Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) took his hawkishness to a new level on Thursday and openly called for someone inside Russia to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?” Graham wrote on Twitter. “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 received bipartisan pushback for his comments. Even Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), a Russia hawk himself, who’s calling for a boycott of Russian gas, called Graham’s suggestion an “exceptionally bad idea.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) slammed Graham as a “blood thirsty warmongering politician.” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said calls for Putin to be killed “aren’t helpful” as the Biden administration is working to “avoid World War III.”
The White House responded to Graham’s call and said that regime change in Russia is not the US’s current policy. “We are not advocating for killing the leader of a foreign country or regime change. That is not the policy of the United States,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.
Russia said Graham’s comments were an example of hysterical “Russophobia” in the US. “Unfortunately, in such an extremely tense atmosphere, there is a hysterical escalation of Russophobia,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov. “These days, not everyone manages to maintain sobriety, I would even say sanity, and many lose their mind.”
In any other country this would be condemned as barbaric conduct for a member of a nation’s government.
I suggest that his behavior HAS been widely condemned by his peers in both Parties.
Even though most of them were thinking the same exact thing.
Yes, but that’s a bug, not a feature.
We’d live in a much better world if every politician in every country lived in 24/7 abject fear of getting the Julius Caesar treatment.
Well said Mr. Knapp…
How so? There would never be a decision made.
You say that like it’s a Bad Thing.
Good point.
As V in “V for Vendetta” said, “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” Actually, governments are – that’s why they make people afraid of them. Typical human behavior.
Should not they like acctually
do some work?
If someone screamed “death to America” or to any US president, you can be certain it would be called terrorism, even if the US invaded another country.
We are the world’s biggest hypocrites.
….by a large margin.
Kind of a new low even for Graham.
The man is a total a–wipe…
Technically he’s correct. I’ve always said assassination of national leaders is a good idea. In fact, I would expand that to assassination of corporate leaders, religious leaders, media leaders, and half the “social influencers”. But that’s just me. 🙂
Such verbosity Mr. Stevenhack. (!)
What you get when you talk to an individualist anarchist. It gets more shocking then that. Look up what individualist anarchists think about society as a whole. Then add in what I think about humans as a species.
The only thing that stopped us from killing putin was he has good security and a failure will cause high level retaliation. But now if things really go bad for Russia they will try to kill him directly or try to engineer a coup. Us will want to reset the Russia China non alliance alliance and taking out putin might lead to someone like a Medvedev coming in. Even if a hardliner comes in us will have time to engineer his removal. What us doesn’t want is putin with popular support and a solid political and state behind him running Russia.
This whole operation of getting a war started has been admitted by some of the players to be about regime change in Russia. Good luck with that. Putin is a judo expert – he’s just turned that into a plan to regime change the entire West. That plan has excellent chances of working – if we don’t have WWIII first.
As I said before I think it’s a massive miscalculation, I also think it is immoral, but I GENUINELY hope I m way off base about the “miscalculation” part and simply lack the intelect to see the big picture plan that’s in motion because putin the man is vitality important to end this unipolar world order
Lindsey Graham, Lindsey Graham… There is never a roll of duct tape nearby when you need one….
Graham was foolish enough to espouse the policy so openly. That is his fault. Allende, Milosevic, Saddam, Qaddafi . Forgetting them? Don’t be sanctimonious to condemn him
It may no longer be foolish; that’s the problem.
Another thing the US can do with zero ramifications. Like invading other countries.
How about we send Lady G to do the job himself?
He is Lady Lindsey…!
Graham proves sanctions are necessary, he should have his big mouth sanctioned, but I guess he doesn’t realize that it’s not what goes into his mouth that defiles him and everyone around him it’s what comes out of his mouth that defiles him just like the Lord says.. The US not only allowed this horrible situation in Ukraine to happen, we are largely responsible for it, starting with the over throw of the legal government, supplying an endless supply of lethal weapons and preparing and encouraging the current government to wage war against Russia whom the west is out to overthrow.
Graham is a conundrum. Is he outraged because of the media hype (according to the UN, the body count is not nearly as high as we’re being led to think it is)? Or is he trying to distance himself from something?
I have never understood why he changed his mind about Trump. I have long wondered if he was bribed or blackmailed.
“I have never understood why he changed his mind about Trump. I have long wondered if he was bribed or blackmailed.”
Which time? Before the election he ripped Trump a new A-hole. After the election he stuck his nose into the far reaches of that A-hole. After the riot he removed his nose and said he was “done” with Trump but lo and behold that nose found its way back up Trumps A-hole. Now, when Trump called Putin a genius Lindsey once again came out for air. Stay tuned for the never-ending saga of Lindsey Graham’s nose. Will it find its way back up that ever-waiting A-hole?
Quit it! I am laughing so hard I am about to wet my pants.
Thanks Mary. I think.
Excellent. You win the thread. I can’t compete.
That shows he should be a mortician rather than a politician…!
Here is a man with no wife and kids, So naturally he has nothing to lose other than his own sorry behind when WW3 breaks out.