Today Obama announced that he would scrap the plans for the missile defense system in Poland and Czechoslovakia, under Russian pressure. Poland and Czechoslovakia had wanted the system, Russia had thrown its weight and threats against it, NATO tended to favor it. However, that hardly matters now. The question is, what will be the consequences of this surrender?
Claude Cartaginese wrote in the David Horowitz blog:
This is a colossal blunder. A unilateral retreat without a quid pro quo is no way to deal with the Russians, as Ronald Reagan so aptly demonstrated. When rumors of Obama’s plan to drop the defense system surfaced last month, Heritage Foundation scholar Nile Gardner wrote that doing so would:
represent an appalling surrender to Russian demands, and the shameful appeasement of an increasingly aggressive regime that is openly flexing its muscle in an effort to intimidate ex-members of the Warsaw Pact.
Gardner added that:
Such a move would significantly weaken America’s ability to combat the growing threat posed by Iran’s ballistic missile program, and would hand a major propaganda victory to the Russians
The East Europeans know a slight when they see one.
Lech Walesa, the former Solidarity leader and Polish ex-president who understands the Russian threat first-hand, said:I can see what kind of policy the Obama administration is pursuing toward this part of Europe. The way we are being approached needs to change
Former Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose government signed treaties with the Bush administration to build the system, said:
The Americans are not interested in this territory as they were before. It’s bad news for the Czech Republic
Poland’s National Security Office said that the change was a:
defeat primarily of American long-distance thinking about the situation in this part of Europe.
There are ramifications beyond the abandonment of our Eastern European allies, disastrous as that is in itself. Hillary Clinton, on behalf of the Obama administration has traveled around the world telling nations they need not fear a nuclear Iran or North Korea, because they will be protected by a US “nuclear umbrella”, as recently as this July. The Eastern European defensive missile shield, that Obama scrapped today was part of this mythical umbrella.
Israel was not pleased by the umbrella comment, since it prefers to prevent a nuclear rain rather than to rely on the fickle US to defend it against the ambitions and aggressions of Iran. Now Israel’s doubts are proven. Czechoslovakia, Poland and Israel and the US are hung out to dry by the Obama administration. Nobody can consider the US to be a stable ally, as it rushes to surrender all around the world. Israel, the Arab States, Japan, South Korea, Australia, all the Pacific nations, Mideastern nations, Eastern European and Balkan nations…all will need to rethink their defensive strategies now.
The Obama explanation was basically that the shield wouldn’t have done any good anyways, and it upset Russia. Why did it upset Russia? Because it would have thwarted plans that they and Iraq have. The fact that Russia hates it is good reason to take a second look at its potential value. Is Russia moving out of South America or the Caribbean in exchange? Have they promised not to test fire missiles in our direction, or hold naval war games near our coastlines, or not to sell arms to our opponents? Of course not. Why should they? Obama obeys.
The US has elected internal enemies to lead our own nation. We have brought in a trojan horse and some worship it like a messiah. We’ll be seeing the fallout from this foolish act for years to come.
