Dear Editor:

Are your readers as outraged as I am over the accusation made by our President that Ukraine started the war there? Up until now his moral and ethical failings have been minor in comparison to this accusation, and to the parallel decision to grant Russia its wishes; to keep what it has conquered and to prevent Ukraine from Joining NATO.

Until now his moral failings have merely included convictions for sexual abuse and defamation, hush money payments, cruelty in personnel decisions, revenge for perceived slights, countless bankruptcies that involved him ducking responsibility for bad business decisions and so on.

Now he has opened unilateral negotiations with Russia, a country which in fact, against international law, invaded Ukraine, starting the war which Russia has conducted by missile attacks on civilian apartment blocks, hospitals and other health care facilities, brutal attacks on civilians and their homes, sexual violence, forced deportations and the torture of prisoners.

In this, not only has our President betrayed Ukraine, our ally, but also reportedly suggested, in the meantime, increased cooperative Russian-American oil explorations in the arctic. In other words, he sees the capitulation to the Russians among other things, a business opportunity for him and his friends.

In the question of Attorney Robert Welch to Senator McCarthy at the end of the House Anti American Activities Committee hearings in the 1950s, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”

In the case of our President, we don’t need to pose the question. We already know the answer.

Bruce MacDonald

Boothbay