Freedom Sausage

Looks like Poland is going to be adopting a strategy of preemptive appeasement:

In a first sign of official criticism in Poland of the
US-led invasion of Iraq, President Aleksander Kwasniewski said that his
country had been "taken for a ride" about the alleged existence of
weapons of mass destruction in the strife-torn country. That they
deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were
taken for a ride," Kwasniewski said Thursday. He argued however that it
made no sense to pull US-led coalition troops out of Iraq. His comments
marked the first time Poland has publicly criticized Washington's
argument for invading Iraq and for winning support from Poland and
other European allies such as Britain and Spain.
[...]
The Polish head of state questioned the wisdom of pulling foreign
troops from the strife-torn country saying such a move could have a
counter effect. "What would be the point of pulling the troops if it
meant a return to war, ethnic cleansing and conflict in neighboring
countries," he told a group of visiting French journalists. "If we
protest against the United States' dominant role in world politics and
we withdraw our troops knowing they will be replaced by US soldiers,
what would be the point of such a move?" he questioned.

For what it's worth, I think this is a pretty sensible approach to the
whole Iraq mess. Accept that the Bush Administration lied their way
into the war and knowingly deceived our allies, but also acknowledge
the reality of the situation. Iraq is completely fucked up, and it's
going to take a REAL international coalition to fix it. Bush should be
held in utter contempt for his devious and destructive foreign policy,
but that's become a separate issue from the Iraq war.
The main focus at this point should be helping Iraq to avoid descending
into a hellish civil war. The Iraqi people need to have as much support
as possible from a broad base of nations. Hopefully world leaders will
be able to forgive America for Bush's egregious transgressions, and
will rally around John Kerry when he gets elected this November.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 18, 2004 at 03:40 PM | Permalink