After winning 57 states in the last election Obama is feeling invincible. So invincible that while shoving Socialism down our throats, he is releasing Socialist Russia to drive our international policy to their wishes and against Eastern Europe and the United States.
Poland, who defied the Communist Soviet Union and the Socialist Nazis in WWII, defied the Soviet Union again in the 1980's until the Soviet Iron Curtain fell.
Between the taking of their lands by the Soviets, the horrendous slaughter, organized rape and the 100s of thousands of Poles sent to concentration camps and gulags in Russia, the Poles have learned to have a long memory of the betrayal and deceit used against them.
Obama has proven himself to be a pretty dim bulb, but this type of betrayal is beyond my imagination, especially given the history of Russia, its Soviet horrors and Putin. President G. W. Bush said he had looked in Putin's eyes and saw that he could be trusted. Fortunately, Bush came to his senses and moved to protect Poland and the Czech Republic from not only Iran and North Korea, but also Russia.
Now, Obama has screwed the nuclear pooch concerning North Korea and Iran and has knuckled under to the real power in Russia, Putin.
President Lech Walesa and President Ronald Reagan both are weeping at not only this betrayal, but also the sheer incompetence of the current administration. Until it is replaced, America will continue to lose influence for the good and the respect of our allies.
What is there to trust now?
September 18th, 2009, 15:39
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Re: Obama Betrays Poland On 70th Anniversary Of Soviet Invasion
The Wall Street Journal is reporting: U.S. Shelves Nuclear-Missile Shield: Czech Interim Prime Minister Gets Midnight Call. America’s Commander-in-Chief and former ACORN organizer, Barack Obama, is caving to the Russians who were furious about the system being built in Poland and the Czech Republic.
At least when Obama apologizes for the USA breaking its word he’ll be talking about himself and he’ll be begging for forgiveness from our European allies who already have begun bashing the ACORN Kid.
This is bad news for all who care about the US commitment to the transatlantic alliance and the defence of Europe as well as the United States. It represents the appalling appeasement of Russian aggression and a willingness to sacrifice American allies on the altar of political expediency. A deal with the Russians to cancel missile defence installations sends a clear message that even Washington can be intimidated by the Russian bear."
“Critics believe Obama's moves on the missile shield could also be an attempt on the part of the US to win Moscow's backing for new sanctions against Iran. But there is growing concern in Eastern Europe that rapprochement between Washington and Moscow could come at the expense of the United States' allies in the former Eastern Bloc. "The Poles are nervous," one senior US military official told the newspaper.”
Poland feeling betrayed yet is still optimistic that promises could be kept as indicated by Poland's deputy foreign minister, Andrzej Kremer, who told Reuters Thursday there was a "-strong chance that the shield project might be halted…In 10 days, Deputy Defense Minister Stanislaw Komorowski and I will go to Washington to find out," he said.
America’s favorite Pole former Polish President Lech Walesa weighed in that he was deeply disappointed by the new US administration's plans.
"The Americans have always only taken care of their own interests and they have used everyone else," Walesa told Polish news station TVN24.
Lech added that Poles must rethink their own view of America and start thinking about their own interests and that he expected the Obama administration’s betrayal.
Sadly our Government’s incompetence and lack of honor spreading outside our borders and Americans used to me known around the world for honoring its agreements. Remember Warsaw and Washington signed an agreement a year ago to stationed 10 interceptor missiles in Poland. A US installation was supposed to have been built at the former air base Redzikowo in northwestern Poland.
September 18th, 2009, 15:45
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Re: Obama Betrays Poland On 70th Anniversary Of Soviet Invasion
President Obama’s announcement on September 17 that the US is shelving its plans to build a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system in Central Europe is likely to raise painful historical memories in Poland.
President Barack Obama bids farewell to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev backstage after the two spoke at the Parallel Business Summit at the Manezh Exhibition Hall in Moscow, Russia, July 7, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
By making the announcement on September 17 about abandoning ballistic missile defense plans for Poland and Czech Republic, the Obama White House chose a date with painful historical significance for the Poles. Under the terms of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland 70 years ago, on September 17, 1939, while western and central parts of Poland were being overrun by German armies.
