“He forgot Poland” George W. Bush famously complained during that first presidential debate last week. And so John Kerry apparently did. And what about Poland, and specifically its roughly 2,500 soldiers now serving in Iraq? We’re out of there by December, 2005, no matter what happens, is the essence of what Polish defense minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski announced in an interview published yesterday in the leading Polish national newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.

A pretty definitive statement, you would think. And, by the way, a resounding scoop for Gazeta, since no other on-line Polish newspaper treated Szmajdzinkski’s remarks until today, and that mostly in reaction to the splash he had made in yesterday’s interview. But unfortunately it’s not so simple as all that: Gazeta had several pieces accompanying that interview – as do other newspapers today – basically passing on a message of “don’t listen to Szmajdzinski!” from other leading Polish politicians, to include such figures as the President and Prime Minister! The situation is muddled, then, to say the least. (more…)

Back to serious tragedies now, inevitably having to do with Iraq. In fact, today’s reports in the Polish press about the death of two Polish soldiers echo quite a lot of a similar incident I discussed here a few days ago which killed a Dutch soldier. (more…)

The current crisis concerning the situation in Iraq (e.g. continuing open rebellion, uncertain transitional government to which to “transfer sovereignty” on 30 June, just to name a few of the headline things) is hardly going unnoticed in Poland. This is another country which has significant numbers of troops on the ground there, in fact right at the main hot spots, i.e. in the Shiite-dominated south. Back in the early days of the occupation – back when sectors were being chosen for Coalition allies – that area was considered a safe bet to stay “cold.” After all, the country’s Shiite majority had long been oppressed particularly egregiously by Saddam, no?, and so should be particularly grateful and cooperative in the aftermath of his toppling. But that’s just another aspect that has gone wrong with the “plan” – and while we’re on that topic, check out this.

I thought about making this entry the latest in €S’ “Poles in Iraq” series (it would be entry number X – yes, we number them here like the NFL numbers the Super Bowls), but that’s not quite going to fit. (more…)

Whether it constitutes a shameful retreat in the face of terrorist attack, or an angry reaction to an incumbent government trying to twist the facts surrounding a national tragedy to its own ends – we’ve already covered all of that here, at least from the German point-of-view, and it doesn’t matter anymore, since José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is now the Spanish premier as of last weekend and the Spanish troops will withdraw from Iraq. What is new and interesting is what Zapatero and his Defense Minister, José Bono, promptly announced with almost unseemly haste just after assuming office: that they will withdraw those as soon as possible. You might remember that, in the wake of the 11 March Madrid train bombings and the victory of Zapatero’s Socialist Party in the ensuing Spanish general election, the new prospect of the Spanish troop withdrawal was at least couched in the fig leaf that such a withdrawal would be canceled if operations in Iraq were put under a proper United Nations basis by the passing of a suitable UN Security Council resolution. Now that fig leaf is tossed aside: the Spanish troops are basically outa there, and as fast as possible consistent with security concerns, meaning in effect in six weeks or even less. George W. Bush is not pleased.

Spanish troops now make up the third-largest national contingent in the Polish-assigned sector in southern Iraq – once thought to be a quiet backwater since the area is dominated by Shiites, but now containing some hot spots indeed, like Najaf and Karbala. (So reports Gazeta Wyborcza, without naming contingents numbers 1 and 2 – I’m guessing that those are the American and Polish troops, respectively.) So how do the Polish authorities feel about the Spanish action? Let’s take a look at their national press. (more…)

It’s time to resuscitate the long-dormant “Poles in Iraq” series, dealing as it does with coverage in the Polish press of what’s happening with that contingent of Polish soldiers sent to perform occupation duty – indeed, to command a sector – in support of Coalition forces. And you probably can figure out why now is a good time to bring “Poles in Iraq” back to life: the country is in an uproar, or at least the central “Sunni triangle” is (which has already been in at least a state of simmering rebellion since the war) as well as the heretofore quiet Shiite-dominated south, which is exactly where the Poles command their very multi-national occupation force, because it was considered a safe part of the country back when the occupations were drawn up.

