No European Star Wars

posted by Peter Rothberg on 05/16/2008 @ 1:41pm

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Last March, I blogged about the Bush Administration'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 citizens opposing the planned bases as well as the little fact, as amply reported, that the system's technology doesn't yet work. I detailed grassroots opposition efforts in the Czech Republic and urged readers to sign the Czech Humanist Movement's international petition.

Two leaders of the Czech Humanist movement are now going much further at great personal risk to dramatize why they see the base as nothing less than a grave threat to democracy in their country. On May 13, humanists Jan Tamas and Jan Bednar began what they say will be an indefinite hunger strike in Prague against the installation of the Star Wars' radar in the Czech Republic. A Google news search conducted today turned up not one mainstream media article, news report or broadcast feature about the hunger strike.

This is their declaration:

For nearly two years, members of the Humanist Movement have dedicated themselves to the nonviolent fight against the Star Wars project, and, specifically against the installation of the proposed US military base in the Czech Republic.

The online petition against the radar at www.nonviolence.cz has been signed by more than 78 000 people. According to the last official poll, published in mid-May, 65 percent of the Czech population is still opposed to the radar base.

Unfortunately, the Czech government ignores the opinion of the majority of its citizens. It continues its negotiations with the US, and the signing of treaties that will allow once again for the presence of foreign troops on Czech territory is right around the corner. All of this despite the fact that the US Star Wars project has critics not only outside of the US, but within the US as well, including members of the US Congress.

Participating in this dangerous project of the outgoing US administration would not only make the Czech Republic a target, it would also lead to an increase in international tensions within Europe and possibly to the creation of an international conflict with the Czech Republic in its center.

The voices of various international organizations are recognizing that the US will, in fact, be carrying out a military occupation of the Czech Republic.

The issue of the US military base is not only an issue of international security for us, but also an issue of democracy. It is about whether we will once again allow a small group of elite politicians to ignore the wishes of the majority of the population on an issue of great importance to their fate. These methods remind us of times before 1989 -- times we don't want to be repeated.

The plan to build a US military base on our territory and the dangers it poses for the future of democracy in our country have led us to begin an unlimited hunger strike. Our goal is to highlight the dangerous direction our country has been taking for the last two years and to stop a minority of politicians from carrying out their plans against the will of the majority of the people.

We will continue our hunger strike until we receive clear indications that negotiations will be stopped, a national referendum will take place, or a real, open and democratic discussion on this issue will be allowed to take place.

Click here to sign on to the international petition and here to help spread the word about the campaign to stop the bases.

Comments (9)

"A Google news search conducted today turned up not one mainstream media article, news report or broadcast feature about the hunger strike."

And so what is that going to tell both Washington and Prague?

But hey, keep tilting at the windmills, Peter....I know you mean well.

Posted by Mask at 05/16/2008 @ 3:10pm
Posted by Mask

that's right sheeple,

to the abattoir.

remember, there's nothing you can do.

accept your helplessness.

accept.

Posted by frosty zoom at 05/16/2008 @ 4:11pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/16/2008

FROS, re-read the line I posted.

Sometimes...it's a losing battle.

The Czech movement gets a couple HUNDRED people in a hunger strike and it makes CNN every other night...they might get somewhere.

But piddly little "protests" that don't even make the major news networks, as PETER admitted, aren't going to change much.

Wish it was different if you want...but that's that.

Posted by Mask at 05/16/2008 @ 7:21pm
What if the Czech government decides it wants to monitor our elections & devise a health care plan for the security of all Americans? Suppose we'll have to reciprocate. And the Czechs won't even have to wear helmets?

Posted by Sorelish at 05/17/2008 @ 01:11am
While I admire their wantng to effect(sp?) change in their homeland, I don't think two people starving themselves is gonna do much good. If more people( i.e. hundreds) join them in their starvation, maybe something might come of it. But when more than half of America wants the war to end and the VP says "so what", I doubt two people in the Czech Republic are gonna do much more than starve themselves to death. I applaud them in their efforts and standing up for what they believe in. I just wish their families would get more out of it than two funerals and special memories.

Posted by k330k at 05/19/2008 @ 12:44pm
I'm pretty sure that a surface-based radar system designed to detect surface-based missile launches doesn't qualify as "Star Wars".

And, for that matter, if--as you say--the technology doesn't even work, then what are people starving themselves over? Whether some Prague Castle policy purportedly offends the Russians, of all people, is probably the last thing that the Czechs care about.

I lived in the Czech Republic for five years, at the time when this radar station was first proposed, and the Czechs themselves are generally apathetic toward the notion of protesting against it, whether they are personally inclined to favor it or not. When the Iraq War protests were raging across Europe, for example, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in France and the UK, the Prague protest drew a staggering 300 people. (And, of that, many of them expats.)

Meanwhile, even Vladimir Putin has said he has no problem with the radar station, just that he wants it placed in Azerbaijan rather than the Czech Republic. So, that's a reason to go on a hunger strike?

I mean, even Vaclav Havel, architect of the Velvet Revolution, is in favor of it. When you can get Havel and Czech President Mirek Topolanek to actually agree on anything... that's sayin' something.

Posted by DrewHarris at 05/21/2008 @ 06:27am
Posted by DrewHarris at 05/21/2008

Drew, I wouldn't dispute you one way or the other on where the Czech people stand on the issue about the radar system.

My question is why is the United States so worried about installing a radar system in the Czech Republic? To protect.....Europe?! Aren't the Europeans quite capable of developing their own radar systems without using U.S. tax payer subsidized researched radar systems?!

Posted by Wolfgang1 at 05/21/2008 @ 3:49pm
Hi Wolfgang,

I'm not sure I get your point... your objection is simply that it's being paid for by American tax dollars--and that's why two Czechs are starving themselves to death? And as for why the US is paying for it--well, that's because we're part of NATO. An act of war against (most of) Europe is an act of war against the United States. That's how such treaties work.

The US has been paying for European defense for... well, since 1942, and probably a bit before that. Without US tax dollars supporting its defense, your own logic would have left half of Europe under communist rule to this very day--and, for that matter, probably the other half as well.

Posted by DrewHarris at 05/22/2008 @ 1:23pm
your own logic would have left half of Europe under communist rule to this very day--and, for that matter, probably the other half as well.

Posted by DrewHarris at 05/22/2008

NATO is not the U.S. tax payer pays for everyone else's national defense alliance. What the hell kind of an alliance is that. What do we, the American people, get in return? To subsidize the Europeans pharmaceutical goods, cover their national defense and God knows what else?

What's going on is defenese contractors, who have made a big piece of shit defense system that doesn't work, wish to have the U.S. tax payer pay for them to install said piece of shit in another country. Don't you see a couple things wrong with this picture?

The Czechs starving themselves to stop an anti missile system being placed in their country makes some sense to me. This may insult Russia and place the Czech Republic in danger in the future. I can see why they may not want this system installed there.

But, my biggest complaint here is that I, as an American, am quite tired of funding defense contractors making billions of dollars in the name of defense. Right now, the U.S. has some serious problems going on at home. People are losing their homes, jobs, and quite a few are actually leaving the country to find more affordable places to live in South America.

Our government has lost sight of the people it is supposed to serve. That would be the people of the United States, not the Czech Republic, nor Israel or Saudi Arabia and definitely not Iraq. The U.S. has become a friggin military state and it's a bunch of crap.

Posted by Wolfgang1 at 05/22/2008 @ 5:03pm