Posted on 08/17/2010 12:15:59 PM PDT by lizol
U.S. role in Poland shrinking
By David Frum, CNN Contributor
August 16, 2010 -- Updated 1643 GMT (0043 HKT)
Editor's note: David Frum writes a weekly column for CNN.com. A special assistant to President George W. Bush in 2001-02, he is the author of six books, including "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again," and is the editor of FrumForum.
Bydgoszcz, Poland (CNN) -- I first visited Poland in 1990, just after the end of communist rule. Back then, the United States meant everything to people here: freedom, protection, opportunity, hope.
I worked for The Wall Street Journal at the time. That business card resonating with capitalism opened every door. It even persuaded a border official not to pass my camera through a Soviet-era X-ray machine.
Twenty years later, Poland has become a stable democracy. It has joined NATO and the European Union. True, wages remain low by Western standards. And to the eye, Poland still shows the scars of its communist past: Half the population still lives in communist-era high-rise slabs.
But things get better every year, visibly better even than during my last visit two years ago: new homes, new stores, improved roads, new stations opened on the Warsaw subway. Poland scored the highest growth in the whole European Union in 2009, suffering not a single quarter of negative growth during the global recession.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
Bydgoszcz was my home for a year when I was a student...Many people also had a great affinity for me simply because I was an American...I wonder how that would be different now...
...understandably so , with the muslim outreach in full swing, c/w American anti zionist rhetoric, and support of hamas!
We are witnessing a inverse relationship. True westerners will shed America for Obamas muslim outreach and islamic empowerment. He is out there to purposefully diminish the west, by attacking America first.. or was it to dhiminish the west?
More Abandoning of our best Allies.
Bydgoszcz - a perfect name of a Polish city for a foreigner to pronounce :-)
I don’t blame Poland one bit, this is not the America of 1980.
it’s really easy...especially once you realize that Polish is pronounced exactly the way that it’s spelled...;)
It’s easier than Szczebrzeszyn.
same comment as post #7...:P
Very true. The key is to treat 'rz' as one letter, then it becomes much easier to pronounce.
“The key is to treat ‘rz’ as one letter, then it becomes much easier to pronounce”.
It does.
The problem is, when someone doesn’t know that :-)
David Frum is dead wrong on many important issues, and it is people like him who may have “assisted” GWB down the wrong path.
That said, the USA has had a valuable and worthy friend in Poland for many decades, and has stood shoulder to shoulder with us in the Middle East, and not just crappy serving of hot lunches to UN organizations. They have had some fine units over there doing real combat jobs, as dangerous and important as any our troops have participated in. I understand our military serving with them holds them in VERY high regard. It is a shame that our current administration is likely to treat them like crap.
That is my formula: If they were an ally under a Republican President, they are an enemy under a Democrat President.
Sadly, Poland is a target for liberals, because of their staunch (by today’s standards) Catholicism, and their stances against the Homosexual agenda and abortion.
Is it pronounced somewhat like "visage?"
I toured Poland in 1991; just hopped in my Toyota van in Germany and drove over through Eastern Europe. I had a great time in Poland; I stayed at a youth hostel — a bit hardscrabble, neat and clean — for $3 a night. I found the Polish folk to be decent and hospitable, and happy to converse whenever language permitted. Many could speak varying levels of German, which made my time much easier than I’d anticipated.
Unless something's changed over the past few years, they've done a pretty good job keeping muslim filth outside their borders, too.
Polish people still love God.
And God still loves them too.
America doesn’t care about the Whitey ‘cracka’ countries.
All we be needin’ iz da Muslims in Asia and Africa(da mutha-land).
Dem cracka Europe countries iz on dayz own from now on.
shchebZHEshin
And of course I understand why “Basia” just goes by her first name.
I don’t think they could fit Trzetrzelewska on the CD cover. ;)
what about Shazza?
I am still happy about what happens in our neighbourhood - Poland is a trademark of freedom, intellectual power and a good way of keeping traditions while having the drive to design the future.
Germany is gifted in many ways - and I repeat myself - one of the most surprisingly positive things in our time was the impressive newer history of it’s eastern neighbour.
We in germany have done a lot after ww2 to regain credibility as a well wishing neighbouring state nevertheless we could never have hoped to celebrate with friends and sausages on the grill no more then 20km away from westernplatte.
Poland makes me smile every day I think of it.
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