The US national missile defense system is a complex project which involves the production of new weapons, and the installation of US military bases in different parts of the planet. In particular, in Europe, the first step is the installation of a radar system in the Czech Republic, as well as a base for interceptor missiles in Poland.

Last June, Katrina vanden Heuvel blogged about President Bush's plan to deploy a proposed a missile defense system in both the Czech Republic and Poland despite the reluctance of the host countries, where public opinion polls show most Czechs opposing the planned base as well as the little fact, as amply reported, that the system's technology doesn't yet work.

The project is also a bad idea because it's a blatant provocation to Russia which has fiercely opposed US plans to deploy new missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic, asking that Washington use radars on Russian soil to counter possible missile threats from Iran.The two countries have held a series of talks on the issue, but so far the US has been un-accepting of a compromise.

Watch this video of Czechs protesting the plan in Wenceslas Square last year for background on the issue.

The Czech Humanist Movement Wednesday posted an international petition against the possible stationing of a US radar base in their homeland. The movement plans to launch a billboard campaign promoting the petition in the Czech Republic later this week. The statement accompanying the petition argues that if the Czech government signs a treaty against the will of a majority of Czechs, then the treaty will not be valid.

Join these modern-day Czech dissidents in protesting one of the latest of the Bush Administration's imperial schemes by clicking here to add your name to the petition and by helping spread the word. With our help, the organizer's goal of securing 500,000 signatures is well within reach.

Comments (28)

1. BLOG | Posted 03/21/2008 The project is also a bad idea because it's a blatant provocation to Russia which has fiercely opposed US plans to deploy new missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic...

   That is the best reason NOT to go forward with this ridiculous waste of tax payer money. It's a thumb in the eye of Russia, as I posted the last time this issue came up. Putin will not stand by idly while Bush tries to reignite the cold war on his terms. It's foolish, arrogant and risky. Spend the money on health care.

   Posted by jackwells at 03/21/2008 @ 4:08pm

2. uh, Peter, I think you need to look at paragraph 3 again. Looks like you said the same thing twice.

   Posted by ACook at 03/21/2008 @ 4:12pm

3. "Humanists are internationalists, aspiring to a universal human nation."

   Gee Peter, good luck with that humanist idea, this is from their website.

   Imagine all the pep ole............. livin for todaaaay oh hoooo yeah....

   Sorry not making fun. couldnt help it

   Posted by CPT at 03/21/2008 @ 4:14pm

4. Posted by JACKWELLS 03/21/2008 @ 4:08pm

   Don't put everything off on GWB. Putin has been doing his dirt for quite some time now. Remember, he's still KGB and they didn't like how the "cold war" was lost.

   Posted by ACook at 03/21/2008 @ 4:16pm

5. Posted by JACKWELLS 03/21/2008 @ 4:08pm | ignore this person

   Yeah, Putin has done so well doing what we want....God forbid we offend the guy.

   Posted by CPT at 03/21/2008 @ 4:16pm

6. Thanks Cook. typo.....

   Posted by Peter Rothberg at 03/21/2008 @ 5:00pm

7. Unless a ballistic missile is stopped in the boost phase, simple physics renders any shoot down impossible, because of relative speeds, gravity and sizes involved (the rogue satellite was the size and rough shape of a schoolbus).The Polish-Czech system is a feeble bluff that only helps big contractors.

   Posted by bagehot at 03/21/2008 @ 5:44pm

8. "Putin like China has done what we want while it benefits them."

   Actually, there is a lot of truth to this statement. But you have to realize that since missile defense is delusional, it is only by a "gentlemen's agreement" between our military and the militaries of the single-party-dictatorship world (most of whose leaders are officially our "allies") that we pretend that we are defending Eastern Europe while Putin and (I suppose) the North Koreans pretend to be threatened. This way, our military makes money and their militaries make money. It's only the taxpayers on both sides who lose.

   Does missile defense "provoke"? Does it "destabilize"? Well, from what I understand of it, the way you get around missile defense is by building decoy missiles. It's a comparatively cheap and easy way to evade a very, very expensive shield. So, no, assuming that missile defense doesn't work, I assume that there's no real reason for Putin or anybody else to get upset about it -- except for the poor schmucks who have to pay for it.

   Those of us who oppose high-tech missile defense systems (and I proudly count myself as part of this group) really have to make our message a little more consistent. Either missile defense is a serious "destabilizer," or it's an expensive boondoggle that will not work. It really can't be both, unless the aforementioned "gentlemen's agreement" prevails to make conventional wisdom out of pure fantasy.

