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In the 1960’s Nikita Khrushchev famously boasted that Russia would destroy America. He even tried, but failed, to place Russian nuclear rockets in Cuba. But in the end his ambitions came to naught. There was simply no way Russia could destroy America using military means.
We now have a new and different kind of adversary. While Khrushchev was all bluster, Putin uses cunning and guile. Rather than military conquest, his strategy is to encourage America to destroy itself. The recently released Republican controlled senate report details exactly how he went about achieving his goal. The report contends that Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind the WikiLeaks effort to hack Democratic Party officials and leak information to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The report confirmed that the Kremlin used Manafort and WikiLeaks to help Mr Trump win the 2016 election, and that WikiLeaks was aware it was assisting Russian intelligence. The report concludes that the Kremlin “engaged in an aggressive, multifaceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence” the 2016 election, and that some Trump associates were keen on help from Russia. All Putin had to do was ensure that the White House would be occupied by someone who would destroy America on his behalf.
The election of Trump was a triumph of Putin’s expertise in the manipulation of American public opinion. His machinations have reaped him the goal that he sought—perhaps even more than he envisaged. Under Trump, and because of his demeaning insults to all and sundry, America is divided as never before. We are estranged from our traditional allies, who see Trump as dishonest, ignorant, crass, and erratic. The number of COVID-19 deaths in America is testament to Trump’s incompetent handling of the crisis. America with 4% of the world’s population has 25% of the pandemic deaths!
The second strand of Putin’s strategy has been to foster division—to turn Americans against one another. Both Trump’s loyal base and his opponents, unwitting Putin puppets, routinely distribute all the deceitful, divisive, and at times vile, posts fed to them by Russian intelligence. It is estimated that many of the anti-mask posts on social media were devised by the Russians. Why pay a bounty on American lives when you can encourage them to kill each other for free.
Make no mistake, Putin is not done with America yet. There are indications that he will pull out all stops to ensure that Trump gets another four years so as to finish Putin’s plan for America. He will continue feeding us divisive posts with which to bombard each other. He plans to succeed where Khrushchev failed.
Foil Putin. Save America. Don’t vote red, vote blue.
John Rogan, Tillamook, Oregon