Russia has fought hard to keep American missiles away from its borders, and President Obama’s decision is seen as a concession to Moscow in return for Russian support in curbing Iran’s nuclear program. The Poles, always fearful of the Kremlin’s imperial reach, are more likely to see it as a betrayal of their country, a faithful NATO ally of the US, just as Poland, whose soldiers fought alongside Americans against Nazi Germany, was betrayed by America at the end of World War II.
The Stratfor global intelligence website reported that a U.S. concession to Moscow on BMD would be one of the first major steps in a Russian-U.S. deal — one which could see Iran’s greatest foreign backer flip sides. But President Obama’s “flip” on the Bush Administration’s BMD deal with Poland reminds the Poles of another popular and progressive US president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who made a deal with Stalin in Yalta to get Moscow’s military support against Japan. Poland and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe paid for FDR’s deal at Yalta with decades of Soviet domination.
These may be completely different times and different political stakes, but the Obama Administration has already demonstrated its lack of historical sensitivity and public diplomacy strategy when it refused Poland’s invitation to send a high level representative to the official observances in Gdansk of the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II. Prime Minister Putin was there and even made sort of an apology for the Hitler-Stalin Pact while trying to deny Stalin’s responsibility for helping Hitler to start World War II.
The Poles are proud and they think in historical terms. While listening to Putin’s dubious historical analysis delivered in Gdansk, they were reminded of being snubbed by their American ally. The latest decision on missile defense may turn out to be a new public diplomacy disaster for President Obama.
Poland, one of America’s staunchest allies in the war on terror, saw the presence of US missiles as a protection of its security and sovereignty against a possible threat from Russia. Former Polish President and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa along with former Czech President Vaclav Havel and dozens of other prominent Central European political leaders and intellectuals sent an open letter to President Obama warning him of Russia’s continued threat to the region. The letter was not well received by the Obama Administration.
As for historical lessons, FDR’s deal with Stalin not did not get much for the US. It allowed the Soviet Union to occupy Central and Eastern Europe and brought about the Cold War. America paid for Yalta with wars in Korea and Vietnam and in billions of dollars in defense spending.
President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other top administration officials have been silent in recent months as Russian leaders and the Kremlin controlled media launched a campaign to rehabilitate Stalin’s aggressive and genocidal policies. The Poles, on the other hand, reacted to Moscow’s rewriting of Soviet history with great alarm.
People in the Obama White House may think there are no historical lessons to be drawn from their decision to scrap the missile defense system in Poland and Czech Republic, but any experienced public diplomacy expert would have told them that Central Europeans still remember World War II, Yalta, and the Cold War. At the very least, President Obama could have waited a day or two so that his missile defense announcement would not have been made on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet attack on Poland.
This op-ed for Digital Journal was written by Ted Lipien, president of Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org). Republishing is allowed.
September 18th, 2009, 20:37
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Re: Obama Betrays Poland On 70th Anniversary Of Soviet Invasion
In 1939, Hitler sold out Poland. Yesterday was Obama’s turn.
In one of the most stunning betrayals of modern diplomacy, Barack Obama announced yesterday that the United States is abandoning Poland and the Czech Republic. They are on their own against Russia.
And in what could not have been a coincidence, he did it on the 70th anniversary of the Russian invasion of Poland. An invasion that led to two generations of Polish slavery and the widespread slaughter of Polish citizens.
Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. Barack Obama lost it. The first bricks of the new Berlin Wall have been laid.
Here’s the background.
As the countries of central and eastern Europe emerged from a half-century’s domination by the Soviet Union, many of them sought to ally themselves with the United States. Why? Because they believed in freedom, because they believed that the United States stood for liberty.
And because centuries of history and culture have taught them that Russia is their enemy. In that part of the world, history has always been about one group conquering another group, and the aggressor has almost always been Russia. That giant nation has made a centuries-long habit of smashing smaller nations.
Like Poland and the Czech Republic.
So we promised to protect them.
Specifically, we promised to give them the technology to defend themselves against the Russian nuclear missiles that even now are aimed at them. The purpose of the missile shield was to protect the Poles and the Czechs from Russian missiles.
