MAGA and Trump, modern day appeasers, are carrying water for Putin

MAGA and Trump, modern-day appeasers, are carrying water for Putin. Trump and MAGA are now supporting Putin''s pitch:  save lives (instead of saving Ukraine's independence from Russia) so agree to Putin's terms to even first begin peace talks. Putin's conditions: agree to hand over land to Russia and withdraw troops from them and agree never to join NATO.  As Harris put it: Putin's terms are surrender., Trump, like Putin, wants Ukraine to surrender first before they can negotiate. we will talk about what part of Ukraine Zelensky will hand over. In short, first defang Ukraine and then talk. Not only is that a non-starter, it paves the way for a full Russian takeover of the rest of Ukraine using subversion or military action because it takes away the ability of the remaining part of Ukraine to use force and Western support to stop any takeover. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/harris-trump-russia-ukraine-2024/

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/econographics/whos-at-2-percent-look-how-nato-allies-have-increased-their-defense-spending-since-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/#:~:text=In%20total%2C%20NATO%20countries%20now,of%20their%20GDP%20on%20defense

Whether Trump is an appeaser or not will be on the agenda, no doubt, in the VP debates on October. Expect JD Vance to respond to that accusation if Walz makes it. Vance's position non that entry into NATO is a return for some "guarantee of Ukraine's sovereignty" and unstated expected gifting of some Ukraine territory to Russia. That's a Sudetenlike trap, and Zelensky is justified in alluding to it: 

Recently, MAGA has been trying to rewrite history, blaming Biden was to blame for Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The more important question is what "deal" would Trump hand Putin if Trump won in 2024 on day one of swearing in.  He seems to be echoing Putin's position for whatever reason.  It begs the question of whose side is Trump on, anyway.  https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/09/trumps-charge-that-biden-caused-russias.html

These fools opposing US aid to Ukraine are like the appeasers in 1938 led by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who handed the keys to the Sudetenland to Hitler in Munich, thinking it would stop WWII and there would be "peace in our time". Sudetenland, a province of Czechoslovakia, became part of Germany. Hitler claimed that was his last territorial claim to northern Europe. One year later, the rest of Czechoslovakia had become a state Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, controlled by Hitler, reneging on his agreement at Munich and opening the door for the invasion of Poland and France later in 1939. MAGA, the American Firsters, and Trump are the Chamberlains of 2024 who want to give Putin what he wants: Ukraine. In some fantasy ideas, it would avoid WWIII. https://www.pbs.org/.../watch-trump-protgmises-to-settle... Like Hitler, Putin, too, lusts for the expansion of control over neighboring land. Hitler called his goal Lebensraum (living space). Putin is also a dictator, with his publicly stated goal to destroy the USSR's former satellites' alliance with the West in order to bring the USSR's Cold War former satellites back into Russia's control. It satisfies his hypernationalistic international expansionism at the expense of Western democracies and strengthens his control over his own citizens who buy into his vision. His invasion of Ukraine was his first step, and war is one of his methods of accomplishing that.

Why should we care? Putin gets it, and we should, too: Those in control can determine their destiny; the rest either follow or are victims

What MAGA should have learned from the past 85 years is that appeasement of a determined aggressor leads to war, not peace. Appeasement is fool's gold. It leads aggressors to epic miscalculations. To aggressors, appeasement is a signal of weakness and lack of resolve of their target takeover. It is not a bone thrown to keep the dog quiet. Japan and Germany thought the American Firsters opposing involvement in Europe would keep the US neutral and provide easy pickings to get away with their territorial grabs. Japan and Germany learned a hard lesson...but at an enormous expense of America's blood and treasure.

How determined is Putin to go further after he absorbs Ukraine into Russia? It may come as a surprise to MAGA to know that Putin is not America's friend. Using his own words and his published ideology, Putin's goal is to make Russia great again by making America and Western democracies weak again, perhaps more like they were before WW II., isolated and divided. To increase his power at home and abroad, his goal is to weaken NATO and the G7, and Ukraine was to be his first step with the use of war. https://www.gmfus.org/news/putins-revolution-and-war-historical-crossroads For Putin, the loss of the USSR's satellites at the end of the Cold War was Russia's "genuine tragedy". https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7632057 His regime wants "Ukraine to come home to Russia". https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-ally-says-ukraine-is-definitely-russia-rules-out-talks-with-zelenskiy-2024-03-04/

It might come as a surprise to MAGA if they get their news only from media "they trust" to learn that Harris has the endorsement of 700 military and national security leaders of all political affiliations. https://www.axios.com/2024/09/22/national-security-officials-endorse-harris

