I must admit, the news of Alexei Navalny’s murder hit me hard. I had clung to hoping beyond hope that somehow someday someway Alexei Navalny would eventually come to power in Russia. Alexei survived chemical attacks to his face and eyes in 2017 and 2019. He miraculously survived poisoning with Novichok nerve agent in 2020. After a four-month recovery in Germany, he returned to his beloved Russia where he was immediately arrested, tried, and sentenced to two years in prison. The following year on more trumped-up charges he was given another nine years and then six months ago he received an additional 19 years for “extremism.” Though Alexei was held in a remote Siberian penal colony known as “Polar Wolf” serving a 30-year sentence, it’s obvious that Vladamir Putin still felt threatened so on February 16th he had Navalny murdered.
Putin’s murderous misstep reveals weakness. This is the moment to push this paranoid psychopath one step closer to the cliff’s edge. Western countries hold $300 billion in frozen Russian assets that should be gifted to Ukraine. The European Union and G7 nations (including the US) have agreed to provide the profits from those Russian holdings (~$4 billion) to Ukraine. Given the devastation to date, the entire $300 billion should no longer be Russian’s asset. Furthermore, Speaker Johnson needs to bring the Ukraine- Israel Aid package to a vote on the House Floor. There are enough supporting House Republicans to pass it, but Mike Johnson won’t release the bill. Staunch support would send the message that the United States isn’t the isolationist collapsing mess that Putin believes it is.
While I give credit to the Republicans for their long-term strategic planning regarding local, state politics, and judicial nominations, their approach regarding our international chessboard is to don a blindfold while whistling loudly to block all sound. Putin came to power in August 1999. One month later, Putin declared war on the Chechen Republic. When it ended two years later, 50 thousand were dead, mostly civilians. In 2008, Putin invaded Georgia as it attempted to break away from Russia. In 2014, Putin invaded eastern Ukraine and seized control in the Donbas region along with Crimea. Fourteen thousand people died in that stalemate. In 2015, Putin came to aid of Syrian dictator Bashar aal-Assad deploying planes and special forces that remain to this day. In 2022, Russian troops were deployed to Kazakhstan to suppress a pro-democracy movement. Since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine over a half million soldiers have been killed or wounded along with ten thousand civilians. US Intelligence has warned that Putin is already making plans to invade the Baltic NATO countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. If you search “Russian assassinations” on the web, you find a list of 230 individuals who were killed on the order of Putin. One more was assassinated in Spain as I write. Given this aggressive murderous history, why do House Republicans think that if we abandon Ukraine, Putin will stop and suddenly play “nice”? If Putin violates a NATO member, we are obligated to help defend and fight. That is unless Trump regains the White House and pulls us out of NATO.
Regarding NATO, the only time in their seven-decade history they invoked NATO’s mutual defense clause was on Sept. 12, 2001. In 2011, there were 130 thousand NATO troops from 51 allied and partner countries serving in Afghanistan to support us. NATO left Afghanistan when we did, in August 2021. For the House Republicans and others to suddenly go “wobbly” on supporting Ukraine and our threatened European allies is a betrayal. For Trump to invite Putin to invade ‘delinquent’ NATO countries that haven’t devoted 2% of their GDP to defense is just evil. In reality, almost half of NATO countries do meet their obligation. Poland spends nearly 4% which is more than we do. Do you really expect little Montenegro, roughly the size of Connecticut with 1/6 of the population, to meet a 2% goal? Sadly, as we all know, facts nor truth are not Trump’s forte. If we cede our role as the world’s leader, what happens next? Maybe Speaker Johnson ought to stop whistling, take off the blindfold, and ponder that as he puts politics above country.