Marc A. Thiessen’s column of July 18 was given the disturbing title “Put weight on Trump’s actions, not his words,” and the rest of the column reflects this. What I get from this is that Trump is no more to be trusted than Kim Jong Un or Vladimir Putin.
Much of what Thiessen says about the futility of relations with Russia is easy to agree with. Russia indeed cannot be trusted even to follow basic international laws and customs, not that Trump seems to be a big vocal supporter of them either.
However, Thiessen does not always get his facts straight. For example, according to the Washington Post’s fact checkers, Obama’s decision to deploy missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic was about Iran, not Russia, as his administration repeatedly stated. The ten missiles in Poland would add little to a deterrent against the thousands of missiles in Russia. Robert Gates, Bush and Obama’s defense secretary, supported it, but the Russians were not pleased.
As for Crimea, I have yet to hear any conservative say what the U.S. should have done in response to Russia’s takeover. And Trump did not get NATO allies to increase their contributions; they had already agreed to it years ago, and his efforts to get them to increase them further fell on deaf ears.
Robert Scott Gassler
Everett
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