Reply With Quote
"putin.......where does he go?"
Poles, Czechs: US missile defense shift a betrayal
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090918/...fense_22/print
By VANESSA GERA, Associated Press Writer Vanessa Gera, Associated Press Writer Fri Sep 18, 8:10 am ET
WARSAW, Poland – Poles and Czechs voiced deep concern Friday at President Barack Obama's decision to scrap a Bush-era missile defense shield planned for their countries.
"Betrayal! The U.S. sold us to Russia and stabbed us in the back," the Polish tabloid Fakt declared on its front page.
Polish President Lech Kaczynski said he was concerned that Obama's new strategy leaves Poland in a dangerous "gray zone" between Western Europe and the old Soviet sphere.
Recent events in the region have rattled nerves throughout central and eastern Europe, a region controlled by Moscow during the Cold War, including the war last summer between Russia and Georgia and ongoing efforts by Russia to regain influence in Ukraine. A Russian cutoff of gas to Ukraine last winter left many Europeans without heat.
The Bush administration's plan would have been "a major step in preventing various disturbing trends in our region of the world," Kaczynski said in a guest editorial in the daily Fakt and also carried on his presidential Web site.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said he still sees a chance for Poles and Czechs to participate in the redesigned missile defense system. But that did not appear to calm nerves in Warsaw or Prague.
Kaczynski expressed hopes that the U.S. will now offer Poland other forms of "strategic partnership."
In Prague, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout said he made two concrete proposal to U.S. officials on Thursday in hopes of keeping the U.S.-Czech alliance strong: for the U.S. to establish a branch of West Point for NATO members in Central Europe and to "send a Czech scientist on the U.S. space shuttle to the international space station."
An editorial in Hospodarske Novine, a respected pro-business Czech newspaper, said: "an ally we rely on has betrayed us, and exchanged us for its own, better relations with Russia, of which we are rightly afraid."
The move has raised fears in the two nations they are being marginalized by Washington even as a resurgent Russia leaves them longing for added American protection.
The Bush administration always said that the planned system — with a radar near Prague and interceptors in northern Poland — was meant as defense against Iran. But Poles and Czechs saw it as protection against Russia, and Moscow too considered a military installation in its backyard to be a threat.
"No Radar. Russia won," the largest Czech daily, Mlada Fronta Dnes, declared in a front-page headline.
Obama said the old plan was scrapped in part because the U.S. has concluded that Iran is less focused on developing the kind of long-range missiles for which the system was originally developed, making the building of an expensive new shield unnecessary.
The replacement system is to link smaller radar systems with a network of sensors and missiles that could be deployed at sea or on land. Some of the weaponry and sensors are ready now, and the rest would be developed over the next 10 years.
The Pentagon contemplates a system of perhaps 40 missiles by 2015, at two or three sites across Europe.
_____
"putin.......where does he go?"
oh noes!!!
we have dissapointed the mighty Poles and Cheks!!!
It's America's job to protect European countries from Russia.
Chamberlain, I mean Obama, is doing such a good job. Our new allies like Argentina, Cuba and Russia are going to be so much more beneficial to us than Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Bulgaria, Armania, Azerbaijan, Israel, Columbia, and Estonia. Capitalist countries are too mean to their people.
The Obama Doctrine is marching along.
Thanks for the article, I was under the impression from the Media that the Social Democrats spoke for all of europe.
well Argentine, Cuban and Russian women are hotter
Wait, I thought you conservatives didn't like the UN and didn't care about any European country except England?
wait, where is the evidence that the weapons program we were supporting was preventing Russia from invading Czechs and Poles?
Oh, right, Bush didn't rely on "evidence"...or congressional authority...or anything else remotely related to the democratic process.
The Cold War is over. It didn't really work. It was a stalemate. I for one am glad to have a leader who believes more in diplomacy than in trying to re-create the Cold War.
cheks and poles are just pissed they are not getting the billions that Bush promised them.
Having lived under the bootheel of Russia, they may have a few more concerns than that.
cold war is over.
I think its awesome that Obama is selling out one of our closest allies just for the warm fuzzy feeling it gives him.
This sure does improve our image across the world. People will be lining up to become our allies now.
How much was this missle defense system going to cost?
If our missle defense system is so important to them, let them find a way to pay for it and then we can go back and set it up on their nickel. If that U.S. security blanket is really so important to them they'll still buddy up to us, even if they are pissed at us right now.
So, they're still going to have a system. Just not in Poland or the C.R.The Pentagon contemplates a system of perhaps 40 missiles by 2015, at two or three sites across Europe. That would augment a larger stockpile aboard ships. The replacement system would cost an estimated $2.5 billion, compared with $5 billion over the same timeframe under the old plan. The cost savings would be less, however, because the Pentagon is locked into work on some elements of the old system.
Obama absolutely recanted a "done" deal. The big problem is that the governments were for it against the majority of their people's wishes. Now that it won't be happening, or not for a while, those politicians' efforts were in vain and may cost them their positions. Politicians don't like putting their ass on the line only to get burned.
"The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles."
Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
Obama said the old plan was scrapped in part because the U.S. has concluded that Iran is less focused on developing the kind of long-range missiles for which the system was originally developed, making the building of an expensive new shield unnecessary.
The replacement system is to link smaller radar systems with a network of sensors and missiles that could be deployed at sea or on land. Some of the weaponry and sensors are ready now, and the rest would be developed over the next 10 years.
The Pentagon contemplates a system of perhaps 40 missiles by 2015, at two or three sites across Europe.
Putin laugh at idea a Missle Defense Shield can stop him. He is like Mighty Thor.
According to numerous news sources something like 70% of Poles and Czechs were against these systems and bases being put up in the first place
I don't have any heartburn of this decision. Especially if, according to the DoD, we have other systems to compensate.
But, damn, doing this on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland is a bit insensitive, don't'cha think? And, the President of the Czech Republic says President Obama woke him at midnight to break the news.
But, I don't know enough to know if this is betrayal or not. Just another example of the Obama administration's stellar diplomacy.
Probably this is to get Russia's cooperation on Iran.
I think Poles and Czechs were against putting this in their countries right up until Russia invaded Georgia, at which point they changed their minds in a hurry. Anyway, Poland and Czech are in NATO and halfway in the EU, so it's not like they are now part of the Eastern Bloc.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
