Are Brzeziński and Carter "anti-American extremists"?

18. 7. 2009 / Karel Dolejší

The head of the ODS has now responded by saying: "I dissociate myself publicly from Zaorálek. I regard him to be a real extremist. He is driving us not to the edges of the EU, but beyond the EU. Baath, Hamas, flirting with pro-Russian and anti-American trends".

Both the Czech Social Democratic Party and the Civic Democratic Party have succumbed to the current practice of Czech politics in the sense that they are now much closer to business than to its own members and the ordinary voters. This is why I do not think that the Czech Social Democrats can be a source of renewal in Czech politics and I do not vote for them. This, however, does not mean that there are no differences between the Social Democrats and the Civic Democratic Party.

In Topolánek's view, Paroubek's visit to Syria last year is a proof of Paroubek's extremism. In that case, though, it is also necessary to regard the American security specialist Zbigniew Brzeziński as an extremist: Brzeziński visited Damascus at the same time as the head of the Czech Social Democrats.

If the meeting of some members of the Czech Social Democratic delegation with members of Hamas during their recent visit to Palestine can be regarded as proof of the extremism of the Czech Social Democrats, then the former American President Jimmy Carter is also an extremist: He has also talked to Hamas recently. And if the rejection of the plans to build US anti-missile bases in Central Europe is proof of pro-Russian and anti-American attitudes, the British House of Commons has evidently also succumbed to these attitudes, since the British Parliament has recently sharply criticised the American project.

While the Civic Democratic Party has now left the European People's Party faction for apparently not being sufficiently right wing and has started systematically cooperating, amongst other groupings with ultra-nationalists from the Baltic States who support the marches of the former members of the SS, in the Czech Republic, the Civic Democrats are trying to label the Czech Social Democrats as "extremist" for activities and for orientation which is regarded as quite normal in the West.

The United States are now striving for an improvement of relations with the muslim world. In the analyses, published by the Pentagon, China is the main partner of the US, not Russia, which is dying out. But Mirek Topolánek continues to think within the terms of the Cold War era and the George W. Bush era. Thus he has been unable to notice these changes.

As a result, he seems to believe that to rely on the support of former members of the SS or to admire Augusto Pinochet is quite in order, while Brzeziński and Carter are evidently, in his view, extremists who flirt with anti-American attitudes.

Once the Head of the Czech Civic Democratic Party has defined the position of the strongest Czech right-wing party in this way, he has sent out a clear signal that the Civic Democratic Party, which used to be a centre-right organisation, is now evidently planning to cooperate with any right wing grouping, regardless of how far to the right it might stand.

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