No need for a lesson on US transgressions

I don’t need a history lesson from Mr Pinto regarding US transgressions over the past 50 years or so.

I’m well aware of them, because, unlike in Russia, we live in a country with a free press and broadcast media.

Most of all, I am infuriated by the implication that I and others have been ‘brainwashed’ by the media.

In ‘the west’ we have multiple sources of information.

That’s how Mr Pinto himself is aware of those past transgressions by the USA and Britain.

Indeed, that’s how I am aware of them.

It’s certainly true that America has sometimes behaved appallingly in the past, for example in Vietnam and in Central and South America.

And Blair’s foolish assistance of the idiot Bush in invading Iraq is to also be deplored.

But I and Mr Pinto are free to criticise these actions without being thrown into jail or harassed by the KGB, or FSB as I believe they like to be known.

And what’s more, the USA is not our enemy.

I’m mostly concerned that his letter focused on the nasty words I used to describe poor Mr Putin, rather than commenting on the main focus of my letter, which was about the head-in-the-sand inaction of Angela Merkel and other European leaders for the past 16 years or so.

This, together with our own government’s muddled energy policies are what have largely contributed to this terrible energy crisis, mounting inflation and industrial unrest.

However, rather than defending Angela Merkel and other European leaders, in his letter he seemed just a bit too keen on supporting an enemy state, because make no mistake, that is what Russia under Putin has sadly become.

We all hoped that after the fall of communism, Russia would finally become a decent democratic country and maybe even our friends, Russia was even invited to join the G8.

But sadly it was not to be.

Unfortunately, just wishing and hoping that Putin was decent didn’t make it so.

I am shocked that any citizen of this country should seek to defend Putin, who is in fact an admirer of Stalin, with a dream to reinstate the old Soviet empire in Europe.

However, when I think about it, even Adolf Hitler had his apologists in the shape of Edward VIII and others in the 1930s.

I imagine if TV were available then, Adolf might have established GT to show the good side of Nazism.

In his letter, Mr Pinto says ‘The energy and food cost nightmare is as much a consequence of western economic sanctions as deliberate malice by Putin’. Wrong analysis.

Western economic sanctions are a consequence of Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. No invasion = no sanctions = no energy crisis.

Finally, I usually like to write more lighthearted letters to The Advertiser, so I shall not be wasting my time continuing this discussion with Mr Pinto, should he decide to respond.

Life is just too short.

MALCOLM STRETTEN Boulters Lane

Maidenhead