The Conservative View: Kevlar and Boxing

The Conservative View for this week, from Adair County Commissioner Russell Turner.

The Conservative View
by Russell Turner

Kevlar and Boxing

Over the past years more and more police officers and soldiers are wearing Kevlar vests when they are on duty. Without the use of the vests many police officers and soldiers would not have lived when shot in the line of duty. The vest is a defensive tool. The vest cannot be used as a weapon to injure our kill someone but it provides the protection to save the lives of good people that could have been killed or crippled in the line of duty. A wise person always plans for the defense of their family and themselves. With that in mind I have some very serious concerns about the decision by the current administration to scale back the missile defense system in Eastern Europe.

We Americans may have watched too many graphic horror movies or played too many violent video games. May be we have become numb to the horror that can be in the world. I remember the words of one of our presidents when he said that in a nuclear war the living would envy the dead. If a missile defense system could save only one city, the price of the system would be cheap. There are more countries every day that are trying to acquire nuclear weapons. It will only be a matter of time until some one will push the button and use them.

Some nations are pleased with the decision to cancel the system, one of them being Russia. We Americans need to come to the realization that there are people in this world that do not like us. How much sense does it make to not use a protective measure that could save millions of people, if we used the same mentality we would ask police officers and soldiers to quit using Kevlar.

Many of us enjoy the sport of boxing and we can learn a lot about life by watching the sport. In boxing there is a set of rules and after each round the boxers can go to their corners and prepare for the next round. The sport of boxing may be a rough sport but there are rules, in the art of war there are no rules. One side will not stop when the bell rings to allow us to prepare for the next battle. No matter how good of a punch a boxer might have, if he cannot fend of the punches of his opponents he will never win.

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Poland Cannot Trust the West

Poland Cannot Trust the West

The White House, caving to Russian pressure, announced today that the Bush-proposed missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic was being canceled. The plan had been fairly controversial, especially with the Russian leaders, as they viewed it as a threat to them, despite American assurances that it was to counter Iranian missile potential.

This proves once again that Poland can never completely trust the West.

Poland has a sad history of betrayal by Western powers.

In 1939, in the face of Nazi saber rattling, Britain and France gave Poland a guarantee that if Hitler invaded Poland, both nations would launch war on Germany. On September 1st, 1939, Der Führer invaded and the West did very little to hinder him. On September 17th Soviet Russia joined in, attacking Poland from the east. The Polish doctrine of two enemies (Germany to the west, Russia to the east) was proven true once again. A truly free and independent Poland disappeared until the fall of both Nazism (1945) and the Soviet Union (1989-1991).

During World War II, Polish troops formed a significant portion of Allied soldiery (one of the largest national contingents), contributing greatly in the Battle for Britain and the Italian Campaign. On the home front, the Home Army formed the largest (and most successful) underground resistance movement in Europe.

As soon as Poland itself fell to Nazi and Soviet aggression, the government-in-exile worked with Great Britain and other western allies to form a plan to reestablish Poland, when the opportunity presented itself. Headway was made, until the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union (through Polish territory), bringing the Soviets onto the Allies side - truly a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

From that point on, Polish "squabbling" over territorial integrity (Soviet Russia had annexed eastern Poland) irritated the British. Poland wanted their land back in its entirety, and the Soviet Union wanted Poland.

The preparations for Operation Tempest, the liberation of Poland and reestablishment of Polish government before the Soviets could take over, continued. The UK and US promised help in various ways; materiel, Polish troops currently fighting under British control, air drops and raids, et cetera.

While assuring the Poles of assistance, Churchill and especially FDR made concessions to Joseph Stalin. Without consulting their Polish allies, Churchill and FDR agreed that the Soviet Union could claim the Curzon Line as their mutual border with Poland, thereby giving the Soviets the eastern third of Poland (while "making up for it" by giving Poland some of eastern Germany). Churchill originally took a harder stance with Stalin, but after learning that FDR had privately agreed with Stalin on the Curzon Line, was forced to go along. All of this came out at the Yalta Conference.

The summer of 1944 finally rolled around. The Red Army had been pushing the Nazi Wehrmacht out of Russia, and entered pre-war Poland, hot on the Germans heels. With "Allied" troops now in Poland, Operation Tempest was launched. Initial contact with the Red Army by the Polish Home Army was friendly, but once the front line rolled past, the Soviet NKVD (forerunner of the KGB) viciously murdered or repatriated to Siberia most Home Army or government officials, and deported masses of civilians. Neither the British nor the Americans believed reports coming out of Poland, calling them "anti-Soviet".