Putin's miscalculation was that Ukraine would be unable or unwilling to resist what he thought was a three-day march to the Ukraine capital.  He had reason to believe he could succeed since Trump's bromance with him was a sign of lack of Western opposition, a US president who could be manipulated by flattery, the election of a comedian as Ukraine's new president, years of low-level stagnant warfare in eastern Ukraine,  and Russia's blackmailing control of oil supplies to Western Europe. His takeover of Ukrainian Crimea only got a verbal slap on the hand and some sanctions.  Instead of weakening NATO, Biden was elected. With his leadership, NATO members rallied to support Ukraine with military and economic aid because they also began to see  their own members as Putin's next target. Instead of destroying NATO's mutual defense clause, Putin's Ukrainian invasion backfired.  The membership of Sweden and Finland completed NATO's surround of Russia's western facing borders. With the prospect of a Trump return to the White House and his isolationist, anti-alliance resolve, you cannot blame Putin for still thinking his stalled takeover of Ukraine is a temporary setback. He is just biding his time until Nov.5 and Trump's election.

As VP Kamala Harris noted in her joint meeting with President Zelensky of Ukraine on 9/26/24, MAGA's demands that Ukraine agree to give up chunks of land to Russia and agree not to join NATO are identical to Putin's recent conditions to end the war. It is a demand for surrender. As Harris said, the US support of Ukraine is not an act of charity but an act of self-interest and national security. "Isolation is not insulation", Harris's direct rebuke of MAGA and American Firsters, 2024 edition. Isolationism will not insulate us from Putin's plans. https://www.cnn.com/.../poli.../trump-russia-nato/index.html) FYI MAGA, Europe has contributed twice as much to Ukraine's defense as the USA, but unchanged, Trump's way to end the war is to give Russia whatever" the hell they want." He'll just pick up the phone to Putin, his friend, and settle the matter. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-trump-promises-to-settle-war-in-ukraine-if-elected   That is music to Putin's ears.

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7632057

Ukraine Support Tracker: Europe clearly overtakes US, with total commitments now twice as large | Kiel Institute (ifw-kiel.de)

https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/09/newest-magalland-craziness-way-to.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/14/russias-putin-outlines-conditions-for-peace-talks-with-ukraine.html

Beyond two platitudes: freedom and democracy; credos and contrasts

 Listening to President Biden's speech at the cliffs of Normandy, in memorial of those who died in the epic invasion that turned the tide of World War II, leading to the defeat of Nazi Germany, I was struck by his repeated use of two words...freedom and democracy ...and how so many sacrificed for the United States to survive with those values. Those two words are used so much that they become platitudes when we forget their meanings. They can then easily be abused by those who have no clue of what they mean other than somehow they just sound right by those who think they are righteous. 

 Those who lost their lives in the Normandy invasion were not suckers and losers, as Trump called those who died in service to the defense of our country.  I was 6 years old then. My uncles fighting in both Europe and the Pacific were my heroes. I remember my parents  (dad was in charge of local strategic telephone services) dreading any telephone call or telegram arriving in our house because it could be bringing news of their death or injury.(we were fortunate; that news never came)  I never could imagine there would ever be those who could use it to mean the opposite of what we fought for, but now I have seen it happen. 

So here is what it means to me and what I am hearing from those who have turned it to mean the opposite.  These values of mine once got me scholarships from the Daughters of the American Revolution and the regional winner of the American oratorical contest in 1956.  While I did not always vote for Republicans and had many public policy differences, I always felt both they and their Democratic opponents saw democracy my way, up and down the ballot, without even thinking any American could believe anything else.  That is until Donald Trump came to political prominence. How many things have changed since then?

MAGA  in these following credos and comparisons refer to what I am hearing from their partisan leaders, media and elected officials, legislative and administrative spokespersons, and their most loyal supporters of Trump who believe he always speaks the truth. Whatever he says, they, too, must approve and do.   There are many who support MAGA candidates for business reasons or political advantage, who know better, but ambitions and wealth take precedence over the values of freedom and democracy.  They belong in a different category, sad, but they contribute with money and words,  nonetheless, and not unexpectedly.  It was Hitler's alliance with such b as well as Putin's and Orban's, who were and/or are theirs and Trump's enablers.

Freedom is not just the freedom enjoyed by one political party or loyalists to their leader; the same rights and the system protecting freedom apply to all, even to MAGA's opponents. 

Freedom then and now to me means my country is free from some foreign domination or control of my country. by an enemy or adversary.  It does not mean following the same rules of dictators and adversaries or opening the door to them in determining the outcome of our own elections, as MAGA means to do in slavish praise of Putin and Orban and their leader lusts to have the same kinds of power.  It does not mean appeasing such aggressors works or ever has,  just we once tried before they attacked us in December 1941. Aggressors see appeasement as a sign of weakness or a lack of resolve to resist.

