[Peace-discuss] Ask Barack and Michelle for a Just Foreign Policy

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The again maybe not. "[Obama's] position is as it was throughout the campaign, 
that he supports deploying a missile defense system when the technology is 
proved to be workable." --CGE]

	Obama's Office Says `No Commitment' to Missile Shield in Poland
	By Maciej Martewicz and Kristin Jensen

Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama's office said the president-elect has made 
``no commitment'' to a planned U.S. missile-defense system, after remarks on the 
Polish president's Web site suggested that Obama will press ahead with the shield.

Obama, in a telephone conversation with President Lech Kaczynski yesterday, said 
``that the anti-missile shield project will be continued,'' according to a 
statement on Kaczynski's official Web site. Obama also ``expressed hope that the 
political and military cooperation between the two countries will be continued.''

Obama's office painted a different picture of the conversation.

``President Kaczynski raised missile defense, but President-elect Obama made no 
commitment on it,'' Denis McDonough, Obama's senior foreign policy adviser, said 
in a statement released to reporters. ``His position is as it was throughout the 
campaign, that he supports deploying a missile defense system when the 
technology is proved to be workable.''

Obama had a ``good conversation'' with Kaczynski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk 
about the ``important U.S.-Poland alliance,'' McDonough said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed an agreement with the Polish 
government in August pledging to modernize Poland's military in exchange for the 
former Soviet satellite hosting 10 interceptor missiles.

Since then, Polish lawmakers, a majority of whom are in favor of the shield, 
have expressed concern that an Obama administration might seek to postpone or 
cancel the system. The missiles are part of a defensive shield which includes a 
planned radar site in the Czech Republic that the U.S. says is necessary to 
protect against attack from ``rogue'' states such as Iran.

`We Don't Know'

``The American administration has changed. Whether the Americans' decisions will 
change, we don't know,'' Tusk said in an interview published in today's Gazeta 
Wyborcza newspaper. ``If the Americans decide to stop or suspend the project, 
for example because of financial reasons, we will just accept this information. 
We can't build it ourselves.''

Russia has repeatedly criticized the system as posing a threat to its territory. 
President Dmitry Medvedev said Nov. 5, just hours after Obama won the 
presidential election, that he would site short-range Iskander missiles in 
Kaliningrad, a Russian region wedged between Poland and Lithuania, to 
``neutralize'' the planned defense system.

``Mr. Medvedev's declaration confirms for us the necessity of strengthening 
Poland's security,'' Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told parliament 
in Warsaw yesterday. ``In our view, missile defense will strengthen our security.''

Michael McFaul, a Russia specialist at Stanford University who advised Obama 
during his presidential campaign, said last month that the U.S. should keep open 
negotiations with the Russian government on a missile-defense system for Europe, 
and also support Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization.

``We don't believe in trying to isolate Russia,'' McFaul said in a phone 
interview, stressing that he was giving his personal view and not that of Obama. 
``Those kind of actions we see as counterproductive in dealing with Russia.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Maciej Martewicz in Warsaw at 
mmartewicz at bloomberg.net

C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> Maybe the Realists are already cleaning up another Neocon mess:
> 
>     US gives Russia new proposal for shields
>     Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:33:15 GMT
>     http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=74556&sectionid=3510203
> 
> 
> C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>> Good suggestion -- and a good early test of Obama's foreign policy.
>>
>> Will he cancel them?  I hope so, but I don't think he will.  --CGE
>>
>>
>> Jenifer Cartwright <jencart13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Forget building the bases in Czech Republic??
>>
>>
>>
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