Read it here.Speaking in an interview televised on news channel TVN24, [Polish] Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the United States had agreed to help augment Poland's defenses with Patriot missiles in exchange for placing 10 missile defense interceptors in the eastern European country.
"We have crossed the Rubicon," he said, referring to U.S. consent to meet Poland's demands.
Tusk said the agreement was initialed by negotiators late Thursday in Warsaw and includes a "mutual commitment" between the two nations — beyond that of NATO — to come to each other's assistance in case of danger.
Those who argued that President Bush was not responding strongly to Putin's puscht were flat dead wrong [as they so often have been regarding this president]. This is Pooty Poot's worst nightmare -- a defensive alliance embracing the former Soviet republics backed by America's military might. For years now the eastern democracies have desperately sought military alliances with the West, especially with America. Russia had calculated that a strong military strike against Georgia would frighten them so much that they would abandon those efforts and submit to Russian dominance. A crucial element in this calculation was the assumption that the NATO powers would be divided and unwilling to act, as they so often have been in the past. Most importantly, they figured that Bush, in the last months of his presidency, would be unable to undertake a major military committment.
Well, they were wrong. Bush stood up strongly to the aggression and now the very kind of alliance Putin sought to pre-empt is taking form.
