Related: NEO-CON CIA AGENT TO TAKE OVER POLAND?
That is not funny, either.
"Olive branch slips from Putin’s hand; At memorial, he rationalizes WWII massacre of Poles" by Simon Shuster, Associated Press | April 8, 2010
MOSCOW — Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, made an unprecedented gesture of good will to Poland yesterday by attending a memorial ceremony for 22,000 Poles executed by Soviet secret police during World War II. But hours later he soured the mood by offering a controversial justification for the massacres....
Related: The Jewish Role in the Bolshevik Revolution
Yeah, nothing is ever as it seems.
The mood is going to sour a lot more:
"‘The flower of our nation has . . . perished’; Plane crash claims Poland’s president and much of the nation’s military and civilian leadership" by New York Times | April 11, 2010
This article was reported by Nicholas Kulish, Ellen Barry, and Michal Piotrowski, and written by Barry.
WARSAW — A plane carrying the Polish president and dozens of the country’s top political and military leaders to the site of the Soviet massacre of Polish officers in World War II crashed in western Russia yesterday, killing everyone on board.
President Lech Kaczynski’s plane tried to land in a thick fog, missing the runway and snagging treetops about half a mile from the airport in Smolensk, scattering chunks of flaming fuselage across a bare forest.
It didn't disintegrate like in Pennsylvania on 9/11?
The crash came as a stunning blow to Poland, wiping out a large portion of the country’s leadership in one fiery explosion. And in a bizarre twist, it happened at the moment that Russia and Poland were beginning to come to terms with the killing of more than 20,000 members of Poland’s elite officer corps in the same place 70 years ago.
“It is a damned place,’’ former president Aleksander Kwasniewski told TVN24. “It sends shivers down my spine.’’
“This is a wound which will be very difficult to heal,’’ he said.
A top Russian military official said air traffic controllers at the Smolensk airport had several times ordered the crew of the plane not to land, warned that it was descending below the glide path, and recommended it reroute to another airport.
“Nevertheless, the crew continued the descent,’’ said Lieutenant General Aleksandr Alyoshin, the first deputy chief of the Russian Air Force Staff. “Unfortunately, the result was tragic.’’ Both black boxes detailing data and transmissions from the plane were found at the crash site.
Sometimes they find them, sometimes they don't huh?
Andrei Yevseyenkov, spokesman for the Smolensk regional government, said Russian dispatchers had asked the Polish crew to divert from the military airport in North Smolensk and land instead in Minsk, the capital of neighboring Belarus, or in Moscow to the east because of the fog. While traffic controllers generally have the final word in whether it is safe for a plane to land, they can and do leave it to the pilots’ discretion. Air Force General Alexander Alyoshin confirmed that the pilot disregarded instructions to fly to another airfield....
The deaths were not expected to directly affect the functioning of Polish government: Poland’s president is commander in chief of its armed forces, but the position’s domestic duties are chiefly symbolic. No top government ministers were aboard the plane....
Interesting, no?
Poles united in grief in a way that recalled the death of the Polish pope, John Paul II, five years ago. Thousands massed outside the Presidential Palace, laying flowers and lighting candles....
Who, that pervert?
Devastating as the loss was, its connection with the 1940 massacre at Katyn shocked the nation. The crash happened days after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin became the first Russian leader to join Polish officials in commemorating the massacre, a wound that has festered between the two countries for decades and to Poles symbolized Russian domination....
The repercussions on Poland’s coming presidential elections were far from clear.
Bringing up politics at a time like this?
The Law and Justice Party lost numerous important leaders in addition to the president, including its parliamentary leader. Kaczynski had been trailing far behind his opponent in the polls, but the outpouring of sympathy from the mourning public might benefit his party in the moved-up presidential election....
Hmmmmm.
Those killed included....
--more--"
WARSAW — Poland’s government moved swiftly yesterday to show that it was staying on course after the deaths of its president and dozens of political, military, and religious leaders, even as tens of thousands of Poles expressed their grief over the plane crash in Russia that shocked the country.
New acting chiefs of the military were already in place and an interim director of the central bank was named yesterday, with work running as usual, said Pawel Gras, a government spokesman. It was a rare positive note on a day filled with grief for the 96 dead and laced with reminders of Poland’s dark history with its powerful neighbor. The crash occurred Saturday in thick fog near the Katyn forest, where Josef Stalin’s secret police in 1940 systematically executed thousands of Polish military officers in the western Soviet Union.
The MSM is not going to let go of that, as you shall soon see.
A preliminary analysis of flight data recordings showed that the plane had no mechanical problems in flight, a Russian investigator said yesterday. Investigators are trying to determine why the pilot decided to make a risky landing in fog and whether any of the officials aboard influenced his decision.
In August 2008, during Russia’s brief war with Georgia, Kaczynski got into a dispute with the pilot flying his plane to Tbilisi, The New York Times reported today, citing news accounts at the time. Kaczynski told the pilot to land despite dangerous conditions, but the pilot disagreed and diverted to Azerbaijan....
