Flags out for Obama POLES can be prickly, especially when it comes to their own painful history. They often express dismay that the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 is widely seen as the start of the collapse of the Soviet empire, when it was actually strikes the year before in Poland that pulled the communist leadership into “round-table talks” with Solidarity, the banned trade union, and which set off the domino effect of the collapse of communism. In the semi-free elections 25 years ago this week, Solidarity took all the winnable seats except one.Under normal circumstances Poles would be feeling chuffed that America’s president, Barack Obama, the leader of the world’s most powerful country, and dozens of other international leaders, including the presidents of France and Germany, traveled to Warsaw to mark that 25th anniversary. But the unrest in neighbouring Ukraine overshadowed the celebrations. On his arrival on June 3rd, Mr Obama went straight to an aircraft hangar where American and Polish airmen serve together to announce that he was asking Congress for $ 1 billion to finance troop rotations, bigger training programmes…