Freedom means everyone enjoying the protections of the First Amendment and human and civil rights. It does not mean freedom for one group alone, able to suppress and dominate another group, as MAGA wants to do to control all of the power levers of the judicial system that determines their application and enforcement.

Democracy, even in its Greek form, means the rule of the people. To our founding fathers, it meant rule by and for the people. It does not mean rule by one man, of, by, and for him, a dictator, an autocrat, as MAGA wants to have.  

Democracy It does not mean that loyalists to the dictator control all the levers of the process of voting, only calling fair when their leader wins, and corrupt when he does not, so the results can be ignored or changed by loyal actors or overturned by violence.  It does not mean those who used violence on January 6  deserve to be pardoned for crimes the committed that day. and called patriots, as MAGA believes. 

Democracy It does not mean the autocrat in control should be immune from breaking criminal laws, as MAGA believes. It means that no man is above the law and ignores the law as the legislative branch intended, the branch elected by fair and free elections. 

Democracy does not mean truth and evidence are meaningless if they do not justify their autocrats' wishes to govern.  

Democracy does not mean media or press should be silenced or delicenced that does not support their dear, but MAGA's leader promised that if he has a chance to be elected again. 

Religion:  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/09/opinion/presbyterian-church-evangelical-canceled.htmlNot my Presbyterian church. This one went rogue. I am a lifelong Presbyterian. There was a split years ago, and Presbyterian Church USA continued with the values I hold dear: inclusiveness and caring, holding high the Sermon on the Mount and the Golden Rule. Not this one.  Donald Trump, when asked his affiliation, says Presbyterian.  Ask him what kind. 

Learning from history a challenge: current events are not always connected

One of my most nagging puzzles is why voters do not see the connection between the emergence of fascism in the 1930s and the similarity of Donald Trump and his followers.  There are books devoted to making the connection, but frankly, few read books these days.  Rachel Maddow in her book Prequel has done a yeoman's job of educating so many about the history of how fascists were so influential in the US in the late 1930s and even into 1944 after Germany declared war on the US and the war effort was in full swing.   We know how that ended. Been there, done that.  The question becomes, could it have happened to the US, too?  Can it happen in 2024?  It came close in the late 1930's. What Donald Trump has been proposing to do lately if elected is "full-on Hitler," as Joe Scarborough tagged it recently.  Yawn.  More politics. Who cares? More over-the-top gibberish from the never-Trumpers, libtards.  

Those of us who studied the years leading up to World War II as part of our academic studies in college were aware of what went down in 1930's -1944. I was in shock learning how JFK's father, the ambassador to the UK in those years, admired Hitler. There is nothing like having lived through post-war World War II as my generation did to wonder how we, the US, could have been so foolish and blind to fall for Father Coughlin as many other fascist lovers did. Influential Senators had such political power that it kept FDR from staying out of the armed conflict and just armed England with weapons as it was being reduced to rubble in the Blitz.  Unfortunately, there are not many of us left with that hands-on or immediate post-war experience. My reaction was to spend my junior year in Berlin, 1958-1959, to see if I could get a feel for how such a well-educated and civilized society like Germany could have bought into Hitler.  I never exactly got an answer because, looking back at it, the reason the surviving Germans were so similar to the people in the US.  Despite that, I never dreamed it could happen here because the fascists were considered so evil. Now, via Trump, it is revisiting us.  The folly of the American Firsters, the German-loving isolationists of the 1930s, and the same ones today is that the US is not an island. We are even more interconnected by the internet and trade pandemics, so our economy and national security are more intertwined with the world than in 1941. Europe fears a Trump second term for fear he would not support them and Ukraine. Economist calls Trump "biggest danger" for 2024 (axios.com)   One problem is that in today's media and life experience, we do not make that connection between history and current events that are happening at such speed and in such detail and conflicting opinions that we do not have time or brain bandwidth to absorb and reflect on what history teaches us about what we should not ever try again.

A perfect example of how current events not part of history books or connected to history are playing out in the Hamas-Israel war. Whether the plight of the Palestinians will be an issue a year from now is unknown.  The obvious unconcern for their safety by the IDF has hit a sympathetic vibe among younger voters and the public at large.  Biden's polls, already poor, took a very big dip in the past month with the messaging on the Hamas-Israel war. How short of our memories. However, much depends upon the progress made in the two-state solution and Biden's support for years and if he can engineer that, as well as to credit for his wisdom and skills.   In short,  much can happen between now and November 2024. Also, the participation by neo-Nazis in pro-Palestinian demonstrations should be a red flag to university students that are supposedly educated about history. They are being played by some ugly forces. . Neo-Nazis and the Far-Right Are Trying to Hijack Pro-Palestine Protests (vice.com)   Trump has also called to ban Gaza refugees from immigrating to the US and well as his history of stoking Islamaphobia.  That is the contrast that Biden can make.  Opinion | A short history of President Trump’s anti-Muslim bigotry - The Washington Post

Trump compares political opponents to 'vermin' who he will 'root out,' alarming historians - ABC News (go.com)

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Is Trump a fascist? If the shoe fits, wear it.

