Saying No To Pacifism

Radar is first chance for Czechs to accommodate USA - Havel

Prague- The planned U.S. radar base on Czech soil is the first chance for the Czech Republic to accommodate its ally - the United States, former Czech President Václav Havel said in the Questions of Václav Moravec programme on public Czech Television (CT) today.

He added that without the U.S. aid the independent Czechoslovakia would not be established in 1918 and the Iron Curtain would never fall.

"The Americans want something from us for the first time. Previously we always wanted something from them. They want such a little thing. And we have started shilly-shallying," Havel said.

The United States plans to build the radar base at the Brdy military district, some 90km southwest of Prague, along with a base with ten defence missiles in Poland, as elements of the missile defence shield that is to protect a big part of Europe and the United States against missiles that "rogue" countries like Iran might launch.

Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev told CT that the whole U.S. missile defence system was aimed against Russia and China and would make the Czech Republic a target of the Russian military plans.

"The U.S. radar is a serious matter and the Czech government is going to accept it without the citizens' mandate. Do you think the whole is being prepared against Iran? This is complete nonsense. Iran poses no threat. It is possible to deal with it by other means if necessary at all," Gorbachev added.

Sounds like Gorby's drinking out of the same bottle as Vladimir Paranoid.

"He [Gorbachev] has been all the time using the word 'aimed' as if it were an offensive weapon. Those are defence systems," Havel said in reaction to Gorbachev's words.

Havel also expressed disappointment that not a single voice was raised against the presence of the Soviet troops in the former Czechoslovakia in the past.

Havel said it makes him a bit angry that hundreds of thousands of people kept silent for dozens of years about thousands of Soviet tanks and soldiers on Czechoslovak territory.

"At the moment when we have got freedom, among others thanks to the Americans, and we are allowed to speak freely without risking punishment, we are hesitating all of a sudden. And we thereby demonstrate our alleged sovereignty," Havel told CT.

He added he considers it dubious, and he thinks that the radar opponents are doing something as dangerous as the pacifistic approach before the Munich Agreement in 1938, signed by Germany, Britain, France and Italy, that permitted the German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland.

Pacifism in the end leads to a higher number of victims than a firm stance, Havel concluded.

The sound you hear is moonbat heads exploding.

More than two thirds of Czechs are opposed to the planned U.S. radar base on Czech soil, according to polls.

The Czech government has negotiated with the United States since early last year on the project, and the talks are to be closed soon.

It will be interesting to see if the Left declares Havel a heretic.

And if Putie understands that Havel has told him, "Nasrat!"

Via ČeskéNoviny.cz