Yesterday, the president and vice president said that the purpose of the missile shield was to protect those two nations from Iranian nukes. But Iran has never shown the slightest ill will toward either the Poles or the Czechs. Russia, on the other hand, has devastated them both more than once.
The George W. Bush commitment to put a missile shield over Poland and the Czech Republic was a warning to Russia that it should stay on its side of the fence. By taking away the threat of Russian nuclear missiles, the shield bought some breathing room for the Poles and Czechs.
And why would we want to do that?
Because of freedom.
The Poles and the Czechs are heroes of freedom. They are peoples, like ourselves, who have stood for liberty. In the face of savage Russian occupation in the past, they have stood up, sometimes with terrible consequence.
In 1968, something called the Prague Spring took place, when Czechoslovakia – a Soviet vassal since the end of World War 2 – tried to give its citizens some measure of freedom. Some bans on the free press were eased, some rights to personal free speech were granted, some ability to travel to different parts of the country to visit relatives was allowed.
And the Russians sent in tanks.
The tiny country was crushed.
Poland was the champion of liberty and took the steps that began the toppling of the dominoes of Russian domination of Eastern Europe. It was Poland which allowed the formation of the first non-communist group in the Soviet bloc – the Solidarity trade union. It was Poland that allowed people to, quietly and on the sly, attend church.
When Russia threatened the Poles and demanded they crack down, the Poles refused. There was a dangerous, frightening standoff, but in the end, it was courageous Polish love of freedom that allowed that nation to shake off Russian domination.
Shortly thereafter, the rest of Russia’s empire withered, and places like Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia and Ukraine were free. Tens of millions of people were liberated from Russia’s almost-genocidal oppression.
It was one of the greatest events of the second half of the 20th Century.
And it was cheered by the American people. The Cold War, with its face-to-face staredown between communism and capitalism was over, and the freedom of capitalism had won.
Maybe that’s what ticked off Obama.
Because now he has distanced the United States from Poland, and capitulated to Russian demands that Poland and the Czech Republic be left unprotected from its missiles.
Tens of millions of people became less secure yesterday, and the cause of freedom in central and eastern Europe was weakened. The only winner was Russia and its dreams of empire.
In the face of an angry and belligerent Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama blinked. Ronald Reagan demanded, “Tear down the wall!” Barack Obama whimpered, “Don’t let me get in your way.” We once directly challenged Russian dreams of domination, now we have – more than anything since the partition after World War 2 – facilitated that domination.
And adding insult to injury, Obama announced it on September 17 – the Pearl Harbor Day and the September 11 of Poland. On the day Poles the world over are reminded of the danger of their Russian neighbor, and the preciousness of their freedom and independence, the president of the United States chose to spit in their faces.
And prove, once and for all, that the United States is an unreliable and treacherous friend. We asked the Czechs and the Poles to be our friends, and pledged our support to them, and then we reneged and threw them under the bus.
They have followed us to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – Poland fields the second-largest number of troops fighting the war on terror – and they have fought and bled by our side.
And yesterday Barack Obama told them to screw off.
Print President Barack Obama lost the support of many good people in Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltic States and Ukraine. This may translate, as well, to a loss of support among Americans of Polish descent. Yesterday, 17 September, is the day on which Soviet dictator Josef Stalin joined Hitler in crushing and raping Poland 70 years ago.
And it was this day that the U.S. president decided to nix a missile defense system based in Poland and the Czech Republic, claiming that there were better ways of strengthening "America's defenses against ballistic missile attack."
The strategic significance of the decision is fourfold: (1) Appeasement in the wake of Russian threats against Poland; (2) appeasement in the wake of Russia's bullying of Ukraine (by Moscow's withdrawal of its ambassador to Kiev); (3) appeasement less than 14 months after Russia's invasion of Georgia; (4) appeasement as an expression of NATO policy, adopted by the new leadership in Washington.
