It was the Reagan and Bush [41 and 43] administrations that put out their necks for them. Reagan supported Solidarnosc' and his urging that the Soviets tear down the Berlin Wall. It is totally unnecessary for these leaders to deningrate the Bush administration to ingratiate themselves with Obama.
NATO has become a farce, mainly because the Europeans are not willing to spend money in their own defense. And the EU's desire to set up the European Rapid Reaction Force outside NATO is just another example of the Europeans wanting their cake and eating it too. And we can't even get NATO to provide their share of combat troops in Afghanistan despite the enactment of Article 5.
I can understand why these former Warsaw Pact nations are nervous about the Obama foreign policy that wants to accommodate Russia by getting rid of the ABM installations in exchange for Russian support on Iran. However, their quarrel should be with their fellow Europeans in the EU and NATO. They are not pulling their weight and the US can no longer afford to bail them out. We are broke. The US is in decline as a global power.
Obama is our first European President. He will enact his socialist agenda, which will cause us to choose between butter and guns. And we will choose butter just like the Europeans.
FYI: Americans were not very popular in Europe during the Vietnam War or when Reagan was stationing Pershing missiles in Turkey.
And to suggest that Valdas Adamkus (again, for example) is "denigrating" the Bush 43 Administration is simply odd. He was one of the Bush 43Administration's biggest supporters as President of Lithuania, and worked in the Bush 41 Administration.
What good of Reagan and Bush’s (senior) anticommunist policy that brought freedom to Eastern Europe if their successors push us again into the hands of the same Soviet (Russian) bear?
Mr. Kabar, you are outraged by the East European nations which critisise G.W.Bush for Iraqi war. I am Polish and I live in Poland, so let me say that these are my thoughts too. However, I don’t critisise him for toppling Saddam’s regime as a rule, because that was a correct decision. I criticise him for neglecting NATO countries’ security by too confident relations with Russia and too big concessions in order to obtain her approval for US forces engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. In other words, rob Peter to pay Paul.
Free Independent Poland has always been a staunch ally of the US-British alliance. It was, it is and it will be.
From the very beginning Poland had her substantial contribution to the operation Iraqi Freedom. However, if all that America can do for Poland’s security is to send her two units of unarmed and inoperational Patriot missiles, then this is rather a good theme for German and Russian cabarets that have much to laugh of our Atlantic commitment.
How would you feel Mr Kabar if you heard such mockery one by one, because we have to hear it regularly! “Look, Poles!”, they say, “Give them more Polish soldiers to be killed in Iraq, so maybe one small day they will send you the third INOPERATIONAL batery of Patriots.
I’ve always been pro American and proud of America’s freedom policy for the world. So, if I start to doubt, then again, who doesn’t?