Now that is no longer true, what with the uprising lead by the young Shiite cleric as-Sadr and his “Mahdi Army,” which is still in control of parts of a number of southern cities. I was looking for a good account of all of this in the Polish press, one that didn’t just repeat the general news reports about what was currently happening but that also included some Polish angle for the local readers. There was coverage, of course, but coverage that didn’t really meet this criterion, in Gazeta Wyborcza (generally) and in Dziennik Polski (Calm Before the Storm?), but the series of articles on one webpage published by Rzeczpospolita (starting at the top with Every Day a Kidnapping) was better. (more…)

As you all well know, almost-simultaneous bombs set off in several Madrid commuter trains during the morning rush-hour last Thursday killed over 200 people, and wounded many, many more. Then Spanish general elections followed on Sunday; in a result that took many observers by surprise, the Spanish Socialist and Workers’ Party, i.e. the opposition, emerged as the winner, with that party’s leader, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, posed to take over as prime minister instead of the hand-picked successor (Mariano Rajoy) to José Maria Aznar of the ruling (right-wing) Partido Popular.

Aznar of course had been one of US President George W. Bush’s stoutest allies when it came to the War in Iraq, and 1,300 Spanish troops are still stationed in the Polish sector there. Mounting evidence suggests that last Thursday’s massacres on the rail-lines of Madrid were the work of some sort of Arab-linked terrorist organization; so that the thought has come to not-a-few that Spain was being punished for that support for the US with these attacks, and that the Spanish electorate reacted to them drastically by removing the regime that would bring this sort of punishment down on them.

So: Is Aznar’s loss a victory for terrorists? That question is posed in an on-line article by Kathleen Knox from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. It is answered in the affirmative in today’s New York Times by regular columnist David Brooks – he asks in his column Al Qaeda’s Wish List “What is the Spanish word for appeasement?”, although he also claims to be resisting the conclusion that “swing Spanish voters are shamefully trying to seek a separate peace in the war on terror.” That’s basically the same answer given by Edward Luttwak, on the very same NYT Op-Ed page, in Rewarding Terror in Spain, which starts out “It must be said: Spanish voters have allowed a small band of terrorists to dictate the outcome of their national elections.” (But the NYT editorial board disagrees.)

But that’s all English-language; you already know about all that. Let’s check what the German press has to say. (more…)

Today it’s back to the Polish press again. You know that I seldom like to deal with the same national press two times in a row, but this time it is justified by a noteworthy milestone in our sporadic “Poles in Iraq” series: the first Polish soldier died in Iraq last Thursday. Actually, it was no mere soldier who was killed, but a Major Hieronim Kupczyk. As you can imagine, coverage in the main Polish papers is extensive.

That is to say, in Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita. I honestly do try to broaden my coverage of the Polish press to include other publications than those two, but consistently fail to find coverage worth reporting on issues that I’m interested in. For example, here is the report of Maj. Kupczyk’s funeral in the Kraków-based Dziennik Polski, but it essentially reports merely that the funeral was held, notable figures spoke at it (e.g. General Tyszkiewicz, commanding the Polish-run multinational division), the Iraqi police and other national contingents contributed guards of honor, everyone was sad, etc.

Rzeczpospolita did a rather more-complete job in its Friday edition, here, complete with a recent photo of Maj. Kupczyk up top, clearly in Iraq, under camouflage netting and in his Polish-style desert uniform. (more…)

The day has finally come! – and even passed! I mean the day when the Polish occupation sector in Iraq officially came under Polish command, obviously a crucial event for our “Poles in Iraq” series.

Fortunately, I grabbed the relevant URLs while I still was in the US, so that I can still access the articles in the Polish press even if they are a day or two old. And now I am back at home-base in Amsterdam and can check out what they say.

Interestingly, the best account of the hand-over ceremony – and the issues surrounding the start of the Polish command – I find in the Krakow-based Dziennik Polski, in the article which appeared a few days ago entitled W Wiezy Babel, or “In the Tower of Babel.” As we will see, that reference to Babel is not just some headline-writer’s facile trick, taking advantage of the fact that this is all taking place in the area where the original Tower of Babel was said to have been built, but actually has some present-day relevance as well. (more…)

Today we progress towards fulfilling yesterday’s mention of current French points-of-view towards the Coalition troubles in Iraq. The on-line dailies are treating the subject hit-or-miss (see a review of a contribution from Libération at bottom). But what’s that over there on Le Monde diplomatique? That’s the sister-publication to Le Monde – of course – but it comes out monthly, and so with longer, “deeper” articles which are mostly opinion-pieces that take a broader look at current affairs. And on the front page of the latest (Sept. 2003) issue we have L’onde du chaos (“The Wave of Chaos”), an examination of Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Bush Administration by writer Alain Gresh.

