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Media freedom activist Ted Lipien warns against diminished public stake in U.S. international broadcasting

Thirty years ago, on December 13, 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski had declared martial law in Poland, imprisoning Lech Walesa and other Solidarity Trade Union leaders. The Polish communist rulers placed the country under a complete information blockout, but thanks to radio programs in Polish from the Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe (RFE) — both stations funded by the United States — people in Poland had immediate access to uncensored news and commentary

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Voice of America during the martial law in Poland

This public diplomacy misstep is one of many since President Obama took office and points to a total lack of leadership and planning within the White House and the State Department. Most recently, the White House failed to issue a traditional presidential proclamation for Easter, even though President Obama signed similar proclamations for Muslim and Jewish holidays. Other public diplomacy blunders included President Obama making the announcement of withdrawing U.S. missile defense shield from Poland on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland and his decision to go golfing on the day of the funeral for Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski who was killed in a plane crash in Russia.

Early in his term,  President Obama declined the Polish government’s invitation to attend the 70th anniversary observances of the outbreak of  World War II which started with the attacks on Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The low-level of the U.S. delegation to that event was widely criticized and the delegation was slightly upgraded at the last moment.   President Obama also failed to attend the 10th anniversary observances of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The White House tried to justify these absences by the President’s busy schedule, but critics of President Obama point out that he takes more frequent vacations than other U.S. presidents.

Snapshot of the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See Website on the day of Pope John Paul II's Beatification, May 1, 2011.

The lack of public diplomacy planning at the State Department prior to the beatification of Pope John Paul II  was evident from the websites of U.S. embassies in Rome and at the Vatican, both of which on May 1 had no text, photos or videos relating to the beatification ceremony for Pope John Paul II. Judith A. McHale is the current Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, whose job is to help lead America’s engagement with the people of the world. She has failed to prevent numerous embarrassing public diplomacy omissions and mistakes by the Obama Administration.

U.S. embassies in Central and Eastern Europe have by and large ignored the recent 100th anniversary of President Reagan’s birth as an occasion for public diplomacy events that could highlight his contribution along with Pope John Paul II to bringing about the fall of communism in the region. Many embassies chose instead during that time to focus on promoting hip-hop music events as part of the State Department’s cultural diplomacy program.

The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw had a number of posts on its Facebook Page about Pope John Paul II and U.S. presidents whom he had met, including photos of the Polish pope with President Reagan and President Clinton. But the Embassy’s official website had nothing about the pope and his numerous visits to the United States.

President Ronald Reagan with Pope John Paul II in Faribanks, Alaska, 1984.

Other recent U.S. presidents, including Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, were far more successful in managing their public diplomacy abroad, U.S. relations with the Vatican, and their relations with American Catholic voters. Ronald Reagan had a particularly close relationship with Pope John Paul II and consulted with him regularly on how to help the Solidarity human rights movement in Poland.

U.S. Ambassador to Malta Douglas Kmiec

The Obama Administration may have also offended some American Catholics by their treatment of the U.S. Ambassador to Malta Doug Kmiec, a conservative Catholic supporter of President Obama who recently offered to resign after State Department officials accused him of spending too much time promoting his religious views. Ambassador Kmiec is highly respected in Malta, where Catholicism is the official religion.

Related posts:

1. “Hunger for God and Love” – Interview with Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, Future Pope John Paul II
2. Who is the leader of the Free World? – Reagan, Bush, Obama – lessons in public diplomacy in response to anti-democracy crackdown in Belarus
3. Wojtyła’s Women: How Women, History and Polish Traditions Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church
4. Pope John Paul II’s 1979 Visit to the U.S. – VOA Video
5. Subversive U.S. Public Diplomacy Theme – Ronald Reagan

 Sourced from: TedLipien.com

The U.S. Consulate General in Krakow, Poland, sent its Public Affairs Officer Benjamin Ousley Naseman to a conference “Ronald Reagan’s Crusade for Freedom” (Krucjata Wolnosci Ronalda Reagana) at the Jagiellonian University. The U.S. Embassy in Tallinn, Estonia, helped to kick off a Ronald Reagan Film Festival, with opening remarks from Chargé d’Affaires Robert Gilchrist. In addition, the Embassy is bringing to Tallinn noted Reagan expert Dr. Lee Edwards, who will be the keynote speaker at a February 14 seminar organized by the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute and held in cooperation with the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, titled “Ronald Reagan 100: President Reagan’s Legacy and Estonian-U.S. Relations.”

But the vast majority of America diplomats treated Reagan’s 100 birthday as if it were a plague. The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, Poland — a country on which Ronald Reagan had focused more during his presidency than on any other nation in East-Central Europe — had Internet postings on World War II American photojournalist in Poland Julien Brian and the Holocaust Remembrance Day — both good public diplomacy themes but not really very relevant to the current state of U.S.-Polish relations. The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw was also promoting American hip-hop culture at what was described as “the biggest break dance event Rock The Floor featuring American b-boys Abstrak from New York as a judge,” but the embassy website homepage had nothing on Ronald Reagan’s support for the Solidarity movement and Poland’s independence. Why the U.S. embassy should be involved in pushing the style of American music and culture — known for its obscene, offensive, and misogynistic lyrics and behavior — in a mostly Catholic and fairly conservative country like Poland, is frankly beyond me. I think the Poles have much higher expectations of American culture and would benefit more from other examples — American music more appropriate for promoting goodwill toward Americans and appreciation for their cultural achievements.

