried secretly.
In the words of Navalny’s Chief of Staff Leonid Volkov, all Navalny wanted was “for his beloved country to be a NORMAL country” where people could complain about their government, or Putin’s war on Ukraine, or practically anything — a pothole in the street, the lack of indoor toilets, a shortage on sugar … anything! without fear of being arrested.
Russians risk arrest to leave flowers for Alexi Navalny. They expect arrest. Before they leave the flowers, they plan as best they can, taking their passports and lawyers’ phone numbers. Many are arrested.
As I write, I applaud the bravery of Navalny’s supporters, but I wonder about us.
- Speaker Mike Johnson (R) turned tail and ran after he kowtowed to Trump’s call to use the border as a campaign messaging tool. Johnson, who had repeatedly called our Southern Border situation “a crisis,” suddenly moved his so-called “crisis” down the line – no matter, no crisis, nothing worth fixing until either Biden is re-elected or Trump prevails. Everything can wait until January 20th, 2025!
But Johnson’s missing backbone is chump change compared to Trump’s other off-message shouts that sell out our country. Remember?
- Trump invited Putin to attack our allies, the NATO countries, which may or may not have completed all their promises to invest in military weaponry. The weaponry is necessary to keep NATO, i.e., all the 30 NATO member countries, including the U.S. and Canada, well guarded in case Putin, or another evil dictator, attacks Europe.
- Trump opposes aid to Ukraine. He calls for letting Putin win, rewarding Putin for his unprovoked war on Ukraine. Trump wants a “negotiated” settlement that would reward Putin with more Ukrainian land in return for Putin’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine.
Lesson Learned? First, Putin attacked and took over Ukraine’s Crimea; not many spoke up. Putin considered that a blessing, a lesson, and permission to do more damage to Ukraine, so here we are. Putin wants more. Trump wants to give it to him. This is called APPEASEMENT.
- Trump “loved” Kim Jon Un, whose leadership has resulted in North Koreans suffering famine after famine and, most recently, providing bombs for Russia to use on Ukraine.
- Trump called Xi Jinping “a brilliant man,” trusting him on a “Big Chinese ag trade deal” that America’s farmers invested in. The only part of the “deal” that worked was Ivanka’s trade protections; later, Congress had to pitch in to bail out the farmers who had depended on the failed “deal.”
So here we are — elected officials like Johnson or wanna-be elected officials like Trump, show us what they’re made of. No backbone. Just appeasement.
Take your choice: They are either examples of scared cats who make us look weak, or they are “Judas” traitors planted by Russia to cause serious damage to our countries. Some of these Members of Congress take their news spoon-fed to them from Russian sources. What does that make them?
These Members of Congress are not made of the same stuff Navalny’s supporters are. They consistently show our enemies and the countries we compete with that we’ll back down, that we’ll capitulate so they can take whatever they want.
My Dad was a WWII veteran. He’s been gone for a long time now, but he’d be paying attention if he were alive. I can still hear him as he watched the news on TV … “If these damn fools aren’t careful, they’ll get us into another big war.