   It would be really nice if we made some generous economic deals with the Czech Republic and Poland that involved goods and services with real rather than illusory value. Maybe energy-saving technology could be exchanged, or something helpful like that. (It was very un-neighborly of the Germans to build a gas pipeline connecting them to Russia that completely bypassed Poland by way of the Baltic Sea.)

   Posted by JakobFabian at 03/21/2008 @ 6:59pm

9. Yeah, Putin has done so well doing what we want....God forbid we offend the guy.

   Posted by CPT 03/21/2008 @ 4:16pm | ignore this person

   It's not a matter of offending him--and yes, I'll concede that he has a serious authoritarian streak--it's about pissing him off to the point where he decides to take punitive action, either against East Europeans or US interests elsewhere. Basically, it's about using common sense in international relations--something they apparently forgot to teach Condi at Stanford.

   Posted by jackwells at 03/21/2008 @ 7:54pm

10. It is the Rothschild Formula in all its splendor.

    Posted by FREIHEIT 03/21/2008 @ 7:00pm

    Follow the zloty/krona and you'll find the source of why this missile defense shield is going forward. Someone in both Poland and the Czech Republic is making a mint off of this, and is the force behind these missile defense systems. It has zero to do with defense and everything to do with old Bush family favors and the enriching of contractors in both the US and the two countries.

    Posted by yutsano at 03/21/2008 @ 8:53pm

11. A couple of things are important.

    One, the "spend this on health care" argument isn't actually that good, because money is not actually all that fungible between different areas of spending.

    More centrally, though, Peter, you seem to be going for two mutually exclusive positions simultaneously. On the one hand, you suggest that this missile defense system is a blatant provocation to Russia. At the same time, though, you allege that it obviously doesn't work. These can't both be true; if it doesn't work, it's not a threat to anyone.

    I can't really say anything about whether it actually does work, because I don't even remotely know the science involved. I do, however, believe that this isn't a threat to Russia at all. Why? Because Russia has sufficient nuclear weapons such that this won't threaten their second-strike capability, which is the only way Russia would really care. I'm pretty sure this is actually designed to deal with the possibility of rogue states (such as, say, North Korea). I can't speak to the science, but I don't think Peter's strategic arguments are all that compelling.

    Posted by Thrawn at 03/22/2008 @ 02:25am

12. Didn't the US offer the missile defense system to Russia to ease their fears...and Russia refused?

    Posted by usc1 at 03/22/2008 @ 04:19am

13. It is the Rothschild Formula in all its splendor.

    Posted by FREIHEIT 03/21/2008 @ 7:00pm | ignore this person

    it's all the jews' fault. it's ALWAYS the jews' fault

    you should be ashamed of yourself.

    Posted by emile duBois at 03/22/2008 @ 10:33am

14. Posted by THRAWN 03/22/2008 @ 02:25am | ignore this person

    how about if the shoe were on the other foot. Russia builds radar stations in say Cuba, to protect from rogue missiles in Korea. whether it works or not it's a provocation.

    it is also a provocation to shove NATO right against Russia's borders.

    USC you might want to look up what it means to be a sovereign nation.

    Posted by emile duBois at 03/22/2008 @ 10:39am

15. Emile

    Sovereignty is the exclusive right to exercise supreme political (e.g. legislative, judicial, and/or executive) authority over a geographic region.

    I'm not sure why you couldn't look it up yourself...but there it is. I hope it helps.

    Posted by usc1 at 03/22/2008 @ 1:12pm

16. Didn't the US offer the missile defense system to Russia to ease their fears...and Russia refused?

    Posted by USC1 03/22/2008 @ 04:19am | ignore this person

    now plug your definition into this equation and you'll see what I had in mind.

    they refused? o mi god, da noive of those russkis, they refused an American offer. imagine that.

    Posted by emile duBois at 03/22/2008 @ 1:38pm

17. I wish that before every one of the 'pro-freedom' crowd demands something from or asserts something about Russia, they would imagine Russia doing the same to us. Let's see. What if they built a SATO with all our southern neighbors and used it as an excuse to Militarily occupy South and Central America. What do we have to fear from them? We're all friends. What if they had a completely undemocratic two party system that excluded most viewpoints and within those two parties, most people did not even get to vote for their preference because only two or three very small regions of Russia voted first and all the losers immediately dropped out of the race. What if they had a 'free press' run by a small number of corporations and basically followed the money or faux-patriotism? What if they attacked and occupied Canada because of some falsified link with terrorism? What if they supported a breakaway region of one of our closest allies but when the issue was reversed they declared that no precedent was set (think Serbia and Georgia). What if they unilaterally pulled out of some of the most important treaties but called you undemocratic when you did the same? What if they were addicted to your most import export item but they demanded to pay below market prices and when you refused to sell at those prices they called it another example of extortion. What if they spent more on their military that all other countries combined (us included)? I can go on and on. Wait, I keep forgetting. God is on our side so that makes our hypocrisy OK. The only problem is they don't know that.

