A Slap in the Face to Poland?

Ted Bromund / August 28, 2009

As we reported yesterday morning, it now seems all but certain that the Obama Administration has abandoned our anti-missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. This is a terrible decision that reduces NATO’s security, encourages Iran to proceed full speed ahead with its nuclear program, kowtows to Russian pressure, and stabs our Polish and Czech allies in the back, after they made the difficult decision to support us.

And now the administration appears to have added insult to injury. World War II began on September 1, 1939, when Germany attacked Poland. That was seventy years ago. One of the most significant commemorations of the war will be held on September 1, 2009, at Westerplatte, Poland. Westerplatte is a peninsula near the city of Gdask, which was then known as Danzig. By the terms that ended World War I, Danzig was a largely German-populated Free City under the control of the League of Nations. Early in the morning of September 1, a German surprise attack launched from Danzig failed to overrun a small Polish garrison, which held out against overwhelming force for a week and inflicted hundreds of casualties. The battle is to Poland what Pearl Harbor is to the United States.

There will be many representatives at the Westerplatte ceremonies: the German Chancellor, the Russian Prime Minister, the British and French Foreign Secretaries, and many other foreign ministers or prime ministers. On Wednesday, the U.S. State Department could only say – with the ceremony only five days away – that the U.S. would send “an appropriately senior person” to be announced by the White House. (more…)