Le Monde diplomatique can be relied upon to lay out a “French” point-of-view carefully fashioned to be about as opposite to what the American administration would want you to believe as possible, short of setting up your own direct feed to Osama bin-Laden’s propaganda department. But stepping out of the confines of Fox News and the various other US media outlets which often are but thinly-disguised cheerleaders for administration policy, to be confronted with a foreigner’s viewpoint, is what this site is supposed to be all about, right? (Or is it instead about foreigners discovering the various innovations that make America great, such as Hooters Air? Or America discovering the innovations that make Europe great, like medically-prescribed marijuana? Just let me know.) (more…)

I’ve always envied Miami Herald humor columnist Dave Barry‘s seemingly endless supply of “alert readers,” ready to send word to him whenever they catch sight of any phenomenon out there having to do with the subject at hand – in Dave Barry’s case, namely the bizarre. But now even I am starting to attract “alert readers,” one of whom pointed my attention to a recent article in the British newspaper The Independent about how the Americans are not ready yet to give up to Polish-controlled forces quite all of the vital sector that is supposed to be entrusted to them as of 1 September, not in light of recent troubles within that sector.

Of course, the “€S way” is to take any such English-language reporting as merely an initial guide, and then to go seek confirmation and possible amplification in the relevant foreign press. Sure enough, Gazeta Wyborcza also recently had an article telling about, and analyzing, this new development. (more…)

Room with a View on the Euphrates: that’s the title of yesterday’s piece in the leading Polish Daily Rzeczpospolita updating the progress of the Polish contingent of troops that is now mostly in Kuwait, acclimatizing itself there and training in preparation to take over its assigned occupation sector in Iraq at the beginning of next month. (more…)

Now that we’ve been on the subject in recent days of the support in various countries for the deployment of their troops on occupation duty in Iraq (Hungary and Poland already discussed), this article from the Reformatorisch Dagblad is timely. “Most of the Dutch are for military support in Iraq,” it proclaims in its headline. The particulars (from a survey of one thousand respondents undertaken by the Amsterdam-based TNS NIPO research organization): 60% of those polled supported the Dutch cabinet’s decision to send troops to Iraq, while “almost one-third” want no Dutch military presence in Iraq. Such support comes mainly from the right-wing of the Dutch political spectrum (from CDA and VVD members – and those are the two main parties making up the present governing coalition). Tellingly, 48% of those surveyed considered the actual danger that there will be Dutch killed or wounded to be small; 45% thought that the risk was substantial. Unfortunately, there’s no indication in the article of any attempt to get closer to the “cut-and-run” question that has been the central theme of recent €S coverage: i.e. what degree of Dutch casualties would cause you to start to advocate the unilateral withdrawal from Iraq of the Dutch troops there?

“There are Dutch troops in Iraq?” you may ask. Yes indeed: currently around 1,100 of them deployed in the south, under British command. But it seems that they are slated to pass under Polish command once the Poles and their allies deploy and take over their assigned sector at the beginning of next month. This article here (in English, but from the on-line Agenzia Giornalistica Italia) speaks of both Italy and the Netherlands balking at having to place their troops under Polish command. I don’t find anything yet from the Dutch press to substantiate this unseemly allied squabble, but I will keep on the look-out and let you know of anything that comes up.

Back to Poland, and on the news front there’s still little to report concerning the current deployment of Polish troops to the Middle East for eventual duty in the Polish security sector in Iraq. What I find today I find in Gazeta Wyborcza (and I confess that not everything cited here is dated 7 August). There’s this news item about further troops flying out: About 250 soldiers this time, of the Tenth Mechanized Battalion, flying out of Wroclaw, their commander proudly mentions that they’ve been well-trained for their mission, starting from the end of last year, peace-keeping, building-searching, convoy-running, yada yada. Much better is this: Been wondering exactly where the Polish sector in Iraq is going to be? Then check out this dynamite map on Gazeta Wyborcza‘s site (in .jpg format, and of course with accompanying Polish text). Looks like they drew the short straw: Their area straddles the Tigris and Euphrates just south of Baghdad, and includes such past trouble-spots as Karbala, Najaf, and al-Hilla. Well wait a second, this is in the mostly Shiite region, and I do believe that the Shiites have become more cooperative with the occupation lately, at least to some extent. (See my recent reporting from the German press about the plum cabinet jobs Shiite politicians are being assigned by the Governing Council.) Most violent trouble these days – or at least most reported trouble – seems to come from Baghdad and the “Sunni triangle” further north, places like Tikrit and around al-Fallujah.

