Dear Editor,
Shortly before the United States was attacked in 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt pushed through congress the Lend-Lease bill to supply Britain and Russia with money, weapons, and other war materials to fight Axis aggressive war that, without it, the Germans would almost certainly have won WW II, at least in Europe. Roosevelt was justifiably proud of the legislation and made the USA the Arsenal of Democracy. It stopped the incremental aggression of Nazi Germany; it saved England and Europe from disaster. Hitler had previously occupied militarily the Rhineland (1936), then with threats of invasion, “annexed” Austria (1938) with no push back from the former allied powers; next it captured half of the Czech Republic (1938) with no push back; four months later German forces seized the rest of Czechoslovakia . . . again without pushback from the Allies. Emboldened by success and the timidity of the west, Hitler attacked Poland (1939) and conquered it in 31 days, BUT this time Americans saw the hungry wolf for the criminal regime it was. Britain and France declared war on Germany (1939), and five days after Pearl Harbor (1941), Germany declared war on the United States. The rest is history with the total destruction of the Axis in 1945.
Lesson: If the aggressor Germany had been confronted early on, nations would not have been targeted one-at-a-time at a cost of millions of lives.
Not learning from history, it seems to repeat itself today with Russia as the would-be destroyer of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin aims to restore the dismantled Soviet Union by attacking free nations with criminal military aggression. He doubts that the western democracies will oppose him . . . as Hitler had assumed earlier. The Russian regime is not a legitimate government; it is a mafia-like criminal enterprise using aggressive war, blackmail, hostage-taking, and plain murder to achieve its objectives [individuals who publicly oppose Putin disappear, are shot in the street, fall out of tall windows, or die in plane crashes.] The government there is effectively bankrupt – its economy is less than that of Texas or California. It currently buys ammunition from Iran and China. It would be quite easy to defeat.
The Point: The Biden administration (and by example western Europe) gives Ukraine weapons to fight Russia but NOT ENOUGH to win the war. Heavy weapons and aircraft have been denied. Odd as it sounds to me, republican leaders here threaten to curtail even defensive systems in the future. Some join the democrats in pleading for a halt to all aid. Putin, the new Hitler today, will see that aggressive war pays off. The other independent nations that previously had been part of the USSR would surely be next, then Poland, the Czech Republic, etc.?
America already has enough enemies in Iran and China. It is totally in our interests to send weapons now rather than send American troops later to fight a war that could easily have been prevented. What is desperately needed in Washington now is strong, decisive leadership, a commodity tragically missing there today.
God bless America!
El Sellers
Fairfield, Texas
