23 October 2018

Pure Evil

Over the weekend, I finished reading House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia, by Craig Unger. I had wanted to read this earlier when it was published two months ago, but then I read other Trump books ahead of it and it got away from me'.

It's a well written, well researched book, but to be honest, it didn't break too much new ground for me. Some of that may be because I've read dozens of Trump and Putin books in the last two years.

One thing that was new and startling, and earned no coverage in the press, is how Unger described Vladimir Putin became involved in Syria. This was certainly not because of humanitarian reasons.

Per Unger, Putin designed Russia's military strategy in Syria so that it would increase the flow of refugees fleeing so that, in turn, would cause unrest in Europe and elsewhere. That led to socially destructive policies like Brexit and spurred far-right nationalists to power elsewhere in Europe.

In short, the bigger the mess in Western Europe with refugees, the happier Putin would be.

What kind of truly horrible sociopath would use suffering people so cavalierly like this and deliberately make their plight worse? The drowned refugee children littering European beaches come to mind. This is where that policy ended.

And with his endless praise for Putin, Donald Trump openly embraces a monster who would heartlessly exploit people like this. Then again, that's no surprise -- Trump has spent a lifetime exploiting people for his own benefit, too.

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