[A-List] Havel: Hosting Missile Radar 'First Chance To Accomodate US'

["Tony B." <tal1@xxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Rick Rozoff
To: Stop NATO
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 10:26 PM
Subject: [stopnato] Havel: Hosting Missile Radar 'First Chance To Accomodate 
US'


http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/news/index_view.php?id=303746

Czech News Agency
March 24, 2008

Radar is first chance for Czechs to accommodate USA -
Havel

[Evidently sending Czech NATO legionaries to kill and
die in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq is
in Havel's view a matter of no moment, while hosting
facilities for a potential first strike missile system
aimed at Russia is a case of "The Americans want(ing)
something from us for the first time."]

-Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev told CT
that the whole U.S. missile defence system was aimed
against Russia and China and would make the Czech
Republic a target of the Russian military plans.
-Pacifism in the end leads to a higher number of
victims than a firm stance, Havel concluded.
More than two thirds of Czechs are opposed to the
planned U.S. radar base on Czech soil, according to
polls.

Prague - The planned U.S. radar base on Czech soil is
the first chance for the Czech Republic to accommodate
its ally - the United States, former Czech President
Vaclav Havel said in the Questions of Vaclav Moravec
programme on public Czech Television (CT) today.

He added that without the U.S. aid the independent
Czechoslovakia would not [have been] established in
1918 and the Iron Curtain would never [have] fall[en].

"The Americans want something from us for the first
time. Previously we always wanted something from them.
They want such a little thing. And we have started
shilly-shallying," Havel said.

The United States plans to build the radar base at the
Brdy military district, some 90km southwest of Prague,
along with a base with ten defence missiles in Poland,
as elements of the missile defence shield that is to
protect a big part of Europe and the United States
against missiles that "rogue" countries like Iran
might launch.

Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev told CT that
the whole U.S. missile defence system was aimed
against Russia and China and would make the Czech
Republic a target of the Russian military plans.

"The U.S. radar is a serious matter and the Czech
government is going to accept it without the citizens'
mandate. Do you think the whole is being prepared
against Iran? This is complete nonsense. Iran poses no
threat. It is possible to deal with it by other means
if necessary at all," Gorbachev added.

"He [Gorbachev] has been all the time using the word
'aimed' as if it were an offensive weapon. Those are
defence systems," Havel said in reaction to
Gorbachev's words.

Havel also expressed disappointment that not a single
voice was raised against the presence of the Soviet
troops in the former Czechoslovakia in the past.

Havel said it makes him a bit angry that hundreds of
thousands of people kept silent for dozens of years
about thousands of Soviet tanks and soldiers on
Czechoslovak territory.

[There were Soviet troops on Czechoslovak soil
originally because, at the price of hundreds of
thousands of casualties, they liberated the country
from Nazi Germany. They stayed there is large part
because NATO was formed in 1949 and stationed
military, including strategic, forces not far from the
Czech border. Mr. Havel presumably had no problem with
the latter. After all, Russians are Russians, even if
not 'evil communists.']

"At the moment when we have got freedom, among others
thanks to the Americans, and we are allowed to speak
freely without risking punishment, we are hesitating
all of a sudden. And we thereby demonstrate our
alleged sovereignty," Havel told CT.

He added he considers it dubious, and he thinks that
the radar opponents are doing something as dangerous
as the pacifistic approach before the Munich Agreement
in 1938, signed by Germany, Britain, France and Italy,
that permitted the German annexation of
Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland.

Pacifism in the end leads to a higher number of
victims than a firm stance, Havel concluded.

More than two thirds of Czechs are opposed to the
planned U.S. radar base on Czech soil, according to
polls.

The Czech government has negotiated with the United
States since early last year on the project, and the
talks are to be closed soon.

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