Donald Trump Accused of Going 'Full-On Hitler' by Joe Scarborough (newsweek.com)

With ‘Poisoning the Blood’ Comment, Trump Escalates Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Trump called his political opponents 'vermin' echoing language used by Hitler : NPR

Trump's anti-immigrant comments draw rebuke | CNN Politics

Trump Threatens Wide Use of Military Force Against Protesters (voanews.com)

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/17/opinions/support-ukraine-trump-politics-zakaria/index.html

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Defacto appeasement: West's weak response to Russia's aggression in Georgia and Crimea greenlight Putin in Ukraine

Did the West's weak response to Russia's aggression in Georgia and Crimea greenlight Putin in Ukraine? In retrospect, the West's failure to object strongly enough to Putin's advancement and war in Georgia and his takeover of Crimea sent the message that his takeover of Ukraine would be met with the same tolerable slap on the hands.  This defacto appeasement by weak response did not prevent Putin's invasion of Ukraine but only greenlighted him. It contributed to Putin's misconception and an epic miscalculation that the West would not respond to Russia's invasion of Ukraine with a NATO in such disarray. Rattle a threat of nuclear war would be all that was needed to keep the west at bay. Putin had good reason to think that since Donald Trump had done little to object to Russia's grab of Crimea and the 8 years of fighting in the  Donbas region of Ukraine other than a slap on the hand of sanctions on oligarch friends of Putin, supplying anti-tank weapons, and retraining of Ukraine's army. Trump had done what he could to weaken NATO, threatening to end America's support or honor the mutual defense purpose of the alliance. 

Trump attempted to make the case now as he kicked off the 2024 campaign that he alone could end the war in Ukraine that would prevent World War III.  Donald Trump speaking before CPAC said he knows how to end the Ukraine war and "prevent world war III" because only he "can talk with Putin".  He could end the war in one day even before he was sworn in, claimed. If it is appeasing Russia he has in mind, we have seen that scene before both in recent years and  85 years ago. There are those, fortunately still a minority in Congress, who agree with Trump. They are fools and history ignoramuses. 

 If we have learned nothing from history, it is that appeasement does not stop a war when the aggressor has made his intentions obvious, and public, and uses it to aggrandize his own power base. That was true of Hitler in 1938, and it is true of Putin in 2023. Appeaser is a toxic word to pin on politicians to all but the naive and uneducated who follow them. It is time we do some educating about how that has played out in both the past five years and 85 years ago.

Would Trump have his Chamberlain moment if he got his second term? "Anschluss" and "peace in our time" after Chamberlain's negotiations with Hitler that gave him what he wanted, " appeasement", "America First", and "Fortress America" are words that also come from the year of 1938 leading up to World War II. Presidential elections in 2024 could be our 1938 moment.  America First is also a political force in 2023. Appeasement is not yet in wide use in 2023, but it does describe Trump's policies toward Russia. Anschluss refers to Germany and Austria becoming one under Hitler, and Putin does not consider Ukraine an independent country, but part of Russia. The term Fortress America does not yet apply to isolationists, but should, because of the fallacy that America is not interconnected with the rest of the world and we, stupidly, can protect ourselves without the help of allies if we are armed enough because there are oceans on both sides of our continent.  The mentality exists in 2023, but the term went out of fashion with Pearl Harbor. 

• Recently, nearly announced candidate for the GOP nomination for the 2024 presidential race is Ron DeSantis.  He seems to think riding the appeasement horse is the way to go. 3/16/23   Senate Republicans distance themselves from DeSantis’s Ukraine stance | The Hill  

 At this point, it appears that Trump will still win in the primaries and will be the GOP candidate in 2024. Looking at Trump's relations with Russia in his first term, we know what he has in mind if he ever got into the oval office again. Sure, he knows how to end the war in Ukraine. The problem is, if his past predicts his future action, it would put wind in Putin's sails to continue his Anschluss of Ukraine and return of the rest of eastern Europe into satellites again by subversion or invasion.

