Our dangers are from within

WHILE DIANE Dimond has written some thoughtful columns off and on, I really have to take issue with her on her (April 8) column about Russian influence, real or imagined, in our latest presidential election. First of all, the United States itself has meddled in the activities of other countries, including those of Russia, for at least 72 years. We even rigged political elections in the Western European countries of Italy and France in the 1940s and early 1950s, in Australia during the early- to mid-1970s when we deposed the democratically elected government of Prime Minister (Gough) Whitlam, or in engineering the unseating of a democratically elected president in Chile, Salvador Allende, and replacing him with a brutal tyrant named Augusto Pinochet who committed far more human rights violations than Allende did.

Second, the nation’s most dangerous enemies are all domestic and all come from the right end of the political spectrum: the neocons; the neo-liberals; and fringe white militia groups. The neocons include the “Deep State” — a cabal of unaccountable governmental officials from the NSA, CIA, etc. — and individuals like Hillary Clinton who are willing to have a pre-emptive nuclear war with Russia and the Palestinians/Arabs . ...

Trump is the next most serious threat to our country with his xenophobia, crude sexism, his appointment of extremist Supreme Court “justices” and Cabinet members, and his willingness to use torture and mass murder, etc., to further his agenda. Beside the(se) domestic threats, we have the ... white hate groups that dwarf any threat Mexicans, Arabs, etc., could ever pose to our country. WILLIAM R. DELZELL Albuquerque