I thought it was pretty funny when the commander in chief had to remind the moron, who thinks he can be the CIC, of a nation who've put their lives on the line for this cause.
I thought it was pretty funny when on Friday, after the debate, the president of Poland was asked about this exchange, he admitted that he appreciated their contribution being acknowleged, but he also pointed out that he had been rather misled about the need for war.
Guys,
I felt it my duty to explain the situation here .
The president of Poland - Kwasniewski would like Bush rather than Kerry to win as the lesser evil in terms of our international relations. Why? Well, we got this guarantee from the US and UK secret services of strong intelligence proving the existence of WMDs in Iraq. Sounded like a good excuse for going to war.
But that's fine, now we can rationalize post factum like Bush and Blair do (the-world-is-a-better-place-without-Saddam thing), and we're quite good at it. It's not why Kwasniewski is frustrated about the Polish contribution to the war effort. The real reason is that other promises were made, including contracts for Polish companies in rebuilding Iraq (our construction companies have some 30 years of experience in Iraq). We had also been hoping the US would loosen the visa regulations (to some extent), because as it is now we pay for American visas with no guarantee of obtaining them. Another thing is that we also feel like having been screwed about the F-16 deal (we bought some from the US, but the offset contract requirements are not being met by the American side).
Kwasniewski was naive to think that just because 2000+ Polish troops have been in Iraq from day one (about 20 of them have died so far), we may have a good argument in those issues.
So this is why I think he feels "misled" about the war, not because no WMDs were found. He still thinks Bush is the lesser evil, because if Kerry gets elected we may get screwed for good .
If Kerry wins and makes a deal with France and Germany then Poland will come across as the biggest fool in Europe who really "wasted their chance to shut up" (as the petty superpower leader Jacques Chirac put it). The reasons for going to this war will be officially cancelled by the will of the American nation (results of the elections), and Kerry won't even pretend to feel obliged to fulfill the above-mentioned promises. How pathetic.
Don't worry, as a nation of martyrs we're used to getting screwed .