Dear Editor:
On November 8, President Donald Trump announced that he was seriously considering accepting Vladimir Putin’s invitation to attend the 2020 Victory Day (May 9) celebrations in Red Square in Moscow. Let’s just imagine for a moment: a U.S. president standing on the podium with Mr. Putin while Russian troops and missiles parade by.
All irony aside: No, Mr. President, this is a seriously bad idea! At a time when Vladimir Putin is still threatening Ukraine’s sovereignty, still lying about the downing of the Malaysian airliner, still refusing to take responsibility for the 13,000 lives lost in his invasion of eastern Ukraine, and still supporting Bashar al-Assad’s mass slaughter of his own Syrian people, the optics and the substance of such a visit would be so perverse that Secretary Mike Pompeo and other top advisers should do everything in their power to persuade the president not to pursue this scheme.