I’ve been thinking about doing a short diary about the trump-putin/Russia relationship for quite a long time. I could have written most of this anytime in the last 4 years, but of course new stuff keeps happening, so there is no ideal time, because it never stops.
In these impeachment days, this seems as good as any to share my thoughts, biases, introspection about this miserable relationship. First some background.
For 70 years, the United States and Russia have engaged in a series of grievous and deadly proxy wars, starting with Korea, then Vietnam, Afghanistan-Russia, where Osama bil Laden had the US as an ally, then Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden and the Taliban had Russia as an arms supplier. For 70 years, Russia has supplied AK-47 rifles, Mig fighters, SAM-6 missiles to shoot down American pilots, including John McCain in Vietnam. Russia has supplied weapons and military support to other American adversaries, North Korea, Iran, various African countries, Libya, China, Cuba and quite a few others that do not come to mind right now.
Nearly anyone who is not a trump supplicant who thinks he can do no wrong has to draw a conclusion that putin has a powerful grip on a place on trump’s body where it really hurts, and has had this grip for many years, and he has the ability to twist unmercifully until he gets whatever it is he wants from trump. Follow a putin intelligence service talking point, yes sir, mr. putin. Allow interference in the 2020 election, yes sir, mr. putin. Publicly accept Russian intelligence over American intelligence, no problem, mr. putin. Allow Russian defensive radar systems sales to NATO ally(?), Turkey, but of course vlad!! Name ANY Russian operation, interference, intelligence pronouncement, cyber attack, social network attack, and donald john trump will take vladimir putin’s side, WITHOUT FAIL.
trump has never met an authoritarian dictator, killer, thug or national “leader” that he does not agree with on any topic. putin, erdogan, duterte, kim jong un, find one, trump will like and emulate them. The current Egyptian leader, whose name escapes me now is “my favorite dictator”.
All of the above simply points to a pr*esident who is both out of control, disloyal to America , and a person who is incapable of holding the highest office in America, and one who must be removed from office. If nothing else, his violation of his oath of office, his disloyalty to the nation he is supposed to be leading, his abandonment of international leadership, his abandonment of our allies, his utter inhumanity, hostility to anyone like himself, all of this leads to an objective case to proceed to immediate removal of Donald John Trump from the office of President of the United States of America.
Please note that I rarely capitalize or give proper noun status to the names of politicians and public officials that I have no respect for, so do not treat those omissions of capital letters as mistakes.
Revision 1 — h/t to amoverton for pointing out that the word “Capable” in the poll should be “Incapable”. My apology for the typo.