What Would Knocking Off Vlad Really Do? By Charles Taylor (Florida)
The recommendation has been made by Rino Senator Lindsay Graham that someone close to Putin do a Brutus and put a knife in Putin’s back, so to speak. But what would an assassination of Putin achieve? Their system will simply replace him by another clone, who will do what their ruling elites dictate, for these men are a product of the system, like ours. But, beyond this, it is a worry, if not contrary to international law, for politicians to call for heads of state to be assassinated, although the West seems to do fine in that department. As the advertisement for a famed running shoe proclaims, “Just do it.” And, that they do.
“US Sen. Lindsey Graham called on Russians to assassinate President Vladimir Putin on Thursday night, as Ukraine pleaded with the West to fight the “nuclear terror.”
Graham (R-SC), 66, made the call to action on Twitter as he compared Putin to Roman dictator Julius Caesar and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
“Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?” Graham wrote.
“The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out. You would be doing your country — and the world — a great service.”
Moments before Graham tweeted the call to action, he made a similar statement during an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity.”
“The only people that can fix this are the Russian people,” he said. “Easy to say, hard to do, but I’m begging you in Russia, unless you want to live in darkness for the rest of your life, be isolated from the world, be in abject poverty, you need to step up to the plate and take this guy out.”
When host Sean Hannity suggested that whoever succeeds Putin could turn out to be worse than the tyrannical Russian leader, Graham answered: “I’m willing to take that bet.”
Putin was said to be holed up in the Ural Mountains, fuming at the resistance his army is facing in Ukraine — and at home — as his attack on Russia’s peaceful neighbor entered its second week.
Graham’s extraordinary call for the assassination of a head of state came as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Europe to take “immediate action” after Russian troops shelled the continent’s largest nuclear power plant Friday morning.
If the Zaporizhzhia plant in the port city of Enerhodar had exploded, it would be “the end for everyone. The end for Europe. The evacuation of Europe,” Zelensky said.
A day earlier, Graham had reportedly said it was a mistake for former President Donald Trump to call Putin a “genius” by declaring two Moscow-backed separatist enclaves independent and touching off the conflict.
“Let’s just make it clear, Putin’s not a genius, he’s a war criminal,” said Graham, according to CNN.
Thursday night, however, Graham insisted that Russia did not invade Ukraine while Trump was president “because Trump would have kicked their ass … the reason he [Putin] didn’t do this on Trump’s watch is because he was afraid of him.”
“What’s happened is that Putin looks at [President] Biden, he’s sized him up, he thinks he can get away with it, and he’s going to keep going and going and going and nobody in the West is going to stop him,” the senator added.”
“Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov pounced on Sen. Lindsey Graham's comment calling for someone to take out Russian Vladimir Putin – questioning his sanity and suggesting he was drunk.
The slap from Putin's mouthpiece came after Graham Tweeted Thursday night that it was time for a 'Brutus' to emerge amid Putin throwing Russia's forces into a bloody invasion of Ukraine – a comment that U.S. commentators immediately warned could fuel Russian propaganda.
'Unfortunately, in such an extremely tense atmosphere, there is a hysterical escalation of Russophobia,' Peskov responded. 'These days, not everyone manages to maintain sobriety, I would even say sanity, and many lose their mind,' he added.
He was responding to Graham's comment calling for 'somebody' to assassinate Putin – with a reference to Claus Von Stauffenberg, the German Army officer who tried to assassinate Hitler during World War II, as well as to the Roman politician Marcus Junius Brutus, who played a key role in the assassination of Julius Caesar.
'Is there a Brutus in Russia? Graham asked. 'Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military? The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out. You would be doing your country — and the world — a great service.'
Graham doubled down on his comments in an interview Friday on 'Fox and Friends.'
'I'm hoping someone in Russia will understand he is destroying Russia and you need to take this guy out back any means possible.'
In yet another historical analogy, he said Russia needed an 'Eliot Ness or a Wyatt Earp' to take action – this time referencing the prohibition agent who hunted down mobster Al Capone and the lawman who took part in the shootout at the O.K. Corral in 1881 that resulted in the deaths of three outlaws.”
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