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Saturday, April 10, 2010

Poland Thrown to the Wolves


In case you havent heard it yet, the following has happened in Eastern Europe...


"The crash of an aging Russian airliner ravaged the top levels of Poland's military, political and church elite Saturday, killing the Polish president and dozens of other dignitaries as they traveled to a ceremony commemorating a slaughter that has divided the two nations for seven decades.

Poles wept before their televisions, lowered flags to half-staff and taped black ribbons in their windows after hearing that President Lech Kaczynski and the upper echelons of the establishment lay dead in woods a short drive from the site of the Katyn forest massacre, where 22,000 Polish officers were killed by Soviet secret police in one of Poland's greatest national traumas. Thousands of people, many in tears, placed candles and flowers at the presidential palace in central Warsaw. Many called the crash Poland's worst disaster since World War II.

Twenty monks rang the Zygmunt bell at Krakow's Wawel Cathedral — the burial spot of Polish kings — a tolling reserved for times of profound importance or grief. Link


As for any of the Trees For Lunch faithful are requesting my opinion on the matter, my thoughts are as follows...

1. If you get a chance, please read James Michener's classic, Poland, available for purchase via the WWB. It will give you a greater understanding of the underlying principles of that part of the world.


2. Having grown up in an environment that was supportive of a free and independent Poland along with a liberated Baltic region and Ukraine, I am at first inquisitive of what happened with this particular airliner, and secondly, looking to dismiss any pre-concieved notions that I am currently thinking of. Namely...


A. That "Mother Russia" had ANYTHING to do with the crash of a RUSSIAN airplane at least gives me moment to pause. And ...




B. That this entire scenerio doesnt somehow benefit Russia.



Yes, I'm suspicious. No, it doesnt automatically mean that I am right. If I had to speculate on the future of Eastern Europe, then I would say that a "de-centralized" Eastern Europe, apart from Russia, would be a good thing. Too bad certain Russki's think otherwise. Link






3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't forget Poland...

J Curtis said...

I doubt that I will. In the area of the astern US where I grew up, there were numerous enclaves of Polish (of which one grandmother of mine was 100%) along with various others such as Slovaks, Ukrainians and Lithuanians. All of which cast a wary eye toward the Russians given their past expansion policies.

J Curtis said...

"The plane crash that killed Poland's president and 95 others is a tragedy for the Polish people and a loss of a good friend for the United States. For Poland's neighbor Russia, however, it's an opportunity to push for hegemony over Eastern Europe, as in the Iron Curtain days.

For the Russian bear is back. Like Dracula rising from his coffin, it now stalks the world long after we thought it dead and buried. And President Obama's feckless handling of foreign affairs is giving Russia's authoritarian leadership a chance like no other to expand its power -- and steadily diminish ours."



Link