Letters from an American - September 10, 2025

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

Hello, this is Michael Moss. Heather Cox Richardson is traveling today, and her travel arrangements did not allow her time to read today's letter, so I will be reading it in her place. September 10, 2025. Last night, Polish forces shot down 19 Russian drones that invaded Poland's airspace during a massive Russian air attack on Ukraine. Poland is a member of the North American Treaty Organization, and the Polish operation was backed by NATO member forces.

Today, Poland officially activated Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which triggers a consultation whenever the territorial integrity, political independence, or security of any of the parties is threatened. German Chancellor Frederick Mayors called the Russian British. of Polish airspace a reckless and aggressive act that fit a broader pattern of Russian provocations against NATO's eastern edge. Although the United States under President Donald J. Trump has pulled back from its steadfast commitment to NATO, the U.S. was instrumental in the creation of the organization in 1949. Leaders wanted to establish a defensive alliance that could stand

against Soviet aggression, and that would reinforce rules to prevent countries from using violence against other countries. Such an order, based in rules rather than violence, would make it harder to start wars. NATO guaranteed collective security because all of the member states agreed to defend each other against an attack by a third party. In 1949, when he signed the treaty, President Harry Truman called the pact a positive influence for peace. With NATO, he said, we hope to create a shield against aggression and the fear of aggression, a bulwark which will permit us to get on with the real business of government and society, the business of achieving a fuller and happier life for all our citizens.

The experience of the United States in creating one nation out of the peoples of many lands proved that this idea could work, Truman said. this method of organizing diverse peoples and cultures is in direct contrast to the method of the police state, which attempts to achieve unity by imposing the same beliefs and the same rule of force on everyone. The NATO countries did not believe that war was inevitable, Truman said. Men with courage and vision can still determine their own destiny. They can choose slavery or freedom, war or peace. I have no doubt which they will choose. If there is anything certain today, if there is anything inevitable in the future, it is the will of the people of the world for freedom

and for peace. The drone incursions into a NATO country are just the latest escalation from Russia's President Vladimir Putin after his meeting with Trump in Alaska on August 15th. Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk told the Polish Parliament, I have no reason to claim we're on the brink of war, but a line has been crossed. This situation brings us the closest we have been to open conflict since World War II. At 1109 this morning, Trump responded to the attack by posting on social media. What's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones? Here we go.

This afternoon, at an outdoor event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, a gunman shot and killed 31-year-old Charlie Kirk, a right-wing activist and founder of Turning Point USA, which pushes for right-wing politics on high school, college, and university campuses. The killing appears to have been targeted. A manhunt is underway for the killer. Although nothing more is currently known about the event, President Trump, in an address from the Oval Office, blamed the radical left for the shooting and vowed that his administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country. Trump listed incidents of what he called radical left political violence. As the Guardian noted, absent from his list was violence against Democrats, including the

murder in June of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband by a man who had a hit list of 45 Democratic elected officials. Less than an hour after the Kirk shooting, during the third week of school, a shooter at Evergreen High School in Colorado, wounded two students, one critically, before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Gun violence had impacted the life of the grandfather of two boys at the school.

In 2021, Mike Webb's ex-wife, Shao Shee Tan, was killed in the spa shootings in the Atlanta area, and today he told CNN's Emma Tucker that a school shooting was his greatest fear realized. Webb said he had said he had spoken with one of the boys who was shaken by the events at the school. I told him none of us should have to go through this. I said, this is the world we live in, and thank God you guys are okay. Letters from an American was written by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at

Soundscape Productions, Dead of Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.