President Donald Trump’s recent public ridicule of the reports before the Congress by our nation’s three major intelligence agencies is unparalleled in our nation’s modern history… and utterly anguished our intelligence community writ large. Our intelligence leaders outlined that we face an unprecedented potential adversary — the developing China-Russia axis. With a combined population of five to six times that of America, it has formidable industrial and military capabilities.
We only have to look back at World War II where America more than matched the combined population and industrial capabilities of Japan and Germany together. Over five years we produced many thousands of B-24, B-26 and B-29 bombers that utterly destroyed our adversaries’ cities, and thousands of naval vessels that wiped their navies and commercial fleets from the seas.
Democrats are focusing on social issues for 2020. They’d be far better focused on securing new leadership to protect America from our growing existential threats so well recognized by our intelligence and military communities. The potential threats from the Russia-China axis dwarf any threats we’ve faced since 1776. We need leadership that fully recognizes the severity of those threats — not one that cavalierly dismisses them.
And we ought remember President Roosevelt ignored Naval Intelligence reports that Japan’s Pacific Fleet was heading for the South Pacific. Had the President heeded those warnings and ordered our fleet at Pearl Harbor put to sea, history would have been dramatically altered. Pearl Harbor ought forever remind us that clear headed leadership in the Oval Office ought never be an “option” for our beloved nation.
If our nation’s intelligence community is anguished, ought we not follow same ?
Peter I Berman lives in Norwalk.
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Dear Mr. Berman, The United States currently operates approximately 800 military bases in over 70 countries, some of which we were never even invited into. How many do Russia and China have outside of their own borders? We have spent trillions on “defense” in recent years some of which the Pentagon smugly admits that it can not even account for. Our current annual budget is 750 BILLION. We are surrounded by oceans and friendly neighbors to the North and South and still by your accounts we need to continue to live in fear. You for reasons unknown keep referencing our “defense officials”, the same officials that were wrong about “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq, lied about Vietnam, have turned Libya into an open air slave market and now want to push our young men and women into Iran, a country
that has not invaded another country in over 200 years. All this is of course is at the urging of our friends and allies the “Saudis” where 15 of the 19 hijackers came from on 9/11. Let’s stop acting like frightened children and let’s use our resources to make life better for the American people rather than enrich an elite class of fear mongers.