Czech and Polish support for missile defence bases

As in the US citizenries opposition to the Iraq war opposition to the base is 60 to 70 percent but the government pays no attention but is eager to kowtow to Bush in the hope of a friendly gesture such as easier entry to the US.

For U.S. Base, Bush Finds Czech Enthusiasm, Polish Reserve

by Zoltán Dujisin
U.S. President George W. Bush this week discussed a U.S. missile base in Eastern Europe with Polish and Czech officials, but the results were merely words, and the two European countries showed some naivety as international players.

There were great expectations from two of Washington's most faithful allies, but the young democracies revealed, each in their own way, that they are still learning how to deal with the world's superpower.

During Bush's short stopover to meet with Polish President Lech Kaczynski Friday, both officials insisted on their commitment to the project that would place a radar in the Czech Republic and an antimissile base in Poland to protect the "free world" from missile attacks by "rogue states."

But Polish backing for the project comes amidst growing concern by pundits and the media alike that Warsaw's faithful support and military contributions to U.S. interventions abroad have not been reciprocated by Washington – which does not allow Poles to enter the United States without a visa.

Radowlaw Sikorski, former minister of national defense, was clear in reminding Poles that "Iraq and Afghanistan were our gestures of friendship towards the United States. The shield will be another gesture. The time has come for a tangible gesture of reciprocity."

The discussions were, however, given a jolt by a surprise offer from Russia – which had until now staunchly opposed the missile defense project, doubting the rationale given – to Washington to build the infrastructure at its radar station in Qabala, Azerbaijan.

Bush promised to study the "interesting" proposal.

"The surprise proposal really changed a lot. The Eastern European visit might not be important after this," Jan Drahokoupil, analyst at the Czech Economy and Society Trust, told IPS. "We have to wait to see what [President Vladimir] Putin's proposal actually means."

But Russia has already announced what rejecting its offer would mean: "If the Americans turn down this Russian proposal on some pretext, then it will be clear once and for all that the true target of their project is not only a hypothetical Iranian or North Korean threat, but also to limit Russia's nuclear potential, which we could have guessed earlier," Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the State Duma's international affairs committee, said in a press conference.

The short visit to Poland was markedly different from Bush's reception in Prague, where the Czech political elite proved its honeymoon with the freedom-preaching United States still resonates in a country deeply resentful of its communist past.

With a few exceptions, Czech media proudly celebrated Bush's choice of Prague to kick off his European tour, despite strong grassroots opposition to the radar base.

The visit "brought the public media discourse in the Czech Republic back to the era of Normalization (post-1968 communist rule in then Czechoslovakia). It was similar to the coverage of Brezhnev's visit to Czechoslovakia," Drahokoupil told IPS.

"Czech political commentators agreed how important the country became as a result of the visit. There was absolutely no critical reflection, just adoration, and Czech organizers did not even allow questions in the press conference," the analyst said.

The latest polls suggest public opinion did not change as a result of the visit, with opposition to the radar remaining at 60 to 70 percent of those surveyed. "If media propaganda is too direct, it has little effect," Drahokoupil added.

But Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek warned his passive population that Europe's lack of will to defend itself had been its biggest problem throughout the past century. A few days before, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Vondra insinuated that Czechs could be facing compulsory military service if they reject the radar.

The prime minister is concerned over plans to hold a referendum on the radar. Opposition parties and even smaller groups in the governing coalition are either against the base or would only allow it within the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

But Topolanek disappointed his own supporters when claiming that the issue of waiving the U.S. visa requirement for Czech citizens traveling to that country was not connected with the stationing of the U.S. base in Czech territory. Instead, he promised advantages in the fields of technologies, science and research in cooperating with the United States.

Yet Bush, well aware of the points he might score with average Poles and Czechs by lifting U.S. visa requirements, promised to convince U.S. lawmakers to follow through.

The U.S. president tried to appease the opposition and much of Europe by promising to coordinate the system within NATO and not just negotiate bilaterally. He also told Czechs there was no need to choose between Russia and the United States, as the Cold War was over.

The event was hardly disturbed by a few small anti-Bush demonstrations in the streets of Prague, but some wanted to make sure he felt at home, to the embarrassment of some of the more sober-minded Czechs.

Concerned that "the Americans could get the feeling that nobody here would remember who liberated the country and then has never occupied it," Czech Defense Minister Vlasta Parkanova tried to charm the U.S. president by offering him a CD with a pro-U.S. song performed by the minister herself.

This was "an illustration of the Czech government's approach to Bush," Drahokoupil told IPS.

The song, which borrows the melody of a famous Czech hit celebrating Yuriy Gagarin's arrival to space in 1961, was televised with images of U.S. and Czech flags, a radar installation and a Czech government building in the background.

"Tell the guys who live on the stars; tell the guys who live in outer space. Tell them that we want to live in peace, but we prefer clothes from Uncle Sam," the minister's lyrics go, before ending with a "we know who has freed us back then in May 1945."

