The Washington Times editorializes [my emphases]:
The United States is poised to dump a critical missile-defense
agreement with two of its most dependable NATO allies. The Polish daily
Gazeta Wyborcza reported yesterday that the Obama administration is
going to scrap the "third site" anti-missile system scheduled to be
deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic. Missile interceptors in
Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic were scheduled to be
deployed by 2013. Now the plan appears to have been shot down.
This move sends the wrong signal to our allies in Eastern Europe. The former Soviet satellites have been among the strongest proponents of a robust U.S. role in Europe because they believed they could count on the United States to defend their interests against perennially predatory Russia. Both countries showed good faith by sending troops to fight in Iraq as part of the multinational force. The Polish and Czech governments acted courageously when they agreed to host the missile-defense system. [more . .]
Me: On July 20, 2009 I put up a blog post, "Central and Eastern European Leaders Send an "Open Letter" to the Obama Administration." It looks like Obama has turned his back on the pleas of Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, and others. How to respond? One wavers between screaming and crying, or at the very least, shouting: STUPID! STUPID! STUPID! What abominable drugs are Obama and his policy makers ingesting to produce such foolish decisions??? The editorial in The Washington Times concludes appropriately (if in an understated way):
We are afraid to contemplate how long it will be before the Obama administration's national-security blunders have serious and irreversible consequences.