Friday Night Summary

Review of the NATO Summit

DISCLAIMER: Viewing by moonbats may will cause severe episodes of America Derangement Syndrome™

Czechs Thumb Their Noses At Putie -- Again

Talks on U.S. radar completed
Czech and U.S. representatives have completed the talks on the planned U.S. radar base on Czech soil that were launched a year ago, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek (Civic Democrats, ODS) said in an interview for today's issue of the daily Hospodarske noviny (HN).

Topolánek said only the venue where the treaty would be signed must yet be agreed on.

"I have information that the major problems might have been solved in the main treaty. Nothing prevents us from potentially declaring at the NATO summit in Bucharest the possibility to sign it," Topolánek told HN.

He added that the last "three words" that were not clear during his February visit to Washington have already been agreed on.

The U.S. radar base is to be located at the Brdy military district, some 90 km southwest of Prague. The radar and a planned base for ten interceptor missiles in Poland are to be elements of the U.S. missile defence shield that is to protect the United States and a large part of Europe against missiles that states like Iran might launch.

Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg (for Greens) told public Czech Television (CT) on Sunday that agreement has not yet been reached on one article concerning the environment in the treaty.

The Czech and U.S. delegations should go to the April NATO summit in Bucharest with agreed conditions on the radar base re-location to the Czech Republic to be able to negotiate NATO's support for the missile defence shield, HN writes.

It says such support is primarily significant for the Czech government to persuade the radar opponents in the country where the left-wing opposition as well as some 70 percent of the public are against the project.

The junior ruling Greens condition their nodding to the radar exactly by NATO's support .

Topolánek said he is sure that NATO would support the project in the summit's final resolutions.

"The discussion is only about the verb - we expect, welcome. Everything else is concealed in the NATO analyses. No one doubts that this system is necessary," Topolanek told HN.

Schwarzenberg said on Sunday the bilateral treaties on the stationing of a U.S. missile defence base in the Czech Republic might be signed in early May.

Topolánek stressed in HN that the second bilateral treaty to create a legal framework for the stay of U.S. soldiers in the Czech Republic must yet be tuned up.

Heh. The diplomacy of Vladimir Paranoid appears to be failing.

Senate Supports Bush

Nancy Pelousi and Fat Jack Murtha must be beside themselves trying to figure out how to blame Bush for this one.

U.S. Senate Assumes Missile Defensive
The U.S. Senate declared it a national policy of the United States to create a missile defense system in Europe. Now, regardless of who wins the election in 2008, the system will be built. A delegation of heavyweight U.S. politicians, headed by Henry Kissinger, visited Moscow on Friday, so as to assure the Russian president that the missile defense system is inevitable. Apparently, Washington also believes that Vladimir Putin will control the situation in Russia no matter who wins the election in 2008.

“The Senate today acknowledged that we must build missile defense systems that ensure we are able to protect our country and our allies,” said Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) on Thursday night, after the U.S. Senate had adopted his amendment to the defense authorization bill for 2008.

According to the new law, creating a missile defense system will now be an official national policy of the United States. Moreover, the law officially proclaims the defense system will be created for counteracting the Iranian threat. This way, the Senate confirmed by law the U.S. administration’s statements that deploying a radar in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland is aimed against Tehran only, and not against other countries.

Declaring missile defense deployment to be U.S. state policy was almost unanimous: 90 senators out of 100 present spoke in favor of the amendment (just 5 senators were against, and 5 more abstained). So, the U.S. political forces finally determined their attitude to the missile defense system: both the Democrats and the Republicans support this project.

New York Senator Hillary Clinton, one of the chief favorites of the presidential race among the Democrats, voted for the amendment as well. It means the missile defense system will be built anyway, no matter who wins the presidential election in November 2008.

There she goes again, pissing off the Progressive moonbat base of the party

The Russian authorities could be consoled only by the fact that Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) did not support the amendment. Obama is another favorite of the presidential race, quite capable of competing with Clinton for the Democratic nomination. However, even if Obama wins the 2008 election, his personal opinion will hardly be able to change the White House’s policy on missile defense, considering the present consensus in the U.S. political elite.

There's more.