 Trump's actions in his first term directly led to Putin's invasion of Ukraine and Putin's miscalculation. While prior administrations also looked the other way as Putin began to use force to grab his neighbors, Trump not only looked the other way at Putin's success in grabbing lands, he cleared the path by subverting NATO's power to block him. He also had a bromance with Putin, admiring his leadership style and trusting Putin's national security folks over his own in an infamous NATO meeting in Helsinki.  No wonder Putin miscalculated. He counted on Trump having a second term and Biden having lost a step in old age, so it is better to strike while he still could. He was wrong in one of the most epic miscalculations so far in this century. To think Trump ends the Ukraine conflict in minutes as he boasted at the early March  CPAC  convention is easy to predict based on his past actions. Speculation is well-founded that he would just hand over to Russia the eastern third of Ukraine and then stand by as Russia continues the march into the leftovers as the west stopped arming Ukraine, any treaty promises notwithstanding. That Trump would even honor NATO'S mutual defense clause is doubtful since he already tried to declare it dead once before, leading to Putin's continued march into the Baltics and Poland for starters, in spite of their NATO membership.  It would only take Trump a five-minute phone call to Putin to start the appeasement ball rolling.   Trump could crow "peace in our time" after that fateful phone call to Putin,  but peace would be short-lived as experience with Putin has already demonstrated and advocated publicly. . His ambitions lie further than Ukraine but to the nine countries bordering Russia.  Ukraine was just the low-hanging fruit, he thought. That Trump could be pinned down to say just how he would end the Ukraine war is a worthy, if futile, campaign attack by opponents, but his silence could also be damning and verification of his appeasement intent.  

To say that appeasement would end Putin's stated goal to reassemble the old USSR's empire or lessen the chances of World War III is at best nuts.  Appeasement did not stop Hitler from seeking " lebensraum", nor would it stop Putin who has staked his continued dictatorship of Russia on hyper-nationalist appeal to a reincarnation of the USSR'S former glory days that is a rallying cry that is quite popular with the Russian masses. Putin's polls have never been higher.  It would also give a green light for President Xi to grab Taiwan and likewise extend the Chinese empire to southeast Asia and beyond.

 This segment on America First and isolationism What is wrong about America First and isolationism. It depends. has been moved to its own separate blog posting: 3/7/23. This subject is a big one. It is not simple as sloganeering would make you think. So what's wrong with "America first" and isolationism?.  It depends if we are talking about national defense or economic interests.  Trump himself sneers at those who support strong military alliances, like NATO, as globalists.  When it comes to national defense and security, isolationist policies shoot us in our own feet by making America first America alone, with defense all by ourselves. National security interests are often entangled in trade and economic concerns, especially when China is involved. That takes a balancing act, targeted tradeoffs, in the extent of reliance on sensitive imports. For more, go to the 3/7/blog posting.

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Why should "appeasement" be a dirty word. If  Trump followers have forgotten history or slept through that chapter in school. here is a refresher course in less than a one-minute read.: In March 1938 Hitler completed joining Austria with Germany,  Next on Hitler's list was Czechlovakia's Sudentenland and a few other smaller areas Chamberlain declared "peace in our time" as he made the deal with Hitler (he failed to read Mein Kampf) re: Czechoslovakia, September 1938. Within a year, Hitler had completed his takeover or placed Nazi Hungarians in charge of all of Czechoslovakia and marched into Poland.  World War II had begun. In June 1940, the Germans took over France. The German blitz bombing of England began in September 1940, two years after the declaration of "the peace in our time".  In June 1941, Germany began its invasion of Russia, betraying a pact with Stalin.  December 7, 1941, was Pearl Harbor, as imperial Japan also sensed our military weakness and devotion to isolationism to hold onto our Pacific dominance.   Its timeline to build an empire began in 1931 and included a treaty with Hitler and Italy in 1940.

Those who think Putin who has declared his intent to reassemble Russian influence in the USSR years over eastern Europe or that Chi in China is calculating US resolve to protect Taiwan from their publicly stated eventual goal are kidding themselves. Neither has made it a secret of their intent.

 Vladimir Putin’s Russia: Trying to Rebuild the Soviet Era? (thecollector.com)

Milley: China Wants Capability to Take Taiwan by 2027, Sees No Near-term Intent to Invade - USNI News

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44852812    Trump in Helsinki, 2018

Japan Builds An Empire | Timetoast timelines

Tripartite Pact | Definition, History, Significance, & Facts | Britannica

Donald Trump claims he would end Ukraine war ‘in one day’ - YouTube

America First Political Action Conference - Wikipedia

https://www.newsweek.com/pro-russia-power-grab-georgia-thwarted-massive-street-protests-1787791?utm_source=push_notification&utm_source=pushnami&utm_medium=Push_Notifications&utm_campaign=fullauto&utm=1678961580051