If you want to understand the impact of the president's policy, Americans should consult their brothers in Ukraine and Poland. Ask them why Russian bullying should not be rewarded. It is realistic to say that roughly half the Ukrainian population was exterminated by the Russian communists between 1917 and 1950. When the Soviet armies invaded eastern Poland on 17 September 1939, a series of massacres took place that included the "liquidation" of at least 21,000 Polish army officers and the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens to Soviet concentration camps. If anyone understands what these figures signify to millions of Poles and Ukrainians, then think of the six million Jewish victims of Hitler; only you'll have to triple the number of victims. (Here we are only discussing Moscow's Polish and Ukrainian victims, forgetting for the moment that Moscow probably butchered 60 million human beings, according to Prof. R.J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii. See Rummel's chart, figure 1.1, below.)
These innocent millions, cut down by Russia's security services, are matched by millions more enslaved and forced to work for starvation wages in Stalin's gulag. Their suffering testifies to a legacy unlike any the world has ever seen (with the exception of its imitators in Red China and Red Cambodia). From the Kremlin's point of view, these lives were necessary sacrifices in the construction of an unprecedented war machine, far larger than Hitler's. It was Stalin's objective to build tens of thousands of tanks and guns and war planes in order to overwhelm Europe. There was no profit in this project, only the promise of war and conquest. As Viktor Suvorov explains in his book on Stalin, titled The Chief Culprit, Poland was sacrificed because, according to Stalin, "History says that when any country wants to fight against another country, even one that it does not neighbor, it begins to seek out borders, through which it could reach the borders of the country it wants to attack." In other words, Stalin wanted an open path to the heart of Europe. And that is why Moscow forbids Poland and the Czech Republic from building a European missile defense today. By breaking up this joint defensive project with America, the Russians drive a wedge between Poland and the United States.
Under Vladimir Putin the Russian state is following Stalin's old program. The regime in Moscow makes its subjects afraid and prepares to extend this fear to all of Europe. Who dares to act or think or speak independently? People in Russia are careful not to upset the Kremlin bosses; and so is the American president. Perhaps someone should remind the White House of a boast published by Pravda before the Second World War: "Our country is great. The globe itself needs to rotate nine hours in order for our huge Soviet country to enter the new year of its victories. There will be a time when it will need for this not nine hours, but a whole twenty-four...."
Sentiments of this kind are brewing behind the high Kremlin walls even now. Russia's agents are busy undermining the sovereignty of Georgia, Ukraine, the Baltic States and Poland. Russia's agents have penetrated to the core of every important country. They have assassinated journalists and critics at home and abroad, using a variety of instruments. Last year an attempt was made to poison the offices of the chairman of the Ukrainian State Property Fund (FGI), Valentina Semenyuk, with mercury. This occurred after Semenyuk successfully stopped an attempt by Moscow's front men to take control of one of Ukraine's most important strategic assets (Odessa's port plant).
Readers should be reminded that Ukraine's President, Victor Yushchenko, was poisoned during the 2004 election campaign by security personnel who are now on Russian territory, shielded and protected. In a recent interview with Spiegel Online President Yushchenko explained that the investigation had been completed, that state prosecutors had interviewed over a thousand witnesses. "People who directly organized my poisoning have been in Moscow for the past four years," said the Ukrainian president. "I have appealed to the Russian president three times, and asked him to have them questioned by Ukrainian investigators at our embassy in Moscow."
Consider the message President Obama is sending when he appeases Russia on the anniversary of Russia's invasion of Poland. Imagine what the Poles and Ukrainians must be thinking. Can we trust Washington? Will the Americans betray us to the Russians?
'What Will America Expect in Return for Sacrificing Their Missile Shield?'
Some Poles are claiming their country has been sold out to Russia after plans for the American missile defense shield in Eastern Europe were scrapped. Former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski talks to SPIEGEL about what the decision means for his country and why the US should pay more attention to the region.
SPIEGEL: Even though Warsaw and Prague signed a deal with the Bush administration, US President Barack Obama has called a halt to the construction of an American missile shield based in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Polish papers are calling it an American betrayal of Poland. Is it?
Aleksander Kwasniewski: No, and I am completely opposed to describing it as such. For myself and many others, it doesn't come as any surprise that the Americans have changed their plans. During Obama's election campaign, there had already been talk of how the security threat, the technological feasibility and the costs of the project needed to be reassessed. SPIEGEL: Is it not a political defeat for Poland, though? The country was hoping for more than a strategic military involvement. The stationing of Americans in Poland would have brought investment and increased the importance of the country to America's foreign policy.
