Free Republic

One of the more unusual stories about the war in Afghanistan is the creation of the Afghan air force. In hopes of building a more self-sufficient Afghan military, the U.S. government has been buying up aircraft from its former Cold War rivals. Rugged Russian Mi-17 helicopters are at the top of the Pentagon’s wish list, but the interest in ex-Warsaw Pact aircraft is not just limited to choppers. The Navy is currently in the market to buy three L-39C Albatros planes for the Afghan military. The Albatros – that’s the correct Czech spelling – is a subsonic jet that can...

WASHINGTON -- Carol Browner, President-elect Barack Obama's choice to be his climate czarina, served until last summer as a member of a socialist organization whose mission is to enact progressive government policies, including toward environmental concerns like climate change. Browner's name and biography have been scrubbed from the Web site of Socialist International, the umbrella group for 170 "social democratic, socialist and labor parties" in 55 countries. But a photo of Browner speaking in Greece to the group's Congress on June 30 remained in the site's archives. Browner, formerly the longest serving administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, having served...

WorldNetDaily staff reporter and columnist Jerome Corsi's book "The Obama Nation" contributed to a decision by Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga not to accept Sen. Barack Obama's invitation to attend the Democratic National Convention, according to a prominent Kenyan newspaper. "The cancellation of the trip by Mr. Odinga comes hot on the heels of the publication of a book that is being used to attack Mr. Obama in which the PM [Prime Minister] features," wrote Kenya's Daily Nation. "The book, The Obama Nation, by Jerome Corsi depicts Mr. Obama as a covert sympathizer of radical Islam and communism." "In the...

MOSCOW, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said on Tuesday he would pull his country out of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) grouping ex-Soviet states, Russian news agencies reported. "We are leaving the CIS for good and propose that other countries leave this body run by Russia," Interfax news agency said Saakashvili told a big rally in his support outside Georgia's parliament

Our next president will likely face a Russia led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, determined to stand up to a West Russians believe played them for fools when they sought to be friends. We pushed NATO into Moscow's face, bringing six ex-Warsaw Pact nations and three ex-Soviet republics – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – into our Cold War alliance and plotted to bring in Ukraine and Georgia. We pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty over Moscow's objection, then announced plans to plant ABM radars in the Czech Republic and anti-missile missiles in Poland. Putin has now responded in kind,...

Is it a new Warsaw Pact? Saturday, August 25, 2007 Orhan KILERCIOGLU Softened especially after the collapse of Soviets, East-West relations have undoubtedly been able to take a breather. Notably, no long-term tensions have occurred in U.S.-Russian relations in this period. Some disturbance between Russia and China, who remain relatively silent before the U.S. as only super power, was experienced when the "Shanghai Cooperation Organization" (SCO) came to the agenda. Left uneasy by the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle Eastern project, Russia threatened missile retaliation against the U.S. construction of a missile shield in Europe, found itself...

A Date Worth Remembering: August 20, 1968 by Krzys Wasilewski On August 20, 1968, the forces of the Warsaw Pact crossed the borders of Czechoslovakia to provide “fraternal help,” or rather, reinstate a hard-line communist regime. In a matter of two weeks, 200,000 soldiers from Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and the Soviet Union quenched the liberal rebellion, burying the hopes of easing the Soviet grip in Central Europe for decades. Although it lacked the geographic importance of Poland or East Germany, Czechoslovakia still remained an important place on the map of the USSR’s influence. Shortly after the end of...

Warsaw Pact saved the world from nuclear world war 15.05.2007 Many tend to demonize the Warsaw Pact nowadays claiming that it cast evil shadow over “the free world.” However, the Pact became the only possible response against the aggressive actions of the then US administration when its efforts resulted in Western Germany’s incorporation in NATO. The union, chaired by the USSR, allowed to keep the fragile balance in the world. On May 14, 1955 governmental delegations of eight countries (the USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania) signed the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual...

Russia has suffered terribly at the hands of Islamic terrorism over the centuries and continues suffer today. Yet, Russia is the best friend of the terrorism-exporting Muslim countries. Russia is actively helping Iran towards its ambition to extiprate Israel. Will Russia learn a lesson?

There are many reasons to expect Moscow's deteriorating ties with the West will continue their downward trend this autumn. But the key one may be growing differences over the breakaway regions of Transdniester, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia and their stated desire to proclaim independence from Moldova and Georgia. The issue pushing the frozen conflicts to the fore are two independence referendums -- one in Transdniester on September 17, the second in South Ossetia on November 12. Russia, which has acted as a long-term booster for the separatist regions, is looking at the plebescites in two ways: a chance to bring...

Warsaw Pact invasion commemorated TOP Slovak officials including MPs and President Ivan Gasparovic commemorated the 38th anniversary of the invasion of the former Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces on August 21, 1968. Gasparovic laid wreaths at SNP Square and Šafárikovo Square in Bratislava. Two people were killed by the invading troops at these locations - Peter Legner on SNP Square and Danka Košanová on Šafárikovo Square. "This event was a black day in the history of the Slovak nation and of the former Czechoslovakia," Gašparovic said. MPs from the opposition Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) were also among the politicians paying...

