US unlikely to build radar base in Czech Republic: Jiri Dienstbier - Radio Prague »
Posted By gamahuche 1 year ago in NewsTwo weeks into the new Obama administration some have expressed doubts over the future of US missile defence in central Europe. Last year the Czech Republic signed two treaties with the US on the stationing of a radar base on Czech soil – part of a broader defence shield – but on Sunday the head of the Czech foreign affairs committee, Ji?í Dienstbier, expressed doubts it would ever be built. In his view, the US currently has other priorities, and he told Czech TV, the only way the radar would ever be deployed in the Czech Republic would be with NATO and Russian involvement. Earlier Jan Velinger spoke to Ji?í Dienstbier on the phone from Kladno. He asked him to explain the apparent shift by US and why he thinks the radar in the Czech Republic is unlikely.
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gamahuche
"I would rather be a square peg than fit in a pigeon hole" -
an essay which won me the "Lamb Essay Prize" at the Religious ...
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gamahuche1 year ago
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I'm not counting chickens yet - but I like it when the news catches up with what I'm feeling in my bones.. And its certainly NOT that I am pleased to see the US eat humble pie. Its far more that the whole effort was based on the hubris of one man [and his advisers] and was potentially an act of total sabotage for a great many other people.
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We are NOT cosy with the Russians, not even a little bit - which should be very clear from the history of the last half of the 20th Century - but jumping into a promiscuous relationship with the US was hardly the right alternative.
Let us also be very clear too, once and for all that it was GWB's savagely wrong-headed reading of Putin that greatly empowered the latter - a dumb policy mistake of the highest category! [The KGB must have been laughing their heads off..]
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gamahuche1 year ago
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I've been waiting for a story like this!
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It reflects the opinion that I had already formed after the weekend stories about Russia cancelling plans to build the counter initiative in Kaliningrad - that is to say a missile base aiming at the Czech and Polish territories.
It is my fervent personal hope that this boondoggle WILL be laid to rest and that the build-up to yet another Cold War - or worse - will now be rapidly reversed and that we will neither be forced to choose between the USA and the Soviet Union, nor automatically play the rolr of a fron-line target.
Let us remember that there was never going to be ANY benefit or advantage to the Czech Republic from hosting the missile shield - only the role of playing "good Europeans" and "good democrats". -
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gamahuche1 year ago
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Jiri Dienstbier is a white-haired avuncular figure, who was one of the first 250 signatories of Charter 77 and later a spokesman for the group. As a very close friend of Vaclav Havel's he looked after family matters for him when Havel was imprisoned. He was himself imprisoned for publishing samizdat literature.
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He was very strongly opposed to Vaclav Klaus becoming President.
Not as charismatic a figure as Havel, he nevertheless has wielded considerable influence and has been very widely respected - except by Klaus! He definitely has his ear to the ground and my gut-feeling is that he is reading the runes right. And believe me there will be one very big party when this project gets a stake through its heart! -
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gamahuche1 year ago
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Thanks NP!
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I'm not QUITE ready to describe it as news yet though - there's still an element of rune-reading involved..
The Czech side may also do their share of obfuscation before the story reaches its conclusion.
Information moves in strange ways in the Czech lands, sometimes crab-fashion, sometimes by intuitive leaps and sometimes through constipated passages.
This may seem an off-subject tack but today I was in my local bank, a medium-size town branch of one of the biggest banks in the country - which is undergoing major reconstruction.
Today was particularly chaotic and I waited a long time to make my deposit and had more time than I needed to look around. I suddenly realised that NOWHERE was there any sign which informed the public about such basic details as - how long it is going to take - sorry for any inconvenience - directional information [everything is in a different place] and I realised with something of a shock - though it was also a recognition - that we don't do that!
The point in regard to this issue of the missile-shield is that it will probably all happen in quite a hidden manner and there may already be more propeller readers who know about this than people on the square where my house sits. And likely few people will be talking about it until Friday evening, which is pub-night.
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