Senate Republicans distance themselves from DeSantis’s Ukraine stance | The Hill

Did Putin miscalculate? updated Feb. 21. April 7, May 8, 2022

Update April 7, 2022, May 8, 2022: Within a few days after the Feb.21 update, Russia invaded.  It was clear Putin had miscalculated, but so had the rest of the world. The common wisdom was that Putin's army would be in Kiev and 'Zelenski would have been taken out in three days.  The Feb. 21 column below missed an important element, the leadership of Zelenski who refused to be evacuated as Russian troops advanced into Ukraine and told the US offer, don't send me transportation, send me weapons. Further rallies were from the Snake Island defenders, who told the Russian warship to go f ...yourself...an icon that became a battle cry of defiance.  /The rest is playing out before our eyes on  television.Russia’s Grave Miscalculation: Ukrainians Would Collaborate - The New York Times (nytimes.com.  We all, Putin included, underestimated the strength of the human spirit to resist tyranny.   

Update February 21, 2022 continues. This may have been Putin's epic miscalculation. Over 50 percent of Ukrainians oppose Putin's invasion...and most of those would take up armed opposition or civil demonstrations. Ukrainians were supposed to put their ethnic ties with Russia above national identity and desire to be in the western economic and democratic orbit. In fact, there was a bloodless coup that resulted in the pro-Russian president fleeing to Moscow. and a democratic election of a new president. Putin may have expected Ukrainians would quietly accept a Russian quisling government and Russian troop occupation. Putin was only half right. His problem is where he is half wrong. The opposition was going to be deadly and drawn out as the outgunned Ukrainian military planned to fade into the population and undertake urban guerilla warfare. They have been trained and weaponized for that by the West. In effect, there was going to be a bloody civil war. The question is whether the Russian public has much stomach for that, believing Ukrainians were close ethnic cousins. This is why there is speculation Putin planned to cook up Ukrainian aggression against Russians within and outside Ukraine as an excuse to give Russians a justification and why the body bag count of dead Russian soldiers could damage Putin's political grip in Russia itself. With 100,000 Russian troops on the Ukrainian borders, that Ukraine would attack Russians is a very unbelievable story. The US landing tons of small arms weapons and ammunition for use by pro-western Ukrainians is part of the credible threat that body bags filled with Russian soldiers would be sent back to Russia is a real threat to Putin and as a rational actor, he may be taking into account and his calculation in the timing. It takes time for the effects to be felt and perhaps he thinks he can beat down opposition and consolidate power before his own populace feel the blowback. . The Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan once the maimed and dead soldiers were in critical numbers to overcome their government propaganda to any contrary. That Putin cares about sanctions, no matter how extreme, is doubtful and it would take some time before Russian consumers would feel the pinch. Those massive refugees would result in the Russian invasion is also a slow developing anti-Russian propaganda impact. He may save face by a smaller incursion where the population is more to his liking, formalizing his prior stealth take over Donbas and breaking it from the rest of Ukraine and getting a better land bridge to Crimea. We will see. with a few weeks while frozen ground can give tanks traction. Update Feb. 21: https://www.vox.com/2022/2/21/22944995/russia-vladimir-putin-orders-troops-ukraine-east-donbas /The response from the West will determine whether he gets away with that without triggering massive sanctions and succeeds in taking the whole enchilada.

The original February 7, 2022 posting continues: There is speculation that Putin may have been influenced by the USA's messy withdrawal from Afghanistan, thinking that the America was so weak and lacked resolve or desiring isolationism, that it would not get heavily involved in a Russian military invasion of Ukraine. This is the danger of MAGA. It makes the US look weaker, not greater. We do not know what is in Putin's head, but if he thought the isolationist had won in the US, as evidenced by the messy withdrawal from Afghanistan, the weak response to Russia's military grabs in Georgia, Syria and Crimea, he miscalculated. If Putin pays little for marching into Ukraine and the west does not inflict pain on him for doing so, others will take that as a green light and try it elsewhere such as China with its designs on Taiwan. Serbia and Bosnian Serbs still have hopes the northern half of Bosnia (ethnic cleansed of Muslims and Croatian Catholics in the 1990's civil war) would become part of Greater Serbia and are watching for the intensity of western response to Russia's actions in Ukraine. The MAGA movement period is similar to the America First and isolationist era in the 1930s. The pro-fascist movement in the US gained steam and adherents in spite of FDR's disposition to the contrary. Before TV and and the internet, America had radio and fascist, isolationist media personalities like Father Coughlin, with a large radio following and an anti-Semitic demagogue supporting German fascism. . The 1938–39 deplatforming of Father Coughlin. (slate.com)The Father Coughlin of our era is FOX news and Tucker Carlson. Carlson's spiel is not anti-Semitism, but an admirer of autocracy instead of democracy and an apologist of Putin's rule and expansionism. He ignores the anti-Semitism that tinges these autocrats, especially Viktor Orban of Hungary.. Tucker Carlson Says Ukraine Isn’t Important. These Key GOP Voters Beg to Differ. - POLITICO. Tucker Carlson, Hungary, and the right’s embrace of authoritarianism - Vox   Hitler, maybe have thought, thought the US would be content to remain in Fortress America. Before Pearl Harbor, America stood by while Czechoslovakia's ethnic German Sudetenland province was handed over to Germany, (to get Peace in our Time0, Poland was invaded, Anschluss with Austria was finalized, France and Norway fell to the Germans, Britain was pulverized in the Blitz and the US was asleep at the wheel until December 7th, 1941. One wonders what kind of a country we would have been had not Pearl Harbor happened. It gave FDR the political winds in his back to fight a two-front war as the American public realized that isolationism did not work with airplanes as the new weapon in the sky. The world in 2022 is even more intertwined by trade, alliances, and technology, cyber vulnerability, and nuclear weapons with intercontinental reach than it was then.

