By Arlen Grossman/ Letters, Monterey Herald, March 22, 2023

A confused letter writer recently wrote that since the U.S. won its independence from England without asking for help from other countries (not true, by the way), Ukraine shouldn’t be asking for help from us to support them “for the same reasons of independence and freedom.” What the increasingly pro-Russian MAGA cultists forget is that Ukraine was already an independent, sovereign nation when Putin invaded them illegally and without provocation. If the Russians are not stopped from taking over Ukraine, we can expect the megalomaniac Putin to move to expand his empire. Another dictator started out the same way in 1939 and wasn’t stopped until tens of millions were killed in WWII. Neville Chamberlain and others underestimated Hitler. We can’t afford to underestimate Putin.