Seeing what became of their comrades-at-arms, the Polish government-in-exile altered the objective of Operation Tempest. The aim was now to liberate Warsaw, the capital, and show the world that Poland was still by right a free land. The "Warsaw Rising" commenced on August 1st, 1944, with the Soviet troops within sight of Warsaw.

For two months the Poles fought in the streets of Warsaw, with little of the promised-British/American aid, and with no cooperation from the suddenly sluggish Soviets. The Polish paratroops were not sent as agreed, aid was limited (in part by Soviet AA fire at Allied planes), and pressure was not applied to the Soviets. Initially planned to only last a few days, the courageous Poles had fought for 63 days, and were forced to surrender only after losing nearly all the ground they had ripped from the Nazis grip.

The West looked the other way as brutal Nazi repression was replaced by even more brutal Soviet repression. The aforementioned Polish doctrine of two enemies was clearly proven again. One could say that the Germans systematically murdered and oppressed specific groups of people (such as Jews and ethnic-Poles), while the Soviets systematically murdered and oppressed all groups. After all, the Soviets had been running the Gulag well over a decade before the Nazi extermination and concentration camps were opened.

Poland, which gave so much for the war effort, was given over to Soviet rule without so much as a whimper from the West. This only changed with the ascension to power of President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who began to roll back past injuries by their support of the Solidarity movement. A free Poland finally emerged after decades of Soviet rule by Western consent.

After 9/11, President Bush courted Eastern Europe, and Poland in particular. Poland contributed to the liberation of Iraq. In light of the growing belligerence coming from Russia, Poland was glad to move closer to the United States. When President Bush proposed his missile defense shield as a safeguard against Iranian nuclear madness, Poland (along with the Czech Republic) agreed to host the facilities. Russia threw a fit, at one point actually threatening "military action" if the installations were placed.

Poland and the Czech Republic, our closest allies in Eastern Europe, took a great risk in defying Russia in this way, only to be thrown under the bus by President Obama. And to add insult to injury, this announcement came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland.

Obama is acting a lot like another Progressive liberal Democrat President, bowing to pressure by Russia's latest Stalin wannabe.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, 1945 - Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, 2009

Unfortunately, Poland, the West continues to prove itself untrustworthy in regards to you.

Vaclav Klaus Hits Global Warming Again

Vaclav Klaus, the fiery conservative Czech President, hit global warming again today. Read this article from Breitbart.com.

The Czech Republic currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, giving Klaus a much greater platform.

You can visit the English version of his website here.

Vaclav Klaus - the Next Head of the EU?

Latest news on the European Union:

A Fiery Czech is Poised to be the Face of Europe (excerpts)

PRAGUE — In the 1980s, a Communist secret police agent infiltrated clandestine economics seminars hosted by Vaclav Klaus, a fiery future leader of the Czech Republic, who had come under suspicion for extolling free market virtues. Rather than reporting on Marxist heresy, the agent was most struck by Mr. Klaus’s now famous arrogance.

“His behavior and attitudes reveal that he feels like a rejected genius,” the agent noted in his report, which has since been made public. “He shows that whoever does not agree with his views is stupid and incompetent.”

Decades later, Mr. Klaus, the 67-year-old president of the Czech Republic — an iconoclast with a perfectly clipped mustache — continues to provoke strong reactions. He has blamed what he calls the misguided fight against global warming for contributing to the international financial crisis, branded Al Gore an “apostle of arrogance” for his role in that fight, and accused the European Union of acting like a Communist state.

Now the Czech Republic is about to assume the rotating presidency of the European Union and there is palpable fear that Mr. Klaus will embarrass the world’s biggest trading bloc and complicate its efforts to address the economic crisis and expand its powers. His role in the Czech Republic is largely ceremonial, but he remains a powerful force here, has devotees throughout Europe and delights in basking in the spotlight.

[...]

To supporters, Mr. Klaus is a brave, lone crusader, a defender of liberty, the only European leader in the mold of the formidable Margaret Thatcher. (Aides say Mr. Klaus has a photo of the former British prime minister in his office near his desk.)

[...]

While even many of the world’s most ardent free marketeers acknowledged the need for the recent coordinated bailout of European banks, Mr. Klaus lambasted it as irresponsible protectionism. He blamed too much — rather than too little — regulation for the crisis.

A fervent critic of the environmental movement, he has called global warming a dangerous “myth,” arguing that the fight against climate change threatens economic growth.

Perhaps his greatest ire has been reserved for the European Union. In 2005, he called for it to be “scrapped.” Now, he is a vocal opponent of the Lisbon Treaty, which aims to help Europe become more of an international player, but which he argues will strip countries of sovereignty.

This is great news for the conservative movement in Europe. Vaclav Klaus is the latest European leader in the type of Margaret Thatcher, standing for free-market capitalism and against the global warming pseudo-science religion.