Click on the image below to launch a SPIEGEL ONLINE Flash animation of the missile shield system as originally planned.
Kwasniewski: Of course there are a lot of disappointed people, particularly in the conservative camp of the former Polish prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski. But I would warn them not to over-dramatize this decision from Washington. In terms of security, the Americans will come up with a different defense system, one that is more flexible and smarter. In political terms, what's important is that such a system should be better anchored within NATO structures. As members of that alliance this should be important to us.
SPIEGEL: In Poland people are saying things like the country has been sold out to Russia.
Kwasniewski: They shouldn't be saying things like that. What does that mean anyway, we have been sold? Our borders are secure, we are part of NATO and part of the European Union.
SPIEGEL: But Moscow is happy about the move.
Kwasniewski: Of course you could see Obama's decision as a triumph for the Russians. But you should not just judge this from a domestic perspective. The question now is: What will America expect in return for sacrificing their missile shield? If Moscow now moves to do more to stop Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons, then that's useful for everyone's security. And if the price for doing without (the missile shield) was an easing of Georgia and Ukraine's path toward the West, then that isn't bad news either.
SPIEGEL: The former prime minister of the Czech Republic, Mirek Topolanek, is worried that this decision is just one more sign indicating that the entire region is losing its significance for Washington. Do you share his concerns?
Kwasniewski: I certainly do. Some time ago a group of other former heads of state, including (former Czech president) Vaclav Havel and myself, wrote an open letter talking about the danger of this. There is no denying that the Czech Republic and Poland have become less important. America's strategic interests lie elsewhere -- in the direction of the Pacific and in China's direction. In Europe the Americans care about the EU as a whole but not as much about the individual nations. The Americans say to themselves: Okay, it was only 20 years ago that these countries were fighting for their freedom and their security but these days they are no cause for concern. But I would disagree with that. Ukraine, Belarus, the countries in the Caucasus region -- you can't say that all the standards have been met there, that we should welcome these countries into the family of democratic nations or that we can all predict what the political future in those countries holds. That is why one of the most important tasks for European politicians is to make sure that this region remains uppermost in the minds of the Americans.
SPIEGEL: The Eastern Europeans have always tried hard to keep up a good relationship with the US. For instance, they aligned themselves with the Americans very early on during the Iraq war. At the time (former US Defense Secretary) Donald Rumsfeld spoke of an "old" Europe and a "new" Europe. Do you think the time has finally come when these divisions can be overcome?
Kwasniewski: I never found Rumsfeld's classification to be very useful. Poland has always been part of the old Europe. Today it is all about strengthening the European Union as a whole. We need to take a unified stand on issues of energy and security, especially when they pertain to relationships with America, with Russia and with China. The stronger Europe is, the better it is for us.
Interview conducted by Jan Puhl
September 22nd, 2009, 16:06
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Re: Obama Betrays Poland On 70th Anniversary Of Soviet Invasion
THE date was not auspicious, but the announcement was made by a man who has repeatedly shown that he will not be bound by failed ways of thinking. Last Thursday, the 70th anniversary of Russia's invasion of Poland, President Barack Obama informed the Polish and Czech prime ministers that the US would not proceed with its planned missile defence shield, which would have been based in their countries. The news that this initiative of the Bush administration had been abandoned was greeted with dismay in Warsaw and Prague, celebration in Moscow, frosty silence in Tehran, and accusations by Republicans in Congress that the President is endangering US security. It is to be understood, however, not in terms of last week's anniversary but in connection with this coming Thursday's United Nations nuclear summit in New York, which Mr Obama will chair.
The Obama Administration, rightly, regards nuclear proliferation - especially the prospect that Iran may be developing nuclear weapons - as a greater global danger than the lingering possibility of conflict between the former Cold War rivals. In that context, the Bush plan for a missile shield amounted to a provocation to a country whose support the US will need if the nuclear summit is to result in an agreement aimed at checking proliferation, and especially if any nuclear ambitions held by Iran are to be restrained.
