A Threat to Democracy

By Chuck Richardson
Washington Informer
Reprinted – by Texas Metro News
https://www.washingtoninformer.com/

Following a stunning and dangerous setback for Ukraine, the election of Donald Trump poses even greater obstacles to any favorable outcome in that war.

Because Ukraine is an ally to the U.S. and adheres to the doctrines of democracy and Russia represents a diametrically opposite form of governance, the fundamental question for U.S. citizens is, “Who will we support” under a Trump administration?

After all the circumstantial variables have been considered, are we going to support nations that agree with and confirm the principles grounded in freedom and liberties afforded by a democracy or a nation that will capitulate to the whims and threats of a communist dictator?

No matter what optics are displayed, or the amount of saber-rattling is demonstrated publicly, the test of substance is the practical impact of America’s decision on Ukraine’s ability to survive or whether our actions subject them to defeat.

It is implausible and dangerous to run with the foxes and bay with the hounds. This nation cannot function under the pretext of a freedom-loving people and yet cave in to the demands of a bully.

Far too many Americans have been contaminated by the misinformation and propaganda that says because Vladimir Putin flatters Donald Trump he is America’s friend. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Putin’s political survival is dependent upon this struggle — make no mistake. As a U.S. Marine in Vietnam, we captured North Vietnamese troops that carried Russian-made weapons. Russia was our enemy then, and since Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin and now Vladimir Putin, they each have been sternly committed to Khrushchev’s promise to bury America. How can we be so naive or gullible?

How can intelligent U.S. citizens entrust their children’s futures to be in the hands of a communist dictator? A communist leader who is guided far more by the communist loyalists in the Kremlin than his association with Donald Trump. Do Trump or his MAGA followers understand that the struggle for geopolitical balance of world power and dominance has nothing whatsoever to do with friendship, but the strategic maneuvers to conquer territories and then the minds of its populations?

Regardless of any other policy issues with which you may agree or disagree, none will ever reach the significance nor long-term implications of America’s ability to maintain its position of balance and strength in Eastern Europe or areas around Ukraine. The fate of NATO in Europe in this area is the father of U.S. democracy around the world.

Those naive, gullible and misinformed MAGA fanatics have become so immersed in the struggle to ensure one man’s quest for power that they have lost sight of a much larger issue. The intensity to ensure the political success of Donald Trump has distorted their view of reality and the much broader view of world circumstances where democracy rivals autocracy and the dominance of tyranny and the aspirations of despots!

Every citizen has the right to support and vote for whom they choose, but when the personal privilege is in direct contradiction with a larger interest of national security of all Americans, we each are duty-bound to make alternative choices for the greater good. At this moment in America’s history, the guns, tanks and missiles across the borders of Ukraine may very well be ships, submarines or planes off the coast of North Carolina, Virginia and Florida. The physical differences may be thousands of miles apart, but tensions, conflicts and principles that constitute our core values are mutually exclusive and intolerable of each other.

It is only a matter of time and space where the contact frictions grind away until we are only minutes or inches from a face-to-face confrontation. For certain, Vladimir Putin will not cease his invasive ambitions in Ukraine, so who will be next? Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia, etc.? At what point in this struggle between the freedoms of democracy and the oppression of tyranny will America say, “Enough!”

Do our enlightened leaders possess the insight and vision to see beyond today, or do they hesitate, pause or ponder in confusion until the borders of the mountain on the horizon of Ukraine become the seascapes off Hatteras, Virginia Beach or Miami?

Chuck Richardson is a former city councilman in Richmond, Va., a decorated veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and author of the autobiographical “Cease Fire! Cease Fire!: Councilman Chuck, A Hero(in) Addiction.”