Re: “Zelenskyy leaves White House without signing minerals deal after Oval Office blowup” (Feb. 28, Nation & World):
Growing up in another America, I recall despairing when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957 that our country was finished, beaten. Of course, I was 10 years old at the time and might be forgiven for naiveté.
On Feb. 28, I watched as our president and vice president tried to extort Volodymyr Zelenskyy. They urged that he “repay” us for the American armaments we have furnished Ukraine over the past three years by ceding access to that country’s mineral resources in perpetuity — not that we would be giving anything in return.
It was a shameful moment for Americans that tarnishes our reputation and undermines everything we thought we stood for. No more rights of sovereignty for us. No more commitment to democracy, freedom of thought, liberty of association. We now stand with North Korea, Russia, Hungary and China as a colossus of thug nations willing to extort what we can or steal what we can’t obtain through threats.
Now my adolescent fears are realized. We have been transformed, humiliated, subsumed. We are everything those conservative hawks, who are now hiding behind the couches in their congressional offices, warned over all those decades might come to pass.
Linda Beeman, Clinton