MOSCOW — Russian officials and diplomats reacted angrily Thursday to a summit of former Soviet republics and allies where U.S. criticized Moscow for backtracking on freedom and bullying its neighbors. Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin voiced annoyance about the fact that Russia hadn't been invited to the conference of Baltic and Black Sea Fleet ex-Soviet nations and Moscow's former Warsaw Pact allies. "We would like to see Russia figure at the summit as an important positive factor of global politics, not as an object for scrutiny," Karasin told reporters.

Museum of Polish CIA spy declared national hero 03.05.2006 A museum devoted to colonel Ryszard Kuklinski has been opened in Warsaw’s Old Town district. The ceremony has been hosted by Defense Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who stressed the need to cherish the memory of such patriots as the late colonel Kuklinski. He belonged to that group of Poles who put moral obligations toward their nation above duties to the state, said minister Sikorski. Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski had been one of the top officers of the General Staff in the Polish armed forces during the 19 Seventies in communist Poland, during which...

Warsaw Pact attack plans revealed In the advent of war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries, 450,000 Polish troops were to have attacked northern Europe, according to top secret Warsaw Pact files made public in Poland. Krysia Kolosowska reports 13.04.06 Poland’s defense ministry has handed 1,145 files about the Warsaw Pact to the Institute of National Remembrance, a body investigating Nazi and communist era crimes against the Polish nation. One of the documents lays down details of the Warsaw Pact troops attack on NATO member states. Moving in fast strides, Polish troops were expected to occupy Denmark within three...

Cold War archives reveal Soviet perfidy By Andrew Borowiec THE WASHINGTON TIMES January 7, 2006 GENEVA -- Secret archives of the now-dissolved Warsaw Pact show that the former Soviet Union was prepared to sacrifice much of Poland in the event of a nuclear war with the West. The Soviet plans for a nuclear war in Europe were among a raft of secret documents that Polish authorities threw open on Thursday to international researchers and to the general public in Warsaw. A cursory study by Polish analysts shows that the deployment of Soviet nuclear weapons would have prompted retaliatory strikes by...

After only four weeks in office, the Polish right-wing government of Lech Kaczynski has provoked Moscow by releasing Warsaw Pact Cold War-era war game plans and agreeing to publish over 1,700 documents that may embarrass former ally Russia. At a Friday press conference, Polish Defense Minister Radoslaw Sikorski presented a map from 1979 showing the expected nuclear strikes across Central Europe under one Warsaw Pact planning scenario for armed conflict with NATO forces. He also signed an order allowing researchers access to Poland’s hitherto secret Warsaw Pact archives, in defiance of a confidentiality agreement among the former alliance members.

A top secret map for a 1979 Warsaw Pact war game -- titled "Seven Days to the River Rhine" -- was released at a press conference that marked the opening of the Poland's heretofore secret communist-era military intelligence files. It was chilling. The map showed large red mushroom clouds along a line from the Danish border through Germany and Belgium to the French border. They blotted out such cities as Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, Antwerp and Brussels. Massive SS-20 missiles were being planted in Eastern Europe and aimed at Western cities. (The red mushroom clouds show their destinations.) "Peace rallies" throughout...

'Warsaw Pact' vs. Moscow By Mirza Cetinkaya Published: Saturday, December 03, 2005 Nine former member countries of the dissolved Warsaw Pact in the post-war era has prepared for a new formation. The first step has been taken in Ukraine, which is currently celebrating the first anniversary of the "orange revolution". Some Baltic, Balkan and Black Sea countries gathered together under the leadership of Ukraine and Georgia, which moved away from the Russian axis after the velvet revolutions, and laid the foundations for "the society of democratic choices" in Ukraine's capital, Kiev. Members of the new formation that Moscow observes with...

WARSAW, Poland -- Poland is risking further strains in relations with Russia by throwing open Cold War-era archives that include a 1979 Soviet retaliation plan that envisaged nuclear strikes on western European cities in the event of a war with NATO. The map foresaw the nuclear annihilation of Poland and was dotted with red mushroom clouds over the German cities of Munich, Cologne, Stuttgart and the site of NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. It was revealed Friday by Polish Defense Minister Radek Sikorski, a staunch anti-communist who went into exile in Britain in the 1980s to oppose Poland's Moscow-backed communist...

Last Friday in Warsaw the world saw for the first time exactly how the Soviet Union intended to fight a nuclear war in Europe. A top secret map for a 1979 Warsaw Pact war game — entitled “Seven Days to the River Rhine” — was published at a press conference that marked the opening up of the Poland's hitherto secret military intelligence files from the communist era. It was a chilling experience. The map showed large red mushroom clouds along a line going from the Danish border down through Germany and Belgium to the French border. They blotted out such...