We’ve all heard the saying: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” We know the truth of this: we have lived it, and watch in horror as it plays out now, as it has throughout history.
February is a banner month for Vladimir Putin and his regime, marking the anniversaries of three grim and illegal maneuvers led by the Russian President.
February 27, 2014: Putin invaded the Crimean Peninsula, seizing control of that part of Ukraine and occupying and controlling Crimea.
February 24, 2022: Claiming, without a shred of evidence, he was “saving” Ukraine from Neo-Nazis, Putin invaded the country again. He announced his “special military operation,” by declaring war on Ukraine, in direct violation of the U.N. Charter.
February 16, 2024: This date marks the death of Russia’s top opposition leader, Alexei Navalny. After several previous attempts on his life by the Kremlin, he died “of natural causes” while being held in a special penal colony in the Arctic Circle. He was 47 years old.
Putin is now in his fifth term as President of Russia. With 25 years in power (including the four-year period his ‘puppet,’ Dmitry Medvedev, ruled, until Putin could change term limit laws), he is the longest-serving Russian or Soviet leader since Joseph Stalin, and every bit as ruthless as his predecessor.
All that is necessary to know about Putin can be found by hanging out with a willful three-year-old for an hour: he wants what he wants when he wants it. And he is willing to go to any means to get it.
Why do bullies exist? Because they can. How do bullies persist? Because no one opposes them. Finally, how are bullies stopped? Only by standing up to them. The parents or teachers of an obstinate toddler will presumably intervene to curtail their selfish actions. There will be consequences. But who dares to oppose Putin?
Just how much damage can a bully really do? A toddler: minimal. An unopposed and power-hungry leader: monumental. In Putin’s case, the stakes are astronomically high. He demoralizes, imprisons, or murders his own citizens, and attacks independent countries for the resources he wants. The entire country of Ukraine has rich farmland and vast mineral resources, and the Donbas region is one of the richest areas in the world in lithium deposits.
We need only look at recent history to see the consequences of an unleashed, unchecked bully: i.e. Adolph Hitler and the resulting carnage of World War II. An estimated 50 to 60 million people died on the European front as a result of his actions, the deadliest conflict in human history. Over a million are already dead because of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The accompanying photo shows our adoption agency’s “staff” in Kharkiv, Ukraine, celebrating the adoption of our then two-year-old son. Mariana, our in-country facilitator, (second from left) employed her extended family through agency jobs, ensuring their survival in Ukraine’s tough economy. Left to right: Valencia, Marina’s mother, our cook; Dimitri, her cousin, our driver; Mikhail, her son, our “tour guide”; Igor, another cousin, orphanage coordinator; and Valery, yet another cousin, whose apartment we lived in while there.
Kharkiv, in northeast Ukraine and close to the Russian border, has been bombed mercilessly for almost three years. During the first weeks of the war, network news showed Orphanage #4, where our son was, being evacuated as bombs exploded all around.
Likely, many of the people in this photo are now dead.
Innocent people everywhere fall victim to bullies’ malevolence and greed. My husband and I have also adopted from Russia. The people we worked with there were also wonderful, and also victims of Putin’s bullying.
In St. Petersburg, we clearly saw the terror and intimidation by the government in our Russian staff. They rarely smiled, and advised us not to. Smiling marked a foreigner, or someone as daft, as there was not much to smile about. Belied by government propaganda, Russians, too, are Putin’s victims, living in continual fear of his oppressive regime.
Our current and often muddled thinking might have us believe that evil and goodness are hazy definitions. But they are not.
Evil flourishes when it is not stopped, just as bullies continue to bully if they are not opposed. Courage is called for. A world leader instigating his “oligarchy” is the first clue. We must remain constantly vigilant in our own country, and act with conviction in the world.
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.