LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Putin’s ‘God’ irony

OPINION:

Russian President Vladimir Putin overplayed his hand in his recent op-ed essay in The New York Times — especially at the end, when he brought God into the picture (“Neither Putin nor Obama get it,” Commentary, Sept. 17). This from the leader of a country that has done everything in its power to eradicate religion and replace it with the “religion” of the state.

How many people know about the pogroms that introduced anti-Semitism to the world, courtesy of Tsarist Russia? Or about Stalin’s destruction of most of the Orthodox Catholic churches in the Soviet sphere, across Russia and Eastern Europe?

Mr. Putin has some chutzpah. By the way, as head of the KGB, how many exceptional people’s lives did Mr. Putin destroy?

I didn’t mind it when Mr. Putin was simply making a fool of our president, but now he has taken it a bit too far. However, what would we do without the “Evil Empire”? We wouldn’t know how lucky and exceptional we Americans truly are.

ROBERT ILARIA

New York