Editor:
In June of 1984, President Reagan said the following during a ceremony at Pointe Du Hoc France commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Normandy invasion:
“We in America have learned bitter lessons from two World Wars: It is better to be here, ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent.”
For years, these words would ring true in America, and Reagan’s policy was supported by the Republicans; but no more. Now we have Trump and many GOP in Congress considering the opposite, a withdrawal from NATO and possibly from other international institutions, as well.
Compounding this is the fact that Trump now falsely blames Ukraine for starting the ongoing war with Russia (Mailbox, Feb. 27). Such statements help with his endearment to the autocrat Vladimir Putin who would love to absorb Ukraine and some of the other former Soviet states back into the Russian sphere.
I fear where this is going. Is Trump truly abandoning America’s interest in democratic Western Europe in favor of Russia? And as many opinion pieces have noted, will this give permission to the autocratic leaders of China and North Korea to test America’s resolve and start acting on their own expansionist threats? Let’s hope not.
One thing’s for certain: Ronald Reagan would be appalled.
Sherman Schapiro, Eureka
This article appears in Youngest North Coast Condor Dies of Lead Poisoning.