Polish Joke

Ralph Peters has this superb piece on Poland's long history of fighting for freedom:

"It's a mistake to over-idealize any nation. But if there's a land of heroes anywhere between the English Channel and the coast of California, it's Poland. Our Polish allies have taken a brave, costly, principled stand for freedom and democracy in Iraq. They desperately want to be seen by Washington as reliable friends in this treacherous world.
The least we could do is to treat them with respect. "

But we don't.

The West's history of shafting the Poles is so long and odious, it's a wonder they are pro-West at all:

• As Peters noted, the Poles' contributions to saving the West from the Turks were immense. Polish cavalry in its day was the most feared instrument of war in Europe - for good reason.
• After the Napoleonic Wars, the rest of Europe gave Poland back to the Russians without a fight.
• After World War 1, Poland emerged as an independent country - but the west (largely the French) made certain it was toothless, ensuring that it had neither defensible borders nor a first-class port (Gdansk was accessible through a long, narrow, indefensible corrodor between Germany and East Prussia - and hence fell instantly when war began).
• In 1939, while the Germany Army ravaged Poland with 100 divisions, precisely 12 German divisions faced the Poles' putative Allies, the French and British, who between them had over 100 ground divisions, as well as more and better tanks than the Germans had. They did nothing, allowing the Germans and Russians to swallow the country up.
• In 1944, the Armija Krajowa - the underground Home Army - revolted against the Germans in Warsaw. The Russians halted their advance until the Germans mopped it up after weeks of brutal urban warfare - they figured the Germans would save them the trouble of sending the guerrillas to Siberia themselves, as most were democrats and monarchists.
• During and after the war, the US and UK, in the interest of political expedience, ignored evidence of the Russian slaughter of thousands of Polish officers at Katyn Wood and elsewhere.
• At the end of the day, we gave Poland up to the Soviets at Yalta. This agreement was no less than a rape of Polish society, which had suffered so grievously under centuries of Russian rule.

Read the rest of Peters' article. Get outraged. Write your congressperson - as I'm doing today. The way we're treating the Poles is a crime.

Again.

UPDATE: The Professor linked to this wonderful Friedman editorial on the same subject. Money graf:

After two years of traveling almost exclusively to Western Europe and the Middle East, Poland feels like a geopolitical spa. I visited here for just three days and got two years of anti-American bruises massaged out of me. Get this: people here actually tell you they like America — without whispering. What has gotten into these people? Have all their subscriptions to Le Monde Diplomatique expired? Haven't they gotten the word from Berlin and Paris? No, they haven't. In fact, Poland is the antidote to European anti-Americanism. Poland is to France what Advil is to a pain in the neck. Or as Michael Mandelbaum, the Johns Hopkins foreign affairs specialist, remarked after visiting Poland: "Poland is the most pro-American country in the world — including the United States."

So call your legislator again!

Posted by Mitch at December 29, 2003 04:40 AM