OPINION:
The Biden administration’s failure to secure U.S. Marine Corps veteran Paul Whelan’s release is a national disgrace (“Paul Whelan ‘greatly disappointed’ in Biden administration, was led to believe deal would happen,” Web, Dec. 8). Through President Biden’s abject surrender to Vladimir Putin, we undermine our noble efforts to safeguard democracy in Ukraine by sending one of the world’s most notorious arms dealers, Viktor Bout, home to our enemy.
After spending billions of dollars in a lend-lease framework to preserve Ukraine’s sovereignty, why would we neglect to use our leverage over the Russians to secure the release of both Brittney Griner and Mr. Whelan? Not only is this an insult to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but it places the American people in peril to a criminal known for stoking the flames of terrorism in Northern Africa and around the globe.
Mr. Biden’s recent prisoner swap is a mere continuation of his insistence upon leaving our national heroes behind, as he did in Afghanistan, and jeopardizing our military prowess under the warped umbrella of identity politics. Mr. Whelan’s unjust captivity in Russian squalor represents a choice that Mr. Biden and his globalist cohorts have made to institute a treasonous trade-off of American dominance in favor of a timid appeasement of tyrannical regimes.
If we are to survive, we must summon our intestinal fortitude of old and apply it to the modern age.
HENRY J. WILSON
Washington.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.