Illegal takeover of Greenland raises a memorny about an alternative: Re-Open Loring Air Force Base instead!

Viewing aurora borealis in Aroostook County, Maine
Echo opinion letter published in The County.
https://thecounty.me/2025/03/26/caribou/greenland-or-loring/

To the editor:  As Donald Trump blusters about illegally seizing Greenland for America’s national defense, maybe every resident in Aroostook County, Maine can call the White House and remind them about the Loring Air Force Base*.

In 1993, they deployed the Base Realignment and Closure [Commission], which was originally meant to decrease the defense budget. But what happened❓ They closed down Loring, which was a major economic driver for this region of the state of Maine, besides a strategic location for national defense. They moved all the planes and staff and money to the southern states of Alabama and Mississippi and left Aroostook barren without any federal economic driver to build up and maintain the region.

I know the MAGA cult crowd loves to do their own research, so I invite them to look up the numbers for defense budget from 1993 to 2024. How much was each year as we get to today? All that money, not spent in Aroostook over the time period.

In 1960, Aroostook County had a population of 120,000 residents. Today, we barely scratch at 70,000 people. Granted the base was comprised of a maximum of 7,000 military personnel for its capacity. But, how many residents, working, running businesses were an offshoot supporting the base and its staff? Many.

Every resident in Aroostook County, especially the cult MAGA [proponents], should be lighting up the White House switchboards (202-456-1111) demanding the reopening of Loring Air Force Base and to STOP wasting time by going after Greenland.

Call Senators Susan Collins and Angus. Call Representative Jared Golden. Tell them that Loring base needs to reopen, period, now. Aroostook prosperity depends on it and America’s national defense requires it.

From John Orlando in Van Buren, Maine (Aroostook County)

*Limestone, Maine: 30 years after its closure, veterans share memories of Loring Air Force Base: Those who served at Loring will always remember the base for the crucial and sometimes frightening role it played at the height of the Cold War. Two veterans who were stationed at the base and still live near it recently shared stories of their service and the base’s history.

In 1947, the U.S. Air Force chose Aroostook County to host one of the new Strategic Air Command bases, meant to house and possibly deploy nuclear weapons. The move came when the U.S. was engaging in a nuclear weapons arms race against the former Soviet Union, now Russia.

Evil war criminal Vladimir Putin

Putin reveals himself as a war criminal and dictator:

Vladimir Putin wearing layers of bullet proof vests in staged fake rally to spread misinformation-propaganda about the Ukraine invasion.

Echo opinion letter published in the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

Regarding “’Why? Why? Why?’ Ukraine’s Mariupol descends into despair” (March 16): The world has finally witnessed the unveiling of the real Vladimir Putin, as an evil manifested in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

He is a despicable, abhorrent dictator who’s trying to resurrect the old Soviet Union and cares not a bit how many innocent people his Russian troops slaughter. 

Terrorists shelled Mariupol neighborhoods with Grad rocket systems. Houses destroyed. There are killed and wounded. Source: https://censor.net/en/n321396

Putin rules in the same mold as despots like Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler.

Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Putin has sought to make freedom-loving Ukraine into a Russian puppet state. I doubt if sanctions will stop Putin, just as they haven’t deterred North Korea or Iran. Evil people like Putin understand only one thing: force.

Evil Putin is a war criminal who has now become a pariah, and hopefully one day he will be brought before the International Court of Justice and tried for crimes against humanity. In the meanwhile, Ukraine continues to teach the world a valuable, profound, lesson in bravery and courage.

From Gene Carton, in University City, an inner-ring suburb of the city of St. Louis, in Missouri.

Opinion: North Atlantic Treaty Organization - An international partnership

A strong echo guest editorial published in the Arkansas Times Record newspaper written by Senator John Boozman* the Republican Senator from Arkansas:

This editorial opinion by Senator Boozman should be required reading for the White House leaders and all of Congress.

When the Second World War came to an end, the uneasy alliance between Western powers and the Soviet Union quickly dissolved into acrimony and tension. 

While European nations struggled to rebuild from the devastation, they were forced to grapple with an increasingly hostile and aggressive Soviet Union. It was amid this backdrop that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was born.

The Soviet Union no longer exists, but the threat of a hostile and aggressive superpower in eastern Europe remains. Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian Navy vessels is the latest in a long line of aggressive actions undertaken by Vladimir Putin’s regime. Putin has overseen the hostile annexation of Crimea, destabilization in Syria, election meddling in Western democracies and a litany of additional aggressions. The need for a strong NATO is as important as ever.
As a former member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA), I firmly believe that strong relationships with our NATO allies are vital to confronting the security and economic challenges of the 21st century. The assembly, while institutionally separate from NATO, provides a critical forum for international parliamentary dialogue on an array of security, political and economic matters. Members of parliament from NATO countries are key to ensuring that the alliance’s funding obligations are met and the case for NATO actions is conveyed to the public.

I recently joined my NATO PA counterparts from other nations in Nova Scotia, Canada to discuss critical issues facing our alliance. 

Discussions like these, where members of parliament from member countries participate, are vital to influencing NATO decisions.

The American delegation demonstrated and reaffirmed the strong Congressional support of NATO. While leaders from the allied nations won’t always be on the same the page on every issue, including the amount of defense spending each nation commits, that does not diminish the U.S. commitment to the alliance. We will continue to encourage other member nations to meet the agreed upon defense spending levels — which not all nations have done as President Trump and his predecessors have noted — but that does not conflict with the fact that the U.S. still views the alliance as immensely valuable to global security.

Pushing for all nations to uphold spending obligations is meaningless unless we continue to lead by example.

That is why I consistently support funding for NATO programs and included funding for the NATO Security Investment Program — which provides infrastructure for NATO’s response to challenges posed by Russia and threats from the Middle East and North Africa — in the Senate Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (MilCon-VA) Appropriations bill I authored.

NATO PA’s principal objective is to foster mutual understanding of key security challenges facing the transatlantic partnership. Our bipartisan, bicameral delegation traveled to Canada with that in mind and brought a strong message of support for democratic values around the world, as well as our continued commitment to NATO and our allies. Our discussions and debates are important to developing consensus and bolstering alliance policies. Maintaining this open global dialogue helps protect and advance our foreign policy goals as we strive to expand democratic ideals and shape policies to protect our interests — and those of our allies —a broad.

*Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., has represented Arkansas in the U.S. Senate since 2011.