NATO's Aboard

Bush wins NATO nod on missile defense
President Bush won NATO's endorsement Thursday for his plan to build a missile defense system in Europe over Russian objections. The proposal also advanced with Czech officials announcing an agreement to install a missile tracking site for the system in their country.

Despite a setback in his drive to see NATO expanded further eastward to include Ukraine and Georgia, Bush vowed not to drop the issue.

"NATO's door must remain open to other nations in Europe that share our love for liberty and demonstrate a commitment to reform and seek to strengthen their ties with the trans-Atlantic community," Bush said in brief remarks at an alliance meeting. "We must give other nations seeking membership a full and fair hearing."

Fellow NATO leaders, fearing a clash with Moscow, rejected Bush's appeal to allow the former Soviet republics to get on a path toward membership. But Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said the president plans to make a new pitch before he leaves office in January. The United States expects to raise the matter at a meeting of NATO foreign minister in December, Hadley said.

The president expressed regret that NATO also declined to offer full membership at this meeting to Macedonia. The invitation was blocked by Greece, which says the country's name implies a territorial claim to a northern region of Greece, also called Macedonia.

"Macedonia's made difficult reforms at home," Bush said. "It is making major contributions to NATO missions abroad. The name issue needs to be resolved quickly so that Macedonia can be welcomed into NATO as soon as possible."

Albania and Croatia were invited to join the alliance, now currently at 26 members.

Progress on missile defense represented perhaps the biggest boon to Bush from the summit. Russia has strongly opposed the plan.

NATO leaders were adopting a communique stating that "ballistic missile proliferation poses an increasing threat to allied forces, territory and populations." It also will recognize "the substantial contribution to the protection of allies ... to be provided by the U.S.-led system," according to senior American officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the statement's release.

The statement calls on all NATO members to explore ways in which the planned U.S. project, to be based in Poland and the Czech Republic, can be linked with future missile shields elsewhere. It says leaders should come up with recommendations to be considered at their next meeting in 2009, the officials said.

Significantly, the document also calls on Russia to drop its objections to the system and to accept U.S. and NATO offers to cooperate on building it, the officials said.

The plan calls for 10 interceptor missiles based in Poland and a tracking radar site in the Czech Republic.

At a news conference in Bucharest on the sidelines of the NATO summit, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwartzenberg announced that negotiations with the Americans have been successfully completed and that a deal would be signed in early May. No U.S. official was in attendance, but the Czechs distributed a joint U.S.-Czech statement that said, "This agreement is an important step in our efforts to protect our nations and our NATO allies from the growing threat posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction."

The Poles have yet to agree to the plan. But in Warsaw on Thursday, talks picked up between Polish and U.S. officials about Bush's plan to put 10 interceptor missiles in Poland. As part of any deal, Poland wants aid from the United States in modernizing the Polish military.

The backing from NATO and the announcement with the Czechs provides Bush with a powerful leg up in his negotiations with Moscow over the issue.

Russia charges the intent of the system would be to weaken its nuclear deterrent capabilities and upset the balance of power in Europe. Bush has repeatedly denied that, saying the facilities are designed to protect Europe against a potential missile attack — or even just nuclear blackmail — by Iran. The dispute has become heated at times, with confrontational, Cold War-style rhetoric from Moscow.

Bush is seeing Russian President Vladimir Putin twice this week — during the NATO summit and in one-on-one meetings planned for this weekend in Sochi, Russia. White House officials have talked optimistically in recent days that the weekend meeting could break the missile defense logjam.

Bush has essentially rejected Russia's suggestion that the U.S. substitute an early warning radar in Azerbaijan for the Europe-based system. But U.S. officials have been working to come up with a list of concessions and assurances that could resolve Moscow's fears, such as offering to let Russia share in the information the system collects and promising not to activate it without a verifiable threat.

[....]

EU appeasement monkeys are seething.


Read it all at The AP/Yahoo!

Previously: Talking Down The NATO summit

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

Defense Shield Long In Coming

In September 1944, German forces launched the first-ever successful missile attack against London.

In July of the following year, a delegation of U.S. officers traveled to Europe to investigate. Their conclusion: The United States needed to develop anti-ballistic missile defenses.

Within a year, the missile age had begun and so had the United States’ quest to build a shield. Neither has stopped since. Although ever-present, this issue has at times risen to the surface of public consciousness and debate.