Under the shield plan, a chain of radar stations would have been built in the Czech Republic, supporting interceptor missiles based in Poland. Instead, the US will now deploy smaller, ship-based missiles intended to intercept short and medium-ranged missiles launched from Iran, and the radar complex is likely to be moved to Turkey or one of the Caucasian republics.
Mr Obama's Congressional critics are correct in describing this as a gamble, but it is one in which the odds are more favourable to the US than they would have been under the Bush plan, which contained its own risks. In retrospect, a case can be made that expanding NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union to include Moscow's former Warsaw Pact allies did not serve the cause of European peace well. Russia felt threatened by the development, and that sense of threat has been grist to the mill of belligerent Russian nationalists such as Vladimir Putin. The enlarged NATO cannot now be easily dissolved; but the Bush administration's missile plan needlessly aggravated the tension, with the Kremlin threatening to revive the Cold War arms race.
Russia has made no offer of arms cuts in response to Mr Obama's announcement, as Congressional Republicans have also pointed out. But President Dmitry Medvedev said: ''We value the US President's responsible approach to implementing our agreements. I am ready to continue the dialogue.'' That is a very different tone to that adopted by Mr Medvedev's predecessor, Mr Putin, in his exchanges with George W. Bush.
Deterring Iran, the aim of Mr Obama's new strategy, was also the avowed aim of the Bush missile shield. Yet over time its supporters came to regard the shield in a different light: it indicated a refusal to be cowed by a resurgent Russia. For the American right, missile defence has had a special allure since President Ronald Reagan unveiled his Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), dubbed ''Star Wars''. The Bush missile shield was more modest in scope than the SDI, but like it it was very expensive and technically dubious. Its strategic assumptions were continuous with those of the Reagan era, and by junking the shield Mr Obama has, in the eyes of his opponents, besmirched the Reagan legacy, too. The fact that Defence Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican, and the joint chiefs of staff all recommended the course Mr Obama has taken is unlikely to inhibit his increasingly shrill domestic critics from saying that he is not fit to be commander-in-chief.
Abandoning the missile shield is justifiable in money terms alone. The immediate question, however, is whether the decision will give Mr Obama the leverage he needs to secure Russian support for a tougher line on Iran. This week's nuclear summit will be followed a week later by a meeting between representatives of Iran and the inelegantly titled P5+1, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. Iran is far more likely to be swayed by appeals for restraint if the P5+1 delivers them in a united voice. Mr Obama should find out this week if that is likely to happen.
November 2nd, 2009, 22:58
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Re: Obama Betrays Poland On 70th Anniversary Of Soviet Invasion
This is double posted as it has it's own thread because the implications are serious to Poland.
A Russian military tank in action in Georgia Photo: Getty Images
The armed forces are said to have carried out "war games" in which nuclear missiles were fired and troops practised an amphibious landing on the country's coast.
Documents obtained by Wprost, one of Poland's leading news magazines, said the exercise was carried out in conjunction with soldiers from Belarus.
The manoeuvres are thought to have been held in September and involved about 13,000 Russian and Belarusian troops.
Poland, which has strained relations with both countries, was cast as the "potential aggressor".
The documents state the exercises, code-named "West", were officially classified as "defensive" but many of the operations appeared to have an offensive nature.
The Russian air force practised using weapons from its nuclear arsenal, while in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which neighbours Poland, Red Army forces stormed a "Polish" beach and attacked a gas pipeline.
The operation also involved the simulated suppression of an uprising by a national minority in Belarus – the country has a significant Polish population which has a strained relationship with authoritarian government of Belarus.
Karol Karski, an MP from Poland's Law and Justice, is to table parliamentary questions on Russia's war games and has protested to the European Commission.
His colleague, Marek Opiola MP, said: "It's an attempt to put us in our place. Don't forget all this happened on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland."
Ordinary Poles were outraged by news of the exercise and demanded a firm response fro the government.
One man, identified only as Ted, told Polskie Radio: "Russia has laid bare its real intentions with respect to Poland. Every Pole most now get of the off the fence and be counted as a patriot or a traitor."
