President of Poland Dies in Plane Crash


Our condolences to the family and countrymen of a good friend of democracy in general and the U.S. in particular, Lech Kaczynski, president of Poland. Kaczynski died along with 80 some others in a plane crash at an airport near the city of Smolensk near the Belarus border.

Kaczynski was one of the heroes of Lech Walesa’s anti-communist Solidarity union that led to the end of communist rule in Poland. Kaczynski was even jailed as “an anti-socialist element” by the Soviet backed government and later worked for Walesa when he was elected Poland’s president in 1990.

Kaczynski himself was elected president in 2005 as a no-nonsense, corruption fighter. He was also a Euro-skeptic and worked to keep Poland as little involved and little reliant upon the EU as possible. Like Poland itself, Kaczynski was a fast friend to the U.S.

The crash appears at this time to have been weather related.


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