Posted By Sean Gallup/Getty Image Saturday, April 10, 2010 - 10:43 AM
Tragic news out of Eastern Europe this morning as the plane carrying Polich President Lech Kaczynki and 88 others -- including many top Polish officials -- crashed in heavy fog in Western Russia.
The crash came as a staggering blow to Poland, wiping out a large swath of the country’s leadership, including the commanders of all four branches of the military, the head of the central bank, the president and many of his top advisors.
The officials were returning from a ceremony commemorating another tragedy, the massacre of 2o,000 Polish officers by Soviet secret police in the woods of Katyn. Former President Aleksandr Kwasniewski probably spoke for many Poles:
“It is a damned place. It sends shivers down my spine. First the flower of the Second Polish Republic is murdered in the forests around Smolensk, now the intellectual elite of the Third Polish Republic die in this tragic plane crash when approaching Smolensk airport. This is a wound which will be very difficult to heal,” he said."