In the 1980s, U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s notorious Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, or “Star Wars”) program marked the highest-profile phase of the ongoing push toward a missile shield.

Notorious as in being a contributing factor in the collapse of the Evil Empire because they went bankrupt trying to compete.

Research, development and testing of new technologies, including space-based chemical weapons and ground-based laser weapons, continued through the 1980s with mixed results.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, criticism of the need for such a program mounted. In his 1991 State of the Union address, President George H. W. Bush announced that SDI’s mission would change from defense against a large-scale attack to “protection against limited ballistic missile strikes — whatever their source.”

Don't tell the neocoMs, but when was the last time you read this?

By the late 1990s, U.S. President Bill Clinton had authorized the development of a missile-defense shield; the decision was influenced by North Korean missile tests in 1998. The United States continued pouring billions of dollars into missile defense development and testing.

Read it all, you'll appreciate the clarity.

Understanding The Menace

It's obvious that nearly fifty years of brainwashing, brutality, intimidation and occupation had little effect. The Prague Post tells us that Russia's political posturing is a disservice

U.S. efforts to station a missile shield in what used to be Warsaw Pact territory have Moscow making threatening noises and reviving its Cold War posturing.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says the shield will threaten his country’s security, and that Russia would be forced to direct its missiles against targets in the United States or Europe if the shield is deployed. And, last week, Russia made a great show of testing its own new multiple-warhead intercontinental missile.

The point of all this rhetoric and chest-beating is not to prove that Russia can overcome a U.S. shield. The fact is the shield could not possibly threaten Russia — and the Kremlin knows it. The point is to aggravate the political divide in Europe and to win points at home.

According to Tim Williams, head of the European Security Programme of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, the Russian arsenal contains 1,700 to 2,200 strategic nuclear warheads. The United States wants to put 10 interceptor missiles in Poland.

Putin and every military officer in Russia can do the math.

[....]

Russia’s leaders also say they are miffed that the United States began developing the shield, and courting Eastern Europe, without informing them. This assertion is so dishonest that those propagating it should be ashamed.

When the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001, it did so with the stated intention of building a shield.

Looks like you're having some credibility problems, Putie. Some of the former slaves are telling you to STFU.

Again.

Putie Just Can't Help Himself

Soviet Russian president Vladimir Ilyich Paranoid just couldn't help himself yesterday. Discussing his missile defense brain fart, Putie opined that,

"In this case, there will be no need to build a radar in the Czech Republic and deploy missile interceptors in Poland," Putin said. "They could be deployed in the south — I'm speaking hypothetically since it's necessary to conduct talks with relevant nations — possibly in U.S. NATO allies, such as Turkey."

"Or it could be Iraq — what they have waged the war for? There would be at least some benefit coming out of it," Putin added on a sarcastic note.

How about somewhere in northern Afghanistan, Putie? Didn't you fight a ten-year war to bring peace and stability to the Afghan people? Shouldn't you get at least some benefit from those glory days?

And wouldn't it be better to have a facility where it could keep an eye on both Iran and Pakistan?

Screw your idea about Iraq, Putie. A radar and interceptor base in northern Afghanistan makes much more sense.

Especially if each were heavily staffed with former members of the Northern Alliance.

Scattered Protests Reveal Uncertainty

Curiously, the Bush is Eeeevil US media didn't report this one.

Despite pledges of mass protests, only several hundred opponents of the planned U.S. missile base in the Czech Republic briefly gathered at key sites in Prague Monday evening and Tuesday morning.

[....]

Monday evening, some 200 protesters, most organized by the Communist Youth Union, waved flags and chanted slogans in front of the U.S. Embassy but promised mass demonstrations like those that filled Wenceslas Square with 2,000 people May 26, never materialized.

With no mass uprising of the proletariat, Soviet Russian president Vladimir Paranoid must be --- seething.

Most Russians Find Czech Radar Base Unimportant

Russian opposition leader, Garri Kasparov, says that siting the SDI radar in the Czech Republic is of little concern to most Russians.

The U.S. plan to build its missile defence base in central Europe, which has been sharply opposed by Moscow, is unimportant in the eyes of most Russians, Russian opposition leader Garri Kasparov said on the margin of the conference on democracy and security in Prague.... He said that Russian President Vladimir Putin, who threatens to take reciprocal measures in case a U.S. radar base were placed in the Czech Republic and ten missile interceptors in Poland, uses the issue to pursue his own goals.