(Inter Press Service)

Bush and Harper on Missile Defence in Eastern Europe

This article is by James Laxer
I wonder if anyone really believes that this defence system is directed against Iran and North Korea! Does Bush really think of the consequences of his actions ever! He really doesn't seem to care if he restarts a global arms race. I guess he thinks that the US must win!

Dumb and Dumber: Bush and Harper on Missile Defence in Eastern Europe

Why has the Bush administration decided to provoke Russia by announcing that the United States will install a part of its anti-ballistic missile system in the Czech Republic and Poland?

One could imagine that such a strategically important move was the outgrowth of penetrating thinking in the White House and the Pentagon. But, it is no such thing. It’s just plain dumb.

First, some background on anti-ballistic missiles.

To many, the idea of an anti-ballistic missile system may sound benign. After all, it’s a defensive weapon, whose only capability is to intercept incoming missiles.

In reality, defensive weapons have offensive implications. The distinction between them is a phony one. That is because the deployment of a defensive weapon that negates a potential foe’s offensive weapons, upsets the military balance and can trigger an arms race. What the Bush administration has in mind with missile defence is precisely to change the military balance in its favour.The Bush administration believes that if the United States is successful in developing and deploying a system that can reliably shoot down approaching enemy missiles, it will protect the U.S. from attack. But it will do much more than that. A workable missile shield would liberate the United States to do what no power has been willing to do since the last days of the Second World War---use nuclear weapons as a viable policy in certain extreme circumstances.In March 2002, the details of a secret Pentagon report were revealed on the front page of the New York Times. In its Nuclear Posture Review, the Pentagon pointed to the need to produce new nuclear weapons with a lower yield than strategic nuclear weapons, weapons that would produce less radioactive fallout. The Review spelled out the possible use of nuclear weapons by the United States against non-nuclear powers, such as Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya, all of them signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. What made this so shocking is that the Review countenanced an explicit violation of the treaty, which was signed by 182 countries, including Canada.In 1978, to give nations an incentive to sign the non-proliferation treaty, the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain formally pledged never to launch a nuclear attack on signatories to the treaty, except in a case where a non-nuclear state attacked a nuclear state in tandem with another nuclear state. Again in 1995, France and China joined these three states (with Russia in place of the Soviet Union) in reiterating this pledge. As former U.S. Defence Secretary Robert McNamara and Thomas Graham Jr. wrote in a newspaper column "the Pentagon plan undermines the credibility of that pledge, which underpins the Nonproliferation Treaty. To strike directly at this pledge of nonuse is to strike at the treaty itself." "If another country were planning to develop a new nuclear weapon," said the New York Times in an editorial "and contemplating preemptive strikes against a list of non-nuclear powers, Washington would rightly label that nation a dangerous rogue state."To develop new nuclear weapons that can be used with impunity behind the protection of the missile shield is the reason the Bush administration opposes the U.S. signing on to the nuclear test ban treaty. Make no mistake about it----the deployment of a missile defence system is being done largely for offensive, not defensive, reasons.

Flash forward to the U.S. plan to deploy anti-ballistic missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland. (Mind you these anti-missile missiles don't even work yet.)

Such a move can only be interpreted as an aggressive act against Russia. To set up weapon systems on Russia’s doorstep whose only conceivable use is to degrade the value of the Russian nuclear capability as against that of the U.S. is the kind of act that would prompt a rebuke from any Russian government. Now we have Putin saying he will deploy Russian missiles to target European cities. Technically, that doesn’t mean much since they can target European cities already, but the political signal to Europeans is not one they want from a nuclear power on whom they depend for so much of their oil and natural gas.

What makes this even weirder is that Bush claims these anti-missile missiles are meant to protect against Iranian and Korean nukes. That you would put a missile shield in eastern Europe to protect against Pyonyang’s nukes doesn’t even pass the laugh test. And to use Iran as your rationale is just as peculiar. Everyone agrees that Teheran is at least a few years away from having a nuclear bomb let alone one it can mount on a missile. To prevent Iran from proceding to develop nuclear weapons, the U.S. needs the cooperation and collaboration of Russia. An angry Kremlin is highly unlikely to put pressure on Iran to help the Bush administration out of a jam in the Middle East.

I can only conclude that having overstretched its interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan and perhaps on the verge of attacking Iran, the U.S. has decided to pick an entirely unnecessary fight with the Russians. How would Bush like it if some nuclear power set up a missile shield somewhere in Latin America, in Venezuela for instance?

And then there’s Stephen Harper.

This guy goes to Paris and makes a comment siding with Bush on the anti-missile deployment in the Czech Republic and Poland. I used to think Harper had brains. But here he’s playing “dumber” to Bush’s “dumb”. As the leader of a middle power, the prime minister of Canada is not required to support Washington on this kind of thing. What Harper did will not even be reported by the U.S. media. But it will make the Putin government mad at Canada. Surely, our role ought to be to encourage the nuclear powers to cool their behaviour and their rhetoric, not to further enflame the situation.

I guess Harper’s reflexive pro-Americanism kicks in before his cortex even gets hold of what’s at stake.