If the news side is still sparse, on the commentary side we’ve hit the mother lode with Maciej Letowski’s piece for Gazeta Wyborcza entitled Nikt nie rodzi sie zolnierzem, or “Nobody Is Born a Soldier.” (more…)

As the 2,500 Polish troops deploy this week into Kuwait, preliminary to their taking over responsibility for their security sector in Iraq at the beginning of next month, they can at least be thankful that not too many of them read Hungarian. (Indeed, as we know well, few people outside Hungary and the Hungarian populations in the regions of the immediate vicinity enjoy that privilege.) You remember that mortaring last Thursday of the Iraqi base in the future Polish sector? It may have not caused any sort of casualties, it may not even have caused any material damage other than some clods of earth being transferred from here to there, but that base will be for the use of not only the Poles but their allied troops as well, including Romanians and Hungarians, thank you very much. If there were incoming mortar rounds then, there surely could easily be more where those came from, and the Hungarians are already starting to get nervous, if recent comments to the (Hungarian) press by defense minister Ferenc Juhász (in English: Frank Shepherd) are any indication. (more…)

As I mentioned in my last post, yesterday was when Polish soldiers started to fly out to their security mission as part of the occupying forces in Iraq – via a first stop in Kuwait. Amid continuing light-to-non-existent coverage in the on-line Polish press, at least an article in today’s on-line Gazeta Wyborcza does discuss these events, but not in any great amplitude. We do find out from which airports the soldiers are flying out (Goleniowo, near Szczecin – up near the Baltic coast – and Strachowice, which is Wroclaw’s airport, and so way down in Lower Silesia near the Czech border). But we don’t find out how many flights, when they will actually take off, or how many soldiers will be in each such airplane – this is confidential for security reasons, as Polish Defense Ministry press spokesman Colonel Eugeniusz Mleczak explains to the Gazeta Wyborcza reporter. All told, 2,400 Polish soldiers will be in Iraq, taking care of Poland’s assigned security zone there, joined by contingents from other nations, under Polish command, to result in a total of over 9,000 soldiers to work with in that sector.

All Polish soldiers taking part in Poland’s peace-keeping mission in Iraq, the article states, are volunteers.

A brief accompanying article (apparently transcribed from a Radio TOK FM broadcast) reveals that the Polish chemical warfare contingent which is already in Iraq is soon to be withdrawn back to Poland – no word on when, no word on how many soldiers make it up – because it is no longer realistic to talk of a chemical threat there.

After considerable time, effort, and expense (see previous posts for the details), my Polish has been considerably re-charged. And just in time, too: this first week in August marks the deployment of Polish troops to the Middle East, to eventually take up security duties in the assigned Polish security sector in Iraq. To be more specific, the Polish troops first fly to Kuwait – starting today, 4 August – to start with two weeks of acclimatization. Then they will join the 400 Polish troops already in Iraq for some military exercises. Finally, around 3 September they will begin formally taking up security responsibility for their assigned sector, in central Iraq to the north of Babylon. The International Division in charge of that sector, under Polish command, will number some 9,300 troops of 25 different nationalities.

For me, this offers a fascinating parallel phenomenon to the experiences of the American and British troops already present in Iraq and trying to bring some security and rebuilding to that country. So I think it might be interesting, for me and for the burgeoning ranks of my beloved readers, to start a semi-regular “Iraq Watch” feature in which I try to report from the Polish press on current Polish attitudes to what their troops are doing over there. As we know too well, things are going rather less well than expected for the American troops, who have been dying in low but regular numbers (to accidents, but also rather often as the result of deliberate attacks) since major combat there ceased back in April. For British troops, too, I hasten to add. Similar difficulties for the Poles seem inevitable. Indeed, last Thursday as President Alkesander Kwasniewski was bidding the troops farewell at two different, widely-separated military bases in Poland, someone was already mortaring a Polish base inside Iraq – but causing no casualties or even material damage, according to the BBC World Service report.

Poland is new at this sort of thing; actually, as I remember how it was expressed in a commentary I heard on Polish radio, the Poles are different from the Brits and the Americans in that their history (and particularly their recent history) has in fact been one of being the occupied, not the occupier. Will this matter? Might this make them more sensitive to the plight of local Iraqis, and so able to enjoy better, more peaceful relations with them? Poland is new to NATO, new to overseas deployments; make no mistake that there is doubt out there as to whether they are up to the assignment, notwithstanding the help they will be provided by twenty-four other nation-friends. Of course, I wish them well, but the Polish deployment should still be rather interesting to observe – starting from the assertion in one picture caption that those troops will surely be over there for (only) six months – and I invite you to look over my shoulder as I do so. (more…)