Maybe this time the pilot did not talk back.
The head of Russia’s top investigative body, Alexander Bastrykin, told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia yesterday that a preliminary analysis of the recording of the crew’s conversations indicated the plane had no technical problems.
“The recording that we have shows that there had been no problem with the plane, that the pilot had been informed about difficult weather conditions but still decided to land,’’ Bastrykin told Putin, according to minutes of an official meeting released by the Russian Cabinet.
--more--"
"Russia says crash wasn’t caused by plane problems; Polish pilots may have been asked to ignore warnings" by Matt Moore, Associated Press | April 13, 2010
WARSAW — Russian investigators suggested human error may have been to blame in the plane crash that killed the Polish president and 95 others, saying yesterday there were no technical problems with the Soviet-made plane.
The Tu-154 went down Saturday while trying to land in dense fog near a Smolensk airport in western Russia. All aboard were killed, including President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of Polish political, military, and religious leaders.
They had been traveling in the Polish government-owned plane to attend a memorial in the nearby Katyn forest for thousands of Polish military officers executed 70 years ago by Josef Stalin’s secret police.
The pilot had been warned of bad weather in Smolensk, and was advised by traffic controllers to land elsewhere, which would have delayed the Katyn observances....
In Warsaw, there was concern the pilots may have been asked by someone in the plane to land at Smolensk instead of diverting to Minsk or Moscow, in part to avoid missing the ceremonies.
Because of what happened before, right?
Andrzej Seremet, Poland’s prosecutor general, said Polish investigators talked to the flight controller and flight supervisor and “concluded that there were no conditions for landing.’’
“The tower was advising against the landing,’’ Seremet said....
The business daily Kommersant said that that the pilots had been informed about the bad weather in the area while the plane was over Belarus, but the captain said he would see conditions for himself and then make a decision. Polish investigators said they will listen to the cockpit conversations recorded on the black boxes to see if there were “any suggestions made to the pilots’’ from other people aboard the plane....
Polish media reported in August 2008 that pilots flying Kaczynski to Tbilisi refused the president’s order to land there because of Georgia’s war with Russia, diverting instead to Azerbaijan. In remarks on Russian television, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov of Russia told a government meeting, including President Dmitry Medvedev, that the data recorders on the plane were found to have been completely functional, which will allow a detailed analysis.
Sure wish we could have gotten those recorders on 9/11, although at this point I would doubt anything this government hands over.
In Warsaw, the acting president, Bronislaw Komorowski, moved to start appointing replacements for the many posts left vacant in the presidential office. He appointed a retired general, Stanislaw Koziej, as new national security bureau chief, and said the first task he was setting him was a review of the rules for travel of top military officials.
Horse is out of the barn on that one, but....
--more--"
"Polish president, wife lie in state as a nation mourns; Line stretches over half-mile; funeral Sunday" by Monika Scislowska and Matt Moore, Associated Press | April 14, 2010
WARSAW — Thousands of grieving mourners tossed flowers at a slow-moving hearse or joined an enormous viewing line at the presidential palace to pay their respects yesterday to Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife as their bodies lay in state.
Kaczynski and his wife, Maria Kaczynska, were among 96 people killed Saturday in a plane crash in western Russia. Investigators are pointing to human error as the cause....
The last Polish leader killed in office, General Wladyslaw Sikorski, the exiled World War II leader who perished in a mysterious plane crash off Gibraltar in 1943....
Parliament held a special observance in memory of the president and the 18 lawmakers killed in the plane crash. In the assembly hall, framed portraits of the lawmakers and flowers bedecked their now-empty seats. The names of the victims were read out, and Senate Speaker Bogdan Borusewicz, his voice breaking, declared the crash the “greatest tragedy in Poland’s postwar history.’’
Investigators have suggested that human error may have been to blame in Saturday’s crash that killed the Polish president and 95 others. The Tu-154 went down while trying to land in dense fog at Smolensk in western Russia. All aboard were killed, including Kaczynski and dozens of Polish political, military, and religious leaders. They had been traveling in the Polish government-owned plane to attend a memorial in the nearby Katyn forest for thousands of Polish military officers executed 70 years ago by Josef Stalin’s secret police.
Told you they would keep on bringing that up.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said yesterday that there was no explosion or fire on the plane and that the engines were working normally. The pilot had been warned of bad weather in Smolensk, and was advised by traffic controllers to land elsewhere — which would have delayed the Katyn observances....
Traffic controller Anatoly Muravyev, part of the Russian team that handled the plane, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper that the crew ignored their warnings about worsening weather at the Smolensk airport. Polish Prosecutor General Andrzej Seremet said Polish prosecutors were still reviewing data from the flight recorders and would discuss their findings tomorrow....
--more--"
