Posted on 11/17/2008 1:06:20 PM PST by lizol
Warsaw and Prague dismiss Sarkozy's missile shield plea
POLAND AND the Czech Republic have dismissed an appeal by French president Nicolas Sarkozy to freeze talks on their plans to host a controversial US missile defence shield, which Russia fiercely opposes, writes Daniel McLaughlin
Moscow has threatened to station missiles in its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad - wedged between EU and Nato members Poland and Lithuania - if the US plan goes ahead, and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev appeared to have persuaded Mr Sarkozy of the delicacy of the issue at Friday's EU-Russia meeting in Nice.
"As president of the European Union, I proposed that in mid-2009 we meet . . . to lay the foundation for what could be the future of European security. Between now and then, don't talk about deployment of a missile shield which does nothing to bring security and complicates things," Mr Sarkozy said after talks with Mr Medvedev.
Warsaw and Prague were displeased at Mr Sarkozy's intervention, however, which comes amid speculation over whether incoming US president Barack Obama will support the missile shield, and as the Czech Republic prepares to replace France as EU president in January.
"As far as the French presidency mandate for the EU-Russia summit goes, it did not contain any mention of the US anti-missile shield," said Czech deputy prime minister Alexandr Vondra.
"France has never consulted such a standpoint with us [and] it's been a different vein than what the conclusions of the Bucharest summit said," he noted, referring to a meeting of Nato leaders in April which endorsed plans for the missile shield.
Former dissident playwright and Czech president Vaclav Havel also weighed in, saying he was "surprised" and "uneasy" about Mr Sarkozy's comments.
In Poland, prime minister Donald Tusk issued a frosty response to the French leader's plea for a moratorium on missile shield talks.
"President Sarkozy has expressed his own point of view. It will have no impact on the future of the project," he said.
"The question of the anti-missile shield is governed by an agreement between Poland and the United States. It is above all an American project," Mr Tusk added.
"I don't think that third countries, even such good friends as France, can have a particular right to express themselves on this issue."
Mr Sarkozy appeared subsequently to soften his line on the subject, saying in Washington that "each country has the right to decide whether or not to install an anti-missile shield".
Last time Warsaw and Prague followed the French lead they ended up occupied by the Nazis for nearly 6 years~!
During GWB’s reign, the Czechs and Poles could always frame any freeze-up in relations between the US and Russia as a grudge match between two great powers, even though in their heart of hearts, they knew this not to be the case, and that Uncle Sam was risking life and limb to keep them safe. Under Obama, they know that Uncle Sam will help Russia annex them as provinces if that helps prevent Americans from becoming casualties of war. This is why they’re scrambling for a tangible expression of American commitment to their security; nothing less than their continued independence is at stake. When Obama offers up the first of them to Russia as human sacrifices to his ideology, they will learn to hate him with the same passion as they hate Hitler.
Is this the same France that could not be trusted to know about the Normandy invasion until the day before? The same France whose bleepin’ pompous hero would not even go on the short wave radio and tell his countrymen to cooperate with the Allies? The same France that according to the Battle of Normandy web-site suffered NO combat deaths for the WHOLE Battle of Normandy. I hope we hire Illegal Aliens to tend to the graves at Point du Hoc instead of Frenchmen.
oh, sure they should delay it! Then we get Obama in and he’ll settle it once and for all.
The Poles and Czechs can count on France, as always, if there’s any problem.
Good God almighty.
heres a plan for sarky..
we will put the shield in but promise not to shield france from any missile attacks..
not to mention what followed when the Nazi’s left
Is Carla mentioned anywhere in this article? You know, rules are rules.
BookMark for later read
I think the complaint is that NO French TROOPS participated in the invasion.
Polish troops participated BTW, and Obama is prepared to give them up to Russia again just like FDR and Truman.
Well, yeah. Actually, this is a regular thing on the Czech history calendar. Given a “Great Power” the Czechs will suffer some outrage or the other.
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