Consolation-Prize Polish Missiles
Wednesday, April 27th, 2011You may recall how George W. Bush had big plans for a Europe-based anti-missile shield, mainly aimed against anything that might come flying from Iran. The radar and control installations were to be based in the Czech Republic, while the interceptor missiles themselves would be in Poland. But then Barack Obama became President, considered that such a set-up would be too expensive – and would also probably rile the Russians a bit too much – and so canceled the whole plan, on the symbolically-important date of 17 September 2009.
(Symbolically-important only to the Poles, as that is the anniversary of their invasion by forces of the Soviet Union, back in 1939 when they were already trying to fight off German forces attacking from the West, that effectively sealed their fate and sentenced them to five years of brutal occupation. Apparently not so symbolically-important to, say, the US State Department, which must be suffering from a shortage of anyone with an awareness of modern Polish history.)
So too bad, that’s it then, right? Not so fast, as this recent tweet from the leading Polish national daily Rzeczpospolita reminds us:
This tells us of the recent signing by Polish President Bronisław Komorowski, following ratification by the Polish Parliament, the Sejm, of the US-Polish agreement initialed back on July 3, 2010, to let Poland station some US-made, US-controlled interceptor missiles after all. For when it comes to US allies and American missiles, everyone is a winner and all must have prizes! (more…)