Donald Tusk, Poland's prime minister, has tried to build a pragmatic relationship with the Kremlin despite widespread and vocal calls in Poland for him to cool ties with Moscow.
After spending 40 years under Soviet domination few in Poland trust Russia, and many Poles have become increasingly wary of a country they consider as possessing a neo-imperialistic agenda.
Bogdan Klich, Poland’s defence minister, said: “It is a demonstration of strength. We are monitoring the exercises to see what has been planned.
Wladyslaw Stasiak, chief of President Lech Kaczynski’s office, and a former head of Poland’s National Security Council, added: “We didn’t like the appearance of the exercises and the name harked back to the days of the Warsaw Pact.”
The Russian troop exercises will come as an unwelcome sight to the states nestling on Russia’s western border who have deep-rooted anxieties over any Russian show of strength.
With a resurgent Moscow now more willing to flex its muscles, Central and Eastern Europeans have warned of Russia adopting a neo-imperialistic attitude to an area of the world it still regards as its sphere of influence.
In July, the region’s most famed and influential political figures, including Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel, wrote an open letter Barack Obama warning him that Russia “is back as a revisionist power pursuing a 19th-century agenda with 21st-century tactics and methods.”
Moscow and Minsk have insisted that Operation West was to help "ensure the strategic stability in the East European region".
June 25th, 2014, 19:09
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Re: Obama Betrays Poland On 70th Anniversary Of Soviet Invasion
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...b-460x276.jpegSikorski has been an outspoken critic of the Kremlin and has strongly criticised Russian actions in Ukraine this year. Photograph: Olga Maltseva /AFP /Getty A Polish news magazine said on Sunday it had obtained a secret recording of Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, in contention for a senior European Union job, saying that Poland's relationship with the United States was worthless.
The Wprost news magazine said the recording was of a private conversation earlier this year between Sikorski and Jacek Rostowski, a member of parliament with the ruling Civic Platform who until last year was finance minister.
The magazine did not say who recorded the conversation, or how it obtained the recording.
Aides to Sikorski and Rostowski said they had no immediate comment. A government spokeswoman said it was hard to form a view based on a few excerpts of a conversation, but there might be a comment later.
According to a transcript of excerpts of the conversation that was published by Wprost on its Internet site, Sikorski told Rostowski: "You know that the Polish-US alliance isn't worth anything."
"It is downright harmful, because it creates a false sense of security ... Complete bullshit. We'll get in conflict with the Germans, Russians and we'll think that everything is super, because we gave the Americans a blow job. Losers. Complete losers."
According to the transcript, Sikorski described Warsaw's attitude towards the United States using the Polish word "murzynskosc."
That derives from the word "murzyn," which denotes a dark-skinned person and someone who does the work for somebody else, according to the PWN Polish language dictionary.
The remarks were brief excerpts from a longer conversation between the two men, and it was not immediately clear if Sikorski had made comments elsewhere in the conversation that contradicted those excerpts.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk said last month that Sikorski would be a natural candidate for the job of the EU's top diplomat. The role is filled by Catherine Ashton, but may become vacant when a new European Commission is formed.
Asked by Reuters to comment on the transcript of Sikorski's conversation with Rostowski, foreign ministry spokesman Marcin Wojciechowski said: "We do not comment on media speculation ... Possible comments will be published only after the whole magazine is published."
Government spokeswoman Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska said the government was waiting for publication of the full recordings before commenting.
"It's hard to relate to something which is just a few sentences taken out of a conversation. We'll comment probably on Monday or Tuesday after the government's sitting," she said.
An aide in Rostowski's parliamentary office said he would not comment "at least until he familiarizes himself with the whole conversation."
Wprost last week published secret recordings of conversations between two other senior officials, central bank chief Marek Belka and Interior Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz.
According to a transcript, the two men discussed the central bank helping the government with the economy if it is facing election defeat, and ways of applying pressure on a businessman. Both man have said their words were taking out of context and that they did not break the law.
The recordings prompted calls from the opposition for the government to step down. A raid by prosecutors on the premises of Wprost magazine to try to seize as yet-unpublished tapes prompted protests over media freedoms.
Tusk said last week that calling an early election was an option if no other way could be found out of the crisis.
