It is shocking that people are shocked by what Russia is doing in Ukraine. What made Americans think Donald Trump's good buddy Vladimir Putin was anything other than a cold blooded killer? The utterly nauseating, despicable behavior of Trump with Putin at Helsinki in 2018 will never be forgotten by me.
Long before 2018, Putin had shown his true colors. In Chechnya and Syria, the Russian military visited terror upon the civilian population. Maybe Americans did not notice so much because the Chechens and the Syrians are Muslim people. But they are still people. Americans are paying attention now. Is it because Ukrainians are Christian and white? No matter. They are humans too.
Or did you evangelical Christians believe that Putin was the leader of your "illiberal" movement? When he stood before his Make Russia Great Again rally in Moscow, did you fall for it when he made the sign of the cross and quoted Jesus to support his coming attempt to annihilate Ukraine? Well, you fall for it when Donald "grab 'em by the ____" Trump holds a Bible upside down and says "it's a fine book."
Putin is a Chekist. The Cheka was Vladimir Lenin's secret police. They were led by a man named Felix Dzerzhinsky. Dzerzhinsky carved out a reputation for extreme brutality among the Bolsheviks. Quite a list to reach the top of. "Organized terror" was the Cheka's motto. Mass executions and maximum terror for political gain. While the armies of the Tsars had always held a reputation for brutality, the Cheka managed to exponentially increase that.
In his campaign to "collectivize" Russian agriculture, Joseph Stalin employed the Cheka method. There are people still alive in Ukraine who remember the "terror-famine" of 1932-33 when Stalin's forced starvation took the lives of 3-5 million Ukrainians. The Soviet secret police murdered 22,000 Polish officers from April to May in 1941. They were buried in mass graves in the Katyn Forest. The mass rape of women in the Soviet sector of Berlin, Germany, after World War II was common knowledge. It is the Cheka way.
Putin admires Stalin and I'm sure he agrees with the old butcher who said, "the death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic." That was before cellphones. Now, the death of a million is a million tragedies.
Disinformation. Lies and conspiracy theories. Putin says he is going to "de-nazify" Ukraine. Trump claims "election fraud." There is no evidence for either. Trump and Putin. A distinction without a difference. When I see "Trump" yard signs around Lewis County in the future, I will see "Putin."
When I read of America First Joe Kent talking about his isolationist ideas regarding NATO and our role in the world, I will think of the America First isolationist movement of 1940-41. That movement, which ended abruptly at Pearl Harbor, also claimed that America could do business with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
Until Dec. 7,1941, they were "reasonable thugs."
I am very thankful that President Biden and President Zelensky are standing up against Putin. Biden's rallying of the democracies has been masterful. Zelensky has been historic. Putin can not be allowed to succeed.
Marty Ansley
Cinebar