There's more.

Someone's Going To Be 'Offended'

Euroweenies and the Leftisphere are sure to call it a deliberate provocation.

If I were to pick two words from George Walker Bush today that characterize our cooperation and friendship, I would call it active partnership. Thank you.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek
June 5, 2007

We're Getting Close

A near-flying pig moment: UK's Guardian is beginning to get it.

A Bush administration source cautioned against any breakthroughs in US-Russian relations at the G8 summit. Hopes have been transferred to a more relaxed meeting at the Bush holiday compound in New England, scheduled for July 1-2.

. . . US concerns include the crackdown by Mr Putin on pro-democracy activists in Russia, increasing centralisation and the possibility that he will not stand down, as required by the constitution, at the end of his term in office. There are fears that Mr Putin could exploit the showdown with the US as an excuse to extend his stay.

Under Russia's constitution, Mr Putin is obliged to step down next spring after two four-year terms as leader. Mr Putin has always insisted he will leave office on schedule. But over the weekend he said he was too young to retire - a hint that he may be considering a continued political role.

Most analysts believe Mr Putin will indeed leave office unless he is convinced that Russia faces a serious external threat. But Mr Putin's recent attacks on the west - and the sharp decline in US-Russian relations - could be interpreted as a sign that the threat has now arrived.

If SDI isn't enough, there's always Putie's very recent concern about bioterrorism.

The pro-Kremlin United Russia party today said it would discuss with Mr Putin the issue of having longer presidential terms - probably from 2012 - lasting for five or even seven years. "We will have a meeting in early July and I believe we will discuss this initiative in detail,' Boris Gryzlov, the party's leader and Duma speaker said today.

All this and George Soros isn't in Moscow to give moral support to the Soviet Russian paranoid.

Well, There He Goes Again

Soviet Russian president, Vladimir Paranoid, is showing that he's a master at winning friends and influencing people.

President Vladimir Putin yesterday declared that a new arms race and cold war with the west had begun and announced that Russia would retaliate against US missile defence plans in Europe by pointing its missiles at European cities.

He also indicated that he would not shy away from fights with the German chancellor Angela Merkel on human rights and harshly accused Britain of "politicising" the murder of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko.

Putie & human rights? LOL

On missile defence, Mr Putin said that if the Bush administration installed elements of a missile shield in eastern Europe, Russia would retaliate by training nuclear missiles on European targets. Russia has not specifically aimed its missiles at Europe since the end of the cold war but, asked if it might do so again if the US missile shield went ahead, Mr Putin said: "Of course we are returning to those times. It is clear that if a part of the US nuclear capability turns up in Europe, and, in the opinion of our military specialists will threaten us, then we are forced to take corresponding steps in response."

"What will those steps be? Naturally, we will have to have new targets in Europe."

The Euroweenies may wet their panties, but the Czechs and Poles (and the rest of New Europe) will never roll over for you, Putie.

"We want to be heard, we want our position to be understood. But if that does not happen, we lift from ourselves any responsibility for the steps we take in response, because we are not the ones who are initating the arms race in Europe."

Mr Putin's comments, in an interview with selected media from G8 countries at his dacha outside Moscow, appear calculated to inflict maximum panic among western leaders ahead of the G8 summit.

Putie, STFU.

European Perspective

Once again, a voice from New Europe provides analysis of Europe's dilemma.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said Thursday that plans to place missile defense bases in the Czech Republic and Poland will test Europe's willingness to defend itself.

The U.S. made a formal request in January to place a radar base in a military area southwest of Prague and 10 interceptor missiles in neighboring Poland as part of plans for a missile defense shield that Washington says would protect against a potential threat from Iran.

The U.S. plans, however, have raised concerns throughout much of Europe that placing bases in former Warsaw Pact countries could spark a new arms race with Russia. Moscow has strongly opposed the plans.
"It's not primarily about a radar and 10 interceptors, it's mainly about expressing the willingness to defend ourselves," Topolanek told a conference in Prague Thursday.

President Klaus and Prime Minister Topolanek will be meeting with President Bush during his visit to Prague prior to his attending the G-8 summit in Germany.