    Posted by D1od1o at 03/22/2008 @ 3:39pm

18. Posted by D1OD1O 03/22/2008 @ 3:39pm

    Ya know, this blaming everything on the US is a celebrated mantra for all you libs. The world is going to hell in a handbasket and it's all America's fault. I often wonder sometimes, what this world would like if a country like America didn't exist and there was no such thing as "democracy", who would you blame then?

    Posted by ACook at 03/22/2008 @ 4:29pm

19. Gee BAGEHOT, it seems the system actually does work - they can hit a bullet with a bullet... I'm sorry, but Mr. KGB (aka Putin) is not going to be happy with anything we do, so his objection just validates the need for the project.

    Posted by pyeatte at 03/22/2008 @ 7:04pm

20. Uh, Emile?

    Ol' Pete described the placement of the missile defense in Europe as a provocation of Russia...buuuut we offerred it to Russia, too.

    Do ya see where I'm goin' wid dis?

    Posted by usc1 at 03/22/2008 @ 10:44pm

21. Mark

    Libs would much rather wait until the missiles were fired...THEN they would get to work on a missile defense system...

    And they're supposed to be progressive thinkers...

    Posted by usc1 at 03/22/2008 @ 10:48pm

22. http://www.thenation.com/blogs/action/ignore.mhtml?who=Freiheit

    that's not how ignoramusses such as me will read it. Rothchild doesn't exactly refer to Sicilians.

    Posted by emile duBois at 03/23/2008 @ 2:30pm

23. Posted by EMILE DUBOIS 03/23/2008 @ 2:30pm

    Professor ROLF...conspiracy theories about the Rothschilds are not the sole province of anti-Semities.

    Posted by Mask at 03/23/2008 @ 3:26pm

24. Sometimes people just don't think. Why would Iran risk TOTAL destruction by firing a missile at the US? I have to keep repeating because we're so ego-centric here, but people from other countries are just like us. They think they have God on their side and they think they are somehow superior. Some people like ACOOK think is it just US bashing when in fact I am trying to point out that if we keep acting like every other historical superpower has acted, we will ultimately fail. We all saw how rapidly we declined in just 6 years of GW. String two or three more of him together and we are the next ROME.

    Posted by D1od1o at 03/23/2008 @ 3:42pm

25. Posted by D1OD1O 03/23/2008 @ 3:42pm

    Hate to rain on your parade D10D10, but the US is nothing like Rome. Never will be. There are no emperors here and we are not on the verge of collapse.

    Posted by ACook at 03/23/2008 @ 8:07pm

26. Hate to rain on your parade D10D10, but the US is nothing like Rome. Never will be. There are no emperors here and we are not on the verge of collapse.

    Posted by ACOOK 03/23/2008 @ 8:07pm

    Uh, I think at least the first of these is demonstrably incorrect. I mean, you're right that our political system is distinctly different. However, the parallel that people generally cite is the extention of our military all across the world, which is clearly the case. That is a hugely important characteristic of empire, one that we clearly seem to fulfill. Granted, those places where our troops are are sovereign countries rather than simply colonies of the US, but this doesn't change the fact that we have become the world's enforcer, more or less. Some like it, some don't, but you have to admit that it's virtually the definition of empire.

    Second, in response to Peter's post, he never responded to some of my most important criticisms (or any, for that matter).

    First, he embraces two mutually exclusive positions. As I said, this device cannot be manifestly dysfunctional and provocative at the same time.

    Additionally, though, I argue that this isn't provocative, and I never got any response. Would I object to Russia putting something of this magnitude in Cuba? No, not really, because it doesn't mean much at all against the US' arsenal, just like it's not intended to mean anything against Russia's arsenal. That's the actual argument I made that was never responded to: it's only provocative if it actually has some effect against Russia's second-strike capability. It doesn't, therefore the provocation argument is dumb.

    Posted by Thrawn at 03/23/2008 @ 8:38pm

27. First, he embraces two mutually exclusive positions. As I said, this device cannot be manifestly dysfunctional and provocative at the same time.

    this is certainly NOT true.

    Posted by emile duBois at 03/24/2008 @ 07:52am

28. perhaps you can explain what the R M is. google has not found a definition.

    Posted by emile duBois at 03/25/2008 @ 11:22am