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Keep U.S. dollars at home

Funds needed for flood victims, not a radar base
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July 9th, 2008 issue

By Paulette Will

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As I celebrated the most American of holidays, Independence Day, July 4, I marveled and wondered at the freedoms the U.S. Constitution guarantees to all within her embrace.   
Here in the heartland of the United States, there were no fireworks in the river towns of America, including Cedar Rapids, Iowa, home to the National Czech and Slovak Museum, to the oldest mosque in America and to Quaker Oats.  
Flood-ravaged Americans are struggling to preserve their heritage and recover from the June 2008 floods as Cedar Rapids was just awarded $2.7 million in federal aid relief for flood recovery.  
Multiply that devastation by 30 cities, towns and agricultural regions, and it is no wonder the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 300 points June 26, the largest drop since 1930.
Compare that relatively small $2.7 million in federal aid to the $310 million originally set aside for a U.S. radar base project in the Czech Republic.
It’s totally unjustified to fund unproven missile technologies and radar bases in foreign countries while U.S. roads, bridges, dams, levees and tunnels are in dire need of repair.  
As Czechs and Americans see U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Czech officials sign off on a document signaling the acceptance of the Czech government to the installation of a radar tracking system on Czech soil, there are more than a few ironies worth noting.
One of the biggest ironies is if citizens have really been allowed to comment on the issue.
It has been variously described as a radar defense system, a missile-tracking system, a missile-defense treaty and a radar defense agreement, but the Bush administration is couching it as an issue of national security.
Our U.S. Constitution affords Americans the guarantee of commenting on whatever they like. Maybe.
In this case, once signed, the treaty must come before the U.S. Senate, which can approve all such treaties through an “advice and consent” resolution.
This so-called “agreement/treaty” doesn’t pass the smell test, however.
That’s because it must also be approved by the Czech Parliament. If that happens, the treaty would then face U.S. scrutiny in the remaining months of the Bush administration.
Let’s look at the history of how NATO was expanded to figure out what might happen with the new treaty.
The U.S. Senate was also required to pass a resolution of “advice and consent” on the treaty to expand NATO to include the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary.  
In 1999, a coalition of Minnesotans and I lobbied for NATO expansion.  
President Václav Havel traveled to Minnesota to address the Civil Society Symposium.
Also, in the Czech delegation in 1999 was then Czech ambassador to the United States, Alexandr Vondra. He is now deputy prime minister and the chief Czech negotiator on behalf of the missile-defense system, or agreement, or treaty.   
After a year of constant setbacks in the Czech Republic, both domestically and internationally, NATO finally decided to support the U.S. plans for the missile-defense system in April 2008.     
But it seems like the NATO support was not a formal endorsement but a back-door agreement negotiated by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. He reversed former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s opposition to NATO involvement in these types of issues.  
Given all of these issues, Czech-American democracy of the 21st century, as practiced by Rice, Czech Foreign Affairs Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek and other Czech government officials, has undermined the principles of democratic values in both countries.
It has also almost cost Czechs their newly negotiated ability to travel unimpeded to the United States without visa restrictions.  
As recently as the middle of June, California Senator Diane Feinstein was believed to be  reconsidering a move in the Senate Homeland Security subcommittee to place a moratorium on a visa-waiver extension program that allows foreigners to travel in the United States for short periods without getting visa approval first.  
Notwithstanding the concerns of Senator Feinstein, an amendment to suspend the visa waiver program did not materialize, and that particular carrot did not fall off the end of the stick.  
Many believe that the visa waiver extension is just a part of the quid-pro-quo inducements the Bush Administration has offered to the Czech government to support the agreement/treaty, anyway.  
A couple of U.S. military C-130 transport planes requested by the Czech military during the negotiations is also a mighty tasty carrot to discuss as compensation for allowing a radar base to be built.
How many bridges and levees could be built by the money allocated for the radar base and the military planes?
In July 2007, U.S. Congress cut a Bush administration funding request in half from the previous $310 million allocated for the base. The Senate Armed Services Committee passed a similar bill restricting construction of a missile-defense system.  
But the system has already cost U.S. taxpayers tens of billions of dollars when it was tested in Alaska and central California to shoot down North Korean missiles. Not only that, but the testing period had to be suspended, because a missile failed to fly within the system’s range. Oops.  
This same administration also recently suspended sanctions against North Korea. Isn’t that one of the rogue nations that the proposed missile-defense system was supposed to protect the United States and Europe against?  
Rule of law, transparency in government, civilian control of the military and freedom of the press were all principles emerging democracies in Central Europe were repeatedly lectured on as requirements for membership in NATO.
I wonder if any of those principles were on Schwarzenberg’s mind in June when he attended the private Bildenburg conference (an informal meeting of international high-level officials) in Chantilly, Virginia, when he met with Rice to arrange for the July signing of the missile-defense “agreement/treaty” in the Czech Republic.   
Secret meetings at private conferences to ratify agreements negotiated without public scrutiny do not bode well for the current Czech government, and they certainly do not bode well for another U.S. Republican administration.    
Hopefully, Czech Parliament will not ratify the pending “agreement/treaty,” which would then be in the hands of the Bush White House.
If it did, the current administration would undoubtedly choose to regard a Czech ratified treaty as an agreement and would try to circumvent the required oversight hearings by the U.S. Senate with the requisite resolution of “advice and consent” required of all international treaties.  
A plan of this magnitude must receive the same congressional scrutiny as the NATO expansion treaty did in 1999.    
All of this comes while levees have been bursting on the Mississippi River.
Happy 4th of July to Americans all over the globe.
— The author was raised in Waverly, Iowa, one of the recently flooded towns and home to the NORAD radar base. She received the Czech Presidential Medal from President Václav Havel in 1999.


