According to reliable sources, Obama administration officials are on their way to Poland and the Czech Republic to deliver very bad news. The administration intends to cancel completely the missile defense sites that had been promised to these governments by the previous administration. This represents a complete capitulation to Russia's Vladimir Putin, who had demanded that the proposed deployments be halted as a price for improved relations. Ironically, the Obama administration, which is appeasing Russia in the hopes that Moscow will help put pressure on Iran, has made this mammoth concession just a few days after Moscow declared that it had no intention of supporting sanctions against Iran.
So is it racist to think that this last foreign policy move is either the result of mind-boggling stupidity and incompetence or that it's merely the latest tactic in a long line of tactics pointed toward one explicit purpose: to leave this country severely weakened in both the foreign and domestic spheres?
UPDATE: Eastern European missile defense scrapped.
"After an extensive process, I have approved the unanimous recommendations of my secretary of defense and my joint chiefs of staff [sic] to strengthen America's defenses against ballistic-missile attack," President Barack Obama said in an announcement Thursday morning. [snip]
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the decision to abandon the Bush administration's plans came about because of a change in the U.S. perception of the threat posed by Iran.
Mr. Gates said intelligence experts concluded the short- and medium-range missiles were "developing more rapidly than previously projected" in Iran. The findings are a major reversal from the Bush administration, which pushed aggressively to begin construction of the Eastern European system before leaving office in January.
Russia and Iran win.
Russia on Thursday welcomed the news but said it saw no reason to offer concessions in return. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened last November to station tactical Iskander missiles on Poland's border if the U.S. system was deployed.
"The Bush plans on the missile defense as we knew them until now were nothing more than a provocation of security in the European region," said Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in a phone interview.
Do we lose? Time will tell.
Is it racist to say that President Obama doesn't care about preserving the reputation of American reliability, fidelity and integrity? Is it racist to think that the president wants to leave Poland and the Czech Republic open to the schemes and plans of both Russia and Iran?
I think we're past the point of caring whether it is or not.