These kinds of conflicts do not end well. This reminds me of the horrific Bosnian war of ethnic cleansing in the first half of the-1990s and the death of 100,000 civilians.. Until now, this was the only hot war in Europe since World War II. The Serbs lost their attempt to expand the boundaries to encompass all of their ethnic kinfolks and their president died in the Hague awaiting trial for crimes against humanity. The result is that the current population of Bosn1a, once similar to Colorado's, has decreased from 5 million in 1991, the beginning of the conflict, to 3 million, resulted in massive emigration, is the poorest per capita economy in Europe, still subject to ethnic strife and threatened with renewed violence and break up. My fear is that Ukrainians would devolve into this tragedy. The size of the impact dwarfs the Bosnia conflict. The population of Ukraine is 44 million. and the threat extends to all former Russian satellites bordering it

My interest in this is personal. I also fear for any number of my relatives by blood and marriage and good friends with similar ties in Poland, the Baltics, and the Balkans though less so Hungary and Austria, who have maintained cordial relations with Russia. Even friends with relatives in Germany are nervous about a Russian invasion in their neighborhood. All of them are targets of Putin's desire to reassemble the old Soviet Union boundaries and spheres of influence. They have enjoyed the peace and more prosperity after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I have often written about eastern Europe in this blog, drawing on over 50 years of being married to a remarkable person from the Balkans, studying in post-war Berlin, in seminars on eastern Europe in college, and spending a measurable part of my life there on family visits. My particular interest is Bosna, with close relatives by marriage there, a fascination with its history of cultural conflicts beginning my first visit in 1959. In 2020 I completed a six-year project of humanitarian aid through Rotary, writing, and championing three grants there that brought me physically there and close friendships. Our family business is the importation and distribution of cosmetics to the US from Croatia.

My views of Russia are not frozen in the cold war any more than are Putin's He was the last KGB station chief in Dresden, as the wall came down. Those former satellites have enjoyed peace and increasing prosperity with their alignment with the west since then. They have understood and cherished the freedom of political expression and economic advantages of a freer market society. Putin has replaced Marxist-Leninist doctrine with oligarch capitalism and hyper-nationalism. His methods of governance however are similar to the old USSR, punishing those who challenge his accumulation of wealth, power, and loyalty to him with more finesse and secrecy than the show trials of old. Poison, imprisonment, mysterious assassinations of dissidents are his tools. The breakup of the old Soviet Union he believes was a tragedy and the reassembly of that empire is his stated goal. So far he has been successful in Georgia, Syria, and Crimea. Putin is apparently planning to go "full Stalinist" if he takes over Ukraine by military force. This would be right out of Putin's KGB playbook: "The U.S. has warned the United Nations that it believes Russia has plans to kill large numbers of critics, dissidents and "vulnerable populations" in Ukraine" https://news.yahoo.com/russia-plans-target-dissidents-ukraine-060948378.htm

https://news.yahoo.com/russia-lists-ukrainians-killed-sent-055416138.html "Washington has warned the UN rights chief that Russia has lists of Ukrainians "to be killed or sent to camps" in the event of an invasion, according to a letter... "     If  US intelligence agencies know about this list, hopefully they know who is on it and is warning them.   

It is assumed both Russia and the West have more accurate polling, but here is what is public:Poll: Over half of Ukrainians will actively resist Russian invasion (kyivindependent.com) /The pollster is the CNN like news network of India, which does not have a stake in the outcome of any Russian invasion of Ukraine)Every third Ukrainian ready to put up armed resistance to Russians: Study, World News | wionews.com

The special value of remembering Normandy as history repeats itself

A version of this was published by the Sky Hi News, June 12, 2019
https://www.skyhinews.com/opinion/opinion-muftic-remembering-d-day-as-history-threatens-to-repeat-itself/

The honoring of those who died on the beaches of Normandy 75 years ago triggered some memories of early childhood and some stories told to me later. That war changed the lives of the survivors forever and certainly shaped mine. I confess that it influenced my political thought to this day as I fear the resurgence of fascism and ultra-right populist nationalism at home and abroad.

