Katrina vanden Heuvel: Bush Defense Follies (continued)

[marmar]

From The Nation:

BLOG | Posted 04/03/2007 @ 3:25pm
Bush Defense Follies (continued)


Here's another nominee for the Best Bush Folly--the Administration's latest plan to expand its "missile defense shield" by locating a radar base and 10 missile interceptors in the Czech Republic and Poland, respectively.

While too few among our pundit and political class are willing to expose the insanity of this plan, Czech and Polish citizens appear to have more sense --and guts.

According to the Financial Times, 70 percent of Czechs oppose the shield and Poles are evenly split – the latter is especially "surprising in a country that sees itself as the most pro-American in Europe."

Jan Neoral, the mayor of the Czech village of Trokavec where the radar site would be positioned, "…feels the US and Czech governments are lying about the dangers posed by the radars and the possible economic benefits that will accrue to villages in the area." In a village referendum on the radar 71 of 72 votes were against!

"Trokavec will get nothing but this harmful radar," Neoral told the Financial Times.

Many Poles would agree with Neoral's assessment. Even Radek Sikorski, Poland's Secretary of Defense until February of this year (and also a former fellow at a neocon think tank in DC who maintains many close contacts and friends in the US government), thinks this plan is a terrible idea. Writing in a Washington Post op-ed Sikorski put it bluntly: "… the war in Iraq has dented Central European trust. The spectacle of the US secretary of state at the UN Security Council solemnly presenting intelligence that proved unreliable shook our faith. Our old-fashioned expectation that the United States would show gratitude for our participation in Iraq also proved misplaced. Public perceptions of America are plummeting, while opposition to U.S.-led military operations, and above all to the proposed missile site, grows." Sikorski is particularly strong in laying out the potential for this proposal to "provoke a spiral of misunderstanding, weaken NATO, deepen Russian paranoia and cost the United States some of its last friends on the continent." .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=181839