Once again Jonah Goldberg lets his endless hatred for Donald Trump cloud his reasoning and objectivity (“Trump’s rants about NATO making U.S. weaker,” Jan. 31, TribLive). Goldberg did give Trump credit for telling NATO nations that they needed to spend more on their national defenses. However, he conveniently left out many other key points about Trump, NATO and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Trump warned NATO of Vladamir Putin’s intentions years before Russia invaded, and supplied Ukraine with tangible military weaponry instead of only nonlethal aid that the Obama-Biden administration provided. The Biden administration spent months telling us that Russia was going to invade, but did not supply weapons to Ukraine until after the invasion when thousands of Ukrainians had already been killed.
Is it not surprising that Russia annexed Crimea while President Obama was in office and invaded Ukraine after Joe Biden became president but stayed put while Trump was in office?
Ukraine applied for membership in NATO but was denied partially because of its corruption. It was Vice President Biden who squashed the internal investigation into that corruption by having the Ukrainian prosecutor fired and then bragging about it during his presidential campaign. Otherwise, Ukraine may have taken the necessary steps to be given NATO’s membership action plan status that could have deterred Putin’s invasion plans.
Yes, Trump is sometimes blunt and direct. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing if it gets the attention of the recipient. However, I guess sage advice and meaningful actions by Trump translates to “rants” by hate-filled op-ed writers.
A.J. Abate
Elizabeth