Most Americans didn’t know who Alexei Navalny was until a few days ago. But last Friday, he became as famous as Helen of Troy when it was reported he had died in a Russian prison.
According to Greek legend, Helen of Troy—married to the Spartan King Menelaus—was abducted by Paris, the Prince of Troy, who was intoxicated by her beauty. Her abduction—and beauty—famously “launched a thousand ships” as the Greeks went to war with the Trojans to reclaim her.
American politicians in both the Republican and Democrat Parties would likewise use Navalny’s death last Friday to launch whatever remains of our own depleted Naval and other forces to Russian or Ukrainian shores to go to war with Russia. Navalny, of course, is neither Helen of Troy nor even American, and his death—though tragic—is completely inconsequential to our own nation’s affairs.
Alexei Navalny—a political opponent of Putin—was poisoned in 2020 but survived. He was serving a 19-year sentence in a Russian prison when he died. According to those banging the war drums in America, Putin is responsible for his death.
Putin is most certainly a vicious and ruthless Russian leader who appears willing to use any means necessary to hold on to power. But if a distant and foreign leader’s abuse of power, false imprisonment, or even murder of a political opponent is justification to go to war with Russia, why aren’t there identical shrieking demands to go to war with Ukraine?
A month before Navalny died in a Russian prison, an American citizen named Gonzalo Lira died in a Ukrainian jail. Lira was arrested last May for speaking out against Ukraine and offending President Zelenskyy by calling him a “cokehead.”
What’s the difference between Putin’s arrest of a political opponent and his subsequent death in a Russian jail and Zelenskyy’s arrest of a political dissident and his subsequent death in a Ukrainian jail? Is there not greater justification to wage a war against Zelenskyy and Ukraine—who murdered a U.S. citizen—than against Putin and Russia, who allegedly murdered a Russian citizen?
How many political opponents has Chinese dictator Xi Xinping had arrested, killed, or otherwise “disappeared?” How about Ayotallah Khamanei, the Supreme Leader of Iran? And does China, Iran, or the great bogeyman Russia presently pose a greater threat to America?
How many American hostages does Hamas currently still have? Why is there greater outrage over the imprisonment—and now death—of a Russian citizen in Russia than over the capture of American citizens by Hamas? We want war with Russia, but peace with Hamas?
Should we go to war with Canada over its political prisoners? Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government suspended the rights of four Canadian citizens in the aftermath of the peaceful Canadian Freedom Convoy of early 2022. These citizens were denied bail and held without a trial.
After serving nearly two years behind bars on charges of conspiracy to commit murder, at least two of Trudeau’s political prisoners were released and the obviously fabricated “conspiracy to commit murder charges” dropped—a plea deal reached. These individuals were all falsely imprisoned because—like Navalny—they were vocal opponents of the regime.
But we don’t even need to look outside the United States to find countless comparable examples of vicious and ruthless American political leaders willing to use any means necessary to retain political power through flagrant abuse of their own power—jailing, persecuting, or killing their political opponents.
Enrique Tarrio, the afro-Cuban former leader of the Proud Boys, was sentenced to 22 years in prison for “seditious conspiracy.” Tarrio was in Baltimore when the J6 protest was taking place. His prison sentence is more severe than the 19-year sentence given to Navalny in Russia.
While political prisoner Enrique Tarrio is currently alive in prison for crimes he didn’t commit, other political prisoners of the Biden regime are dead—like Navalny.
Mark Aungst committed suicide while awaiting sentencing for simply walking into the Capitol building on J6. He faced prison time and a fine.
Matthew Perna, who faced years in prison for similarly entering the Capitol building on J6, hanged himself in his garage.
The Biden regime has held countless J6 protestors on bogus charges, denied them due process and basic medical care, and thrown them in solitary confinement. If Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death, then Joe Biden and Democrats are responsible for the deaths of Perna, Aungst, and even others.
Putin-obsessed Americans need to take the log or plank out of their own eye. While these Americans are irrationally possessed by their hatred of Putin—the metaphoric speck in another’s eye—their own country has been transformed into the very repressive and tyrannical hellscape they condemn in Russia.
When will these same “courageous” critics of Putin, who insist something must be done to the Russian leader for throwing his now-dead political opponent in prison, likewise insist that something must be done to Biden and Democrats, who are attempting to throw their political opponent, Trump, in prison?
Russia may very well be a frightful example of autocracy under Putin, but the United States is becoming itself a frightful example of the same under Biden and the Democrats. Biden’s America will soon be indistinguishable from Putin’s Russia if Americans don’t focus their attention on preventing rapidly encroaching tyranny at home rather than overturning long-established tyrannies elsewhere.
Putin may have killed Navalny, but Biden and the Democrats are close to killing America and our republic. I’m so serious, I wrote a book about it. I implore Americans to take seriously the stakes of the 2024 presidential election and rally to America’s defense.
As I write in America’s Last Stand:
“Our present conflict is unprecedented in our own nation’s history and in our own lifetimes and marks the third major test, which will determine whether America survives or dies.”
Forget war with Russia; we’re already fighting a war here in America. Forget the monster in Russia; we’ve got our own monsters here in America. We need all hands on deck to save our own country.
Drew Thomas Allen is the author of “America’s Last Stand: Will You Vote to Save or Destroy America in 2024.” Allen is a widely published columnist, political analyst, and host of ‘The Drew Allen Show’ podcast. He is also a publicist for many of the most recognizable names in conservative politics. You can follow him at drewallen.substack.com
What might have been. Perhaps it serves no useful purpose in our day, in our current circumstances, to express this personal opinion but I would like to do so anyway: after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the ascension to power of Yeltsin, a once in a millennia opportunity was wasted and died. The promise of momentous change and a more peaceful life for all hung over the world, America and the new, old Russia enjoyed a brief period of cordiality, greater things lay on the horizon.
In the hubris that followed the fall of the Soviet empire, the American establishment could not or would not relinquish the suspicion and distrust of the old ways, even in the face of the new.
So now we come to a Russia firmly in the Chinese camp, allied with the worst that society can vomit up; a Russia that is maligned and a Putin that is described as an insane monster. The death of Navalny, seems to confirm our worst fears and the Biden administration is feeding that fear in a most obscene way, The threat of war, once again, seems almost inevitable.
We must disavow and rid our minds of the idea that Russia can be truly democratized. The history of Russia, the many centuries of it, is another alien world to our own. We, the Western nations are in no position to offer moral lectures when our own societies abort huge numbers of babies each year, when decadence and degradation seem to be the new normal, when our economies are in shambles and when we continually engage in foreign wars.
I remember Hillary Clinton going to Russia with a big red reset button. Perhaps it’s time the West offered a new reset, a slow and gradual attempt at normalizing relations with a proud nation, that coincidently has the awesome power to wipe away human existence.