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Walesa backs Romney in White House race

PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 05.11.2012 11:04
Former Polish president Lech Walesa has made a firm declaration in support of Republican candidate Mitt Romney as America prepares to vote.

Mitt
Mitt Romney in Virginia: photo - EPA/ Shawn Thew

“The USA needs someone new,” Walesa told Polish news source Onet.

“He [Romney] is a man of values with a clear view on business,” the former Solidarity leader said.

“It would be good for America and the world if someone with both moral and economic values was more prominent,” he added.

“We have to negotiate in terms of the values held by religions, and non-believers, and in this regard create a new era,” he reflected.

“Obama has not offered anything in this respect, and he won't do so,” Walesa claimed.

Walesa also argued that Obama had “failed” in adapting to what he described as the transition from the era of “state-country” to that of “state-continent.”

Mitt Romney met with Walesa during his European tour this summer, after the former Polish leader sent him a letter of invitation on 4 July.

“I wish you to be successful because this success is needed for the United States, of course, but to Europe and the rest of the world, too,” Walesa said when they met in Gdansk, northern Poland on 30 July.

In what has been partly interpreted as an appeal to American voters of Polish descent (c. 9-10 million US voters have Polish background) Romney has accused Obama of “betraying Poland” by abandoning an agreement made during George W. Bush's administration, concerning a missile-defence system.

“They [the Poles] had courageously agreed to provide sites for our anti-missile systems, only to be told, at the last hour, that the agreement was off. As part of the so-called reset in policy, missile defenses were sacrificed as a unilateral concession to the Russian government.”

Obama himself has accused Romney of reviving outdated Cold War rhetoric.

Walesa openly supported Obama in the 2008 elections, claiming that he was a man destined to reform.

The former Solidarity leader turned down a meeting with Obama (to which several other dignitaries had been invited) when the American head of state was in Warsaw in May 2011.

America goes to the polls on Tuesday. The latest opinion polls put the candidates virtually neck and neck, with the Wall Street Journal indicating 48 percent support for Obama and 47 percent for Romney.

US in Poland

Meanwhile, Poland's Air Force has announced that 250 American pilots are due to be stationed in Poland as of next year, as part of a rotational scheme.

“The American airmen are coming to Poland to strengthen military cooperation,” Lieutenant-Colonel Artur Golawski told the Dziennik Polski daily.

The Americans will oversee loans of F-16 and C-130 Hercules planes, with other models due in future under the rotational scheme.

The programme will begin at an air base at Lask, central Poland.

Both Polish and American pilots will take part in joint training exercises, and the Poles have been invited to take part in training programmes in Arizona and North Carolina.

In May 2010, a battery of US Patriot missiles was installed at a base in Morag, north east Poland, near the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

The installation took place in line with the 2008 agreement signed by Poland and the United States, under President George W. Bush's administration. President Barack Obama suspended the main part of the agreement - which entailed a longer range missile defence system – but went ahead with the condition pertaining to Patriot missiles.Russia had opposed the creation of a US military installation by its border. (nh)

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