U.S. Picks Wrong Moment To Poke The Russian Bear

[Purveyor]

NOT to pursue the imagery too far, but America is toying with the Russian bear that now lives just beyond the edge of America's new backyard, the countries formerly in the purview of the former Soviet Union that are now in NATO.

The administration is talking about positioning pieces of its beloved $90 billion Star Wars ballistic-missile defense system, which hasn't been shown to work yet, in Poland and the Czech Republic. The envisaged elements of the system would be poised on the border between NATO and Russia, but the administration is claiming that it would be directed against possible attacks by North Korean or Iranian missiles.

To put the system on the border with Russia and say that it is directed against North Korea and Iran might offer Russia a fig leaf of self-respect, but it would also invite the Russians to allow themselves to be painted and treated by America as stupid. It is the equivalent of the United States building a fence along the Mexican border and claiming it is there to keep North African immigrants out of the United States.

The honest Russian response was to tell Poland and the Czech Republic that it was fair enough for them to accept their new responsibilities in NATO by agreeing to the installation of the U.S. missile system on their soil, but that Russia would have to consider among its responses the re-targeting of its own missiles against Poland and the Czech Republic. Those two countries immediately screeched that the Russians were threatening them. The Russian response was that it wasn't a threat and that it had been uttered by one general, albeit the commander of its strategic missile force.

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http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070228/OPINION04/702280395/-1/OPINION

[bigluckyfeet]

1. This is no different

Than Russia putting missiles in cuba,but now the US thinks it alright to put them in eastern Europe.