Polish Ambassador Maciej Kozlowski said yesterday that Europe should remember what America has done in the last 80 years, twice saving Europe from calamity. He brushed aside French President Jacques Chirac’s harsh criticism of those European countries which support the war, insisting that France and Germany are misreading the political situation.
In a mostly symbolic move that exemplifies the pro-American stance that Poland has taken, the Polish army sent some 200 troops including special commando forces, navy, and chemical warfare experts to buttress the primarily American and British forces. The country’s small contingent of special forces, which also operated in Afghanistan, is reportedly now in action in Iraq.
Declaring that each country has deeply different historical remembrances, Kozlowski, who came to Jerusalem without a gas mask, said that Poland remembers America opposing communist and other brutal dictatorships.
As such, we accepted as inevitable the war with Saddam, who by everybody’s account is a brutal dictator.
Refreshingly straightforward.
I thought the comment by the Polish Defence minister after the GROM commandos had been photographed with their American colleagues and a stars and stripes was rather funny. (Click the link for a pic – they must be hot in those balaclavas)
The Reuters photographs showed masked GROM soldiers taking prisoners, scrawling graffiti on a portrait of Saddam and posing with U.S. Navy Seals holding up a U.S. flag.
“These photos shouldn’t have happened,” said Szmajdzinski. “The next time it will definitely be with the Polish flag.”
Although don’t dismiss old Europe for just a second…
… although they don’t have troops in combat, Germany are continuing to send troops to Kuwait as part of the on going no fly zone business. They operate NBC sensing equipment.
A picture of the latest guys going out is shown here. The caption says:
Deutsche Soldaten besteigen am Freitag einen Airbus der Luftwaffe auf dem Militär-Flughafen Köln-Wahn. Ihr Ziel: Kuwait. Sie sollen die ABC-Abwehr-Truppen verstärken
essentially:
German Soldiers board a Luftwaffe Airbus at Cologne military airfield Friday. Their destination Kuwait. They should strengthen the NCB troops.
It’s no irony that we have such strong support from Eastern Europe. They know first-hand what it’s like to live under thieving, murderous dictators.
The Polish are a nobel race but famed, from when they were part of “old europe”, for their nobel invention – Reverse Polish Logic. Reverse by name but perverse by nature. Why should I know anything about the Poles – I am one. I think it will be some decades yet before the Poles think about what sort of world they truly want to live in instead of merely being just reactionary. Until that day I advise you to totally disregard anything they, sorry we, say. :0)
Just a thought…
Personally, I instinctively feel an alignment of atlantic (USA, GRB, SPA) and eastern europe in the future (say, over the next 10 years). The world tends towards bifurcation, if not geographically, then with economic, military, and cultural alliances. For a while I thought it would be a US-Russia alliance, and Bush and Pooty were awful chubby for a while there. I may have missed, though. Eastern Europe may need a while to figure itself out, but USA is taking note in the meantime, and France is pushing them away from Western Europe.
— brendan