All sorts of thoughts went through my head when I awoke this morning to the news that Polish president Lech Kaczynski and 95 other members of Poland’s leadership had died in a plane crash. The first is the sheer tragedy of the loss of so many lives, followed by the thought of that tragedy magnified by the fact that these lives were brightly shining lights in the world’s never-ending battle against tyranny. As I look at their faces, I cannot help but see those of my own family and some of my friends, we who claim Poland as our ethnic heritage. And it is the familiarity of the lines of those faces that finally bring the tears.
Such a small country with a complicated and too-often sad history, yet one that has yielded a strong and good people about whom it can best be said that they are survivors. The fact that Kaczynski and his leadership were on their way to mark the anniversary of the still-unapologetic Russian massacre of some 22,000 Polish military officers in Katyn 70 years ago and that they, too, met their end on that very same “cursed” Russian soil in Smolensk does not go unnoticed.
Nor does the bitter thought that, although their positions within the Polish government will be quickly refilled, America has lost another contingent of allies; lovers of and fighters for liberty whom His Transparency treats with equal disregard and disdain in his dangerously misguided ideological attempts to level the global playing field. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Kaczynski a patriot. Other world leaders directly referred to Kaczynski’s long fight for liberty and freedom. Yet in his remarks about the deaths, President Walking Eagle could only bring himself to call Kaczynski a “distinguished statesman”.
Another such disconnect only deepends the sadness.
Dobranoc a bóg predkosci, patrioci.
RIP, horrible tragedy