U.S. Missile Shield Plans: Retreat Or Advance? By Rick Rozoff
18 September, 2009 — Global Research – Stop NATO
On September 17 the White House and the Pentagon, Barack Obama and Robert Gates, announced that after a sixty-day review of the project, the U.S. is going to abandon plans to station ten ground-based interceptor missiles in Poland and a forward-based X-band missile radar installation in the Czech Republic.
The deployments were negotiated with both prospective host countries by the preceding George W. Bush administration under the guise of protecting the United States from alleged long-range missile attacks by what were described as rogue states: Iran and North Korea.
Interceptor missiles in Poland would only be of use in protecting the U.S. if Iran possessed intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of being fired over the Arctic Ocean. No serious person has ever suggested Iran has such a capability or ever will.
But Russian ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin remarked last November that U.S. missiles in Poland could hit his nation’s capital of Moscow in four minutes, as NATO warplanes that have patrolled the skies over the Baltic Sea since 2004 could reach Russia’s second largest city, St. Petersburg, in five minutes.
Leading Russian officials, political and military, have unanimously accused Washington of targeting their own nation and its strategic forces rather than Iran with its third position missile shield plans.
Surveys have consistently demonstrated that a majority of Poles oppose the stationing of American missiles and the troops that would accompany them in their nation. Polls in the Czech Republic show over two-thirds opposition to the basing of interceptor missile radar in that country.
[One of the main goals of PTT has been to debunk, uncover and counter the ways that Israel and its advocates use the tools of propaganda. They are very good at their propaganda, especially because they have the economic possibilities to exploit it to its maximum potential. PTT (and Peacepalestine blog before it) has been analysing the Hasbara Handbook and The Israel Project on many occasions. One of The Israel Project's most devious aspects is that it was "born" to look like it was just a lot of caring individuals, young mothers, especially, who wanted to express their beliefs in the way they were convinced that Israel was getting bad press that it didn't deserve, and with their free time and good will, they would be benefitting the cause close to their hearts. As they were just regular folks like you and me, we wouldn't even think of looking at it as a major propaganda or marketing ploy, nor in any way directly related to Israel, which, in fact, it is all of those things and more. The "moms" were a fake (in fact, they don't even promote themselves that way anymore, since everyone discovered that Miri Eisin, in the photo, one of the "moms", is Olmert's Press Advisor) and it is precisely what we'd all fear and suspect it was. This is but one aspect of TIP which makes it an item worth looking into and exposing. We are in the process of compiling our own "Counter Hasbara Guidebook", an on-going project, and the new additions to the revised version of TIP give us more stimulus to achieve this project. In the meantime, we offer this excellent commentary by Stuart Littlewood, a companion piece to the 