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Reader's comments:

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[04:21 11/07/2008] : I WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE WITN MS. WILL'S OPINION ON THE RECENT "AGREEMENT OR TREATY" OF THE RADAR INSTALLATIONS
IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC. THE CZECHS HAVE BEEN "BUSH-WACKED" AS WE AMERICANS HAVE BEEN FOR THE LAST 7 PLUS YEARS.WELCOME TO THE CLUB. I WEEP FOR MY BELOVED COUNTRY AND AS A FIRST GENERATION CZECH-AMERICAN
ONLY HOPE MY COUNTRY CAN RECOVER FROM THE NIGHTMARE CREATED BY THE "BUSH GANG" AND THAT WE CAN AGAIN BE PART OF THE WORLD PROBLEMS SOLUTION AND NOT THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEMS.

GERALDINE SKOREPA
NORTH ROYALTON, OHIO U.S.A



GERALDINE SKOREPA
NORTH ROYALTON, OHIO
GERALDINE SKOREPA
NORTH ROYALTON
[22:04 11/07/2008] : I am proud of the U.S. and the Czech Republic for our governments agreement toward collective defense. It is making a safer world for Europe and North America. Yes, more money should be sent to help the flood victims. That money can come from other budgets such as the U.S. Coast Gaurd, the C.I.A., and NASA. See what a slippery slope that is?

Ohio should have budgeted for a flood disaster more than 200 million dollars. American States make billions in budget surplus every year and to think that Ohio did not have a "rainy day" fund is simply bad fiscal management on that State. Federal money should go there, but the accountability for building cities in flood zones is not every American taxpayers' problem. The possible threat of ICBMs carrying nuclear payloads is!


Bryan Moody
Las Vegas
[18:38 15/07/2008] : "I am proud of the U.S. and the Czech Republic for our governments agreement toward collective defense."



Before the missile "shield" the Czech Republic had no enemies and didn't need defending against anyone.
Margot Winston
Prague
[23:05 15/07/2008] : The most broke country in the world (USA) spends $100 billion more on defense than every other country in the world combined. It is fiscally irresponsible to have this missile defense system and if it is so badly needed, NATO members should pick up the tab or at least their share.

Normally I am thrilled at at anything that makes the Russians mad but in this case, its just too much money at a time when we can least afford it.
John Kennedy
Sewell, NJ
[03:50 17/07/2008] : Ms. Will makes some very good points. I, too, agree that decision to siting these missile bases in the Czech Republic and Poland may pose unpredictable dangers in case of major conflict. Some arguments in favor of such missile sites at the proposed geographical locations are, indeed, far fetched.


Ms. Will was quite modest when she referred to her role in lobbying for the expansion of NATO to include the three Central European countries. She was a leading member of the "Coalition", which worked hard for at least three years (collected signatures, organized meetings with and wrote letters to US. Senators and personally testified) to convince members of the US Senate to support the inclusion of the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary into NATO. In fact, Minnesota was one of two states - California the other - to gain support of the State Legislature for the proposed NATO expansion. She, Dr. John Radzilowski and myself testified at two crucial State Legislative Committees about the advantages of such expansion. As the result of gaining the support of Senator Grams, the text of these testimonies were placed in the Congressional records as support material for the NATO Expansion. Paulette Will, along with Dr. Radzilowski, Agnes M. Fulop and myself received a "NATO Victory Commendation Medal" from the "Ethnic Leadership Council" transmitted to each of us in 1999 by Dr. Géza Jeszenszky, Ambassador of Hungary to the US.
Laszlo Fulop
Minneapolis
[09:53 24/07/2008] : Where is the EU when you need them? They whine about the US "bilaterally" negotiating with each EU member re: visa waivers and threaten retaliation against US Diplomats (who are snickering "yeah, right"), but are as quiet as a mouse during these "negotiations". The European Union: The Most Useless Organization in the World.
mike raines
pukilslava
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