Print Friendly, PDF & Email

On Saturday in a speech in South Carolina, Donald Trump said the quiet part out loud; that if he regains the American presidency, he will not only do his best to destroy the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) he is already actively encouraging Russia to attack NATO countries, who in his words “don’t pay their bills.”

A protest sign in Spain, protesting the Russian invasion of Ukraine. By Manu Fernandez for the Associated Press.

Trump has already shown us who he is. Now, added to the danger of the reelection of a man who has shown no understanding of service, of sacrifice, of what it means to live with honor and integrity, there is this.

Now he is again actively working on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s behalf to tank any foreign aid to meet our commitment to defend Ukraine (made in the early 1990s when we convinced Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons).

To be clear: He is an unelected wanna-be attempting to influence the workings of the legislative branch of our government. Last night the U.S. Senate nearly overwhelmingly passed a more than $90 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan to help these democracies defend themselves against aggression. House Speaker Mike Johnson, marching to Trump’s words, says it won’t even get a vote in the House.

Last week was a wild week at the national political and judicial level. Decisions were rendered that denied citizen Donald Trump the presidential immunity he sought and clarified that he wants the power to assassinate political rivals. Another decision by a Department of Justice special counsel cleared President Joe Biden of any criminal intent over classified documents inadvertently moved to his home after his Vice-Presidential term.

The skeptical U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Trump v. Anderson in which Colorado’s lower courts had decided that Trump, based on his insurrection actions, had no right to be on the Colorado ballot.

President Trump with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Helsinki Summit where he announced that he believed Putin, and not our own CIA assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election Photo by Patch

But this isn’t just a matter of national politics. His recent off-the-teleprompter ramble is a threat to our national security and to the global order that has largely constrained strongmen from tromping across the globe.

It’s no secret that Trump is in a bromance with authoritarian figures around the world — from Russia to North Korea, from China to Iran. On or off his teleprompter, Trump is telling us loudly what he intends to do as a wanna-be strongman.

For 75 years — since its inception in the ashes of World War II — the NATO alliance has kept the peace in Europe. We have fought three wars there — not just World War I and World War II,– but lest we forget — the collaborative sacrifices of the militaries across all these NATO countries won the Cold War too.

It was NATO that came to the side of the U.S. after 9-11, the only time in its history that Article Five, the mutual defense agreement that says that an attack on one NATO nation is an attack on all, has been activated.

It is NATO, and the European Union, not just the United States that has helped the democratic country of Ukraine stop Russian aggression on the east. But unless Russia is stopped — now — it will continue its expansion across Europe. The U.S. has led that effort; something that Trump has objected to since he stumbled into politics in 2015. Trump says he’ll have that war over in 24-hours if he’s reelected. Right.

We’ve been here before. To remind AVV readers, here was the December, 2021 AVV prediction of what Russia was up to. AVV hates that we were right.

What Trump is glibly promoting isn’t “America first” peace. This is appeasement. This is dangerous, and it plays right into what Putin is planning for Russia and Europe.