Letters from an American - February 20, 2024
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February 20th, 2024. Both global and national affairs appeared to shift over the holiday
weekend. Events of the past week or so highlighted the global stakes of not stopping the aggression
of Russia's President Vladimir Putin. In turn, those global stakes highlighted that Trump's MAGA Republicans are
strengthening Putin's hand. Since October, MAGA Republicans have managed to delay a
national security supplemental bill that would provide additional aid to Ukraine.
Although a bipartisan majority of Congress supports the
measure, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican of Louisiana, recessed the House on Thursday
without taking it up, just days after former President Trump attacked the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization, or NATO, and suggested he would urge Russia to do whatever the hell they want
to U.S. allies if they didn't meet a guideline of spending 2% of their gross domestic product
on their own military forces. On Friday, February 16th, Russian authorities murdered opposition
leader Alexei Navalny in prison, where he was being
held on trumped-up charges.
And on Saturday, Russian forces advanced into the front-line city of Avdiivka.
The Munich Security Conference, the world's largest gathering on international security
policy, met this year in the midst of these events from Friday, February 16 to Sunday,
February 18.
At Saturday's lunch, Prime Minister Meta Fredriksson of Denmark made a surprise announcement.
Denmark, she said, will donate all its artillery to Ukraine.
She suggested other countries, too, could do more than they already have.
According to Jack Detsch and Robbie Gramer of Foreign Policy, Fredrickson's announcement
left attendees grappling with some existential questions. Are they prepared not just to help
Ukraine, but also to defend Europe from a possible Russian attack on a NATO country?
Are democracies capable of standing up against the threat of territory-grabbing dictatorships
like Russian President Vladimir Putin's? Sweden today announced it will donate about $682 million
in equipment and cash to Ukraine, its 15th aid package to Ukraine since the
2022 Russian invasion. The European Union today announced it is committing 83 million euros,
or about 89 million dollars, in humanitarian aid for those in Ukraine and Moldova affected by the war. Three weeks ago, it approved $54 billion in military aid.
There is increasing pressure as well to transfer Russia's frozen assets to Ukraine.
On Saturday, February 17, the U.S. Justice Department, which is in charge of a task force
called KleptoCapture, transferred $500,000 in forfeited Russian funds to Estonia,
transferred $500,000 in forfeited Russian funds to Estonia
for fixing Ukraine's electrical transmission and distribution systems.
Biden promised more sanctions against Russia on Friday
and has again called for House Republicans to pass the National Security Supplemental Bill.
Indeed, the real elephant in the room is the fact that MAGA Republicans in the House are refusing
to commit more U.S. aid. The Institute for the Study of War, a non-profit research organization,
assessed on Sunday that delays in Western security assistance to Ukraine are likely helping Russia
launch offensive operations along several sectors of the front line in order to place pressure on
Ukrainian forces along multiple axes.
MAGA Republicans are refusing that aid, although it is popular both in Congress and among Americans
at large.
A Pew study released Friday, before news of Navalny's murder broke, showed that 74 percent
of Americans believe the war in Ukraine is important to U.S. interests.
Fifty-nine percent say it's important to them personally.
House Speaker Johnson condemned Putin as a vicious dictator over the weekend
and said he was likely directly responsible for Navalny's death.
But on Monday, he posted to Twitter a photograph of him standing alongside Trump,
apparently at Trump's West Palm Beach golf club, flashing a smile and a thumbs-up sign.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia,
has vowed to try to throw Johnson out of the Speaker's chair if he even brings Ukraine funding to the floor.
Trump himself referred to Navalny's murder on Sunday
simply by calling it a sudden death
before launching into an attack on the United States.
On Sunday, former Representative Liz Cheney,
a Republican of Wyoming, came out and said it.
The Republican Party has a Putin wing.
She said,
The issue of this election cycle is making
sure the Putin wing of the Republican Party does not take over the West Wing of the White House.
Conservative pundit Bill Kristol agreed, in italics, the likely nominee of one of our two major political parties is pro-Vladimir Putin. This is an
astonishing fact. It is an appalling fact. It has to be a central fact of the 2024 campaign.
Russian authorities have cracked down on those expressing sorrow for the death of opposition
leader Alexei Navalny and are
refusing to hand over his body to his mother and lawyer, who flew to the penal colony north
of the Atlantic Circle to reclaim it, saying they need to keep the body for chemical analysis.
Meanwhile, a Russian who defected to Ukraine last year has been killed in Spain and Russian authorities have arrested for treason a
dual Russia US citizen who lives in Los Angeles as she traveled in Russia after having participated
in pro-Ukraine rallies Putin is facing an election next month and he may have intended the murder of
Navalny to frighten other opponents and to intimidate Russian voters,
but it is possible it had the opposite effect. Yesterday, Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya,
stepped into his place, saying, Putin didn't only kill Alexei Navalny as a person.
Alexei Navalny as a person. He wanted to kill our hope, our freedom, our future. But the most important thing we can do for Alexei and for ourselves is to go on fighting. I will continue
Alexei Navalny's work, continue to fight for our country. I call on you to stand alongside me, to share not only the
grief and unending pain that has enveloped us and won't let go. I also ask
you to share the fury and hate for those who dared to kill our future. I speak to
you in the words of Alexei, in which I believe truly, there is no shame in doing little. There is shame in
doing nothing, in allowing them to scare you. By killing Alexei, Putin has killed half of me,
half of my heart and my soul. But I have another half, and it tells me that I don't have the right to give in."
Today she urged the European Union not to recognize the results of Russia's March election,
saying that,
"...a president who assassinated his main political opponent cannot be legitimate, by
definition."
In the U.S., there has not been any apparent move from House Republicans to come
back into session to approve the national security package. Indeed, Trump appears to be strengthening
his hand over the mechanics of the Republican Party, with the state parties he salted with
loyalists lining up behind him, supporters in Congress killing legislation at his demand,
and lawmakers who are interested in actually making laws exiting Congress out of fear or
frustration.
But the apparent support of MAGA Republicans for Putin is unlikely to play well in the
U.S.
Today, Republican candidate for President Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina,
tricked the Fox News channel into covering live what she said was a major speech,
likely leading producers to think she was withdrawing.
Rather than doing so, she came out swinging with an attack on Trump.
Erin Ruppar of Public Notice recorded her comments,
spoken with the backdrop of the past week in everyone's mind.
Americans deserve a real choice, she said,
not a Soviet-style election where there's only one candidate
and he gets 99% of the vote.
candidate, and he gets 99% of the vote.