There are not that many of us left who remember much about the reasons we fought in World War II.  I have often wondered how the blight of Nazi Germany came to be and how so many stood idly by as Nazi power grew. I later married a survivor of the Balkan theater of the war I met when I was a junior year abroad student in post-war Berlin. So many friends I have made since then also shared their stories. Even 12 years after the end of the war, the scars of the battle for Berlin were raw. The rubble had been cleared, but the mortar shell pockmarks were on buildings still left standing.

In Denver, in the 1960s I met Holocaust survivors and adult children who later learned of their Jewish roots because they were left in the care of Christian families as their parents were shipped off to their death in the Nazi ovens. Others from Poland and Germany who had emigrated to the US in the '60s rarely spoke of their tragedies. Some lost their mothers in bombing raids. For me, World War II seemed horrifyingly real. It was about human suffering, survival, and loss. It was not pages and pictures in books of some distant event. I have always wondered if it could happen again. It could, I believe, if we forget this history and how it came about. Ceremonies of remembrance of those who died have a special value so we do not forget why these wars were fought.

I was lucky living in America and so was our family. World War II began for me, as my father told me when I was a year and a half old. My family living in Oklahoma and grandparents from the Ft. Morgan, Colorado area, were vacationing in Grand Lake, not far from where I live now, high in the Rocky Mountains. My father and I were awake and the rest of the family slept in the rented cabin. He took me to the car and turned on the radio. Germany had invaded Poland. The date in Europe: September 1, 1939. It was a couple of years later before the United States became part of the battle. World War II for us had its hardships and sorrows but we never suffered as those in Europe did, though we lost so many "boys" as those who fought in Europe were called. I remember tears and grim faces with news of the death of friends' and neighbors' "boys" Every adult male in both sides our family served abroad except my father who remained to manage essential communication services and a physician uncle. All of our family members who fought returned to our families. However, for four years even as a toddler and a young girl, I remember the tension in the air and on adult faces, muted conversations when I was near, and little laughter, waiting for a dreaded word of a son, brother or father's death in combat.

So excuse me if I seem so very alarmed at the rise of extreme right-wing race-based populist nationalism in Europe. In some instances, followers are openly nostalgic for a Nazi past. It is difficult to imagine so many have forgotten the lessons learned from World War II. The outcome was terrible for all involved.  Forgive me too if I seem so fearful of isolationism in this country. That same withdrawal from the world contributed to the unchecked rise of Hitler. The most extreme politicians recently rising to the highest office in Hungary and Turkey got there by fanning the flames of hatred and fear of immigrants and detested ethnic minorities, as turmoil in the middle east prompted a vast migration of refugees,  These neo-fascists gained office by the ballot box and popular support.  Once in office, their tools of consolidating their power have been subverting democracy by the destruction of an independent judiciary, the control of media and the press. and domination of legislative bodies.  Other far-right political leaders in France,  Austria, Italy, Germany, Croatia, and Poland are successively beating more moderate officeholders at the ballot box. I wonder if their citizens have lost their historical memories of World War II and the tragic results. Something similar is infecting a significant minority in the US. When I see citizens in our own country supporting a President who invites to the White House such extreme right-wing leaders, who  exhorts fear and hate of  immigrants and others of different races and religions, who brands the opposition press as "enemies of the people", who withdraws from alliances and treaties, and who uses cruelty to child immigrants as an anti-immigrant strategy, I fear for the future of American democracy for which so many died.
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I wrote this as I remember with gratitude my uncles by blood and marriage who served in World War II: PFC Victor Boillot, Captain Gorden Morrow (Army Air Force), Col. John Burr (World War I and II),
Col. Felix Halstead (Spanish American War, World War I and II). The latter two were career army: Burr taught at the War College, Halstead served in the Pacific.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36130006

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/03/599120190/madeleine-albright-warns-dont-let-fascism-go-unnoticed-until-its-too-late?fbclid=IwAR35fL5KyaCKmm12Y1TFgdMsNGQstMobekUoHIp0xqCAFdrkb4oM2jT2GZA

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/13/politics/trump-hungary-viktor-orban/index.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/02/christopher-hasson-coast-guard-neo-nazi-far-right

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/12/study-shows-two-thirds-us-terrorism-tied-right-wing-extremists

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbU54wZsabs