The U.S. Ambassador to Poland Lee Feinstein, an Obama appointee and one of Hillary Clinton’s former associates, did not mention the 100 anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth in his Ambassador’s Blog postings. There was also nothing on Ronald Reagan on the U.S. Embassy Warsaw Facebook Page. The U.S. Embassy Warsaw official Blog has not been updated in months. At least, Ambassador Feinstein did not object to the U.S. Consulate in Krakow participating in a Ronald Reagan birth anniversary observance. Krakow was a center of anti-communist resistance in Poland and remains a center of conservative thought. I don’t know to what extent the U.S. Consulate in Krakow was involved in organizing the Reagan-related conference or whether it simply responded to a local initiative, but at least the staff had the courage to send a speaker and post something about the event on their website. This is more than most U.S. diplomatic posts in the region have done.

The list of U.S. diplomatic posts in East-Central Europe which have completely ignored the 100 anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth is quite long, if one does not count automatic brief postings on a few embassy websites of a single America.gov article, which was written at the State Department in Washington. Not even the U.S. Embassy in Minsk, Belarus — a country still run by a post-communist dictator — bothered to mark the Reagan anniversary. The Minsk Embassy website prominently features an article on “New English Teaching Methodologies.” The embassy website does not even provide a link on its homepage to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which had posted recordings of former U.S. President George Bush and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice(not President Obama or Secretary of State Clinton because they did not participate) reading the names of President Lukashenka’s political prisoners.

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiev, Ukraine had a posting on the upcoming visit of Mary Wilson of The Supremes and “The Story of The Supremes Exhibit” — certainly, a better example of American culture than hip-hop — but again nothing on Ronald Reagan. Keep in mind that all of these are U.S. public diplomacy events subsidized in some way by U.S. taxpayers.

The U.S. Embassy in Tirana, Albania, features on its website a link to the State Department website page “Dreams for My Mother, Dreams for My Daughter” on empowering women and girls as a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy, but again nothing about Ronald Reagan. (I wonder how this public diplomacy theme in support of women’s rights squares with sponsoring hip-hop events by U.S. diplomatic posts. Mr. Obama likes hip-hop, but would Hillary Clinton approve spending U.S. taxpayers’ money on promoting musical culture described as “ignorant, misogynistic, casually criminal and often violent” ? )The U.S. Embassy in Prague, the Czech Republic, promoted the screening of Kings Row(1942), starring Ronald Reagan, along with other Hollywood films, but failed to note that last Sunday was the 100 anniversary of Reagan’s birth. The U.S. Embassy in Bratislava, Slovakia, at least highlighted the America.gov article President Ronald Reagan: A Legacy of Freedom in Europe, but like most U.S. embassies it did not sponsor any Reagan-related special events and its website‘s main “Spotlight” was “Haiti After One Year.” I was particularly amazed that the U.S. embassies in Latvia (U.S. Embassy Riga) and Lithuania (U.S. Embassy Vilnius) — the two countries, in addition to Estonia, most exposed to pressure from Russia — completely ignored the anniversary. But, of course, the vast majority of U.S. diplomatic posts in the region did as well. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow had nothing on Ronald Reagan on its homepage, and neither did the official Blog of U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle. The U.S. Embassy Moscow Facebook Page, however, did have a link to the website of the Voice of America Russian Service, which — to its credit — prepared a number of special programs and interviews to mark the 100 anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth. (VOA Russian Service had interviewed former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton.) We should all be grateful that the Voice of America is not under the direct control of the White House or the State Department, but VOA’s bipartisan managing body, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), had terminated VOA Russian radio broadcasts in July 2008, just 12 days before the Russian military attack on Georgia. Only a very tiny segment of the Russian public looks these days at the VOA Russian website. The U.S. Consulate General in St. Petersburg– a city considered much more liberal than Moscow — had nothing on its website on Ronald Reagan. Ironically, the Consulate had posted a large banner publicizing its sponsorship of “Film Noir: The Other Side of Hollywood,” described as “Russia’s first-ever festival dedicated to film noir and the other side of Hollywood.” There was no mention of Ronald Reagan.

On the other hand, as reported by the Wall Street Journal “(Reagan Belongs to the World –
Countries in Eastern Europe join the celebration, in recognition of Reagan’s role in their liberation from communism“), the East Europeans themselves understood perfectly the significance of the Ronald Reagan’s 100 birthday anniversary. They have a far better sense of history than most U.S. diplomats in the region.

President Ronald Reagan with Pope John Paul II in Fairbanks, Alaska, 1984.

In Poland, a special website devoted to the 100 anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birthday urged the Poles to sign an online thank-you card to honor the memory of the former U.S. president. A special Catholic mass was celebrated in Krakow to honor both Reagan and Pope John Paul, his partner in bringing about the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. NGOs, government bodies, and private citizens throughout the region organized numerous other events to celebrate Ronald Reagan’s legacy, thus putting U.S. diplomats, the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale, and the rest of the State Department to shame.

I would argue that almost nothing was done by U.S. embassies in Central and Eastern Europe for this important anniversary because U.S. public diplomacy has become the domain of self-serving bureaucrats working within a broken, non-functioning system at the State Department. The current public diplomacy infrastructure had replaced the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), which was abolished during the Clinton administration. At least, American diplomats working for USIA enjoyed some measure of independence from the State Department’s political appointees, ambassadors and career political officers, and thus were able to take a longer view of American foreign policy interests. Even then, during the Cold War, I found that many career diplomats, including some USIA officers with whom I had worked at the Voice of America (VOA), did not have a very high opinion of Ronald Reagan. One USIA officer described Ronald Reagan as a raving lunatic after his “Evil Empire” speech, and, even while Ronald Reagan was at the White House, State Department political officers at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw attempted — unsuccessfully — to stop the Voice of America Polish Service from interviewing Solidarity leader Lech Walesa after he had been released from a communist prison.

Still, at least then, there were other Foreign Service Officers with whom I had professional contacts, who understood the importance of independent journalism and public diplomacy in support of human rights. Two of them became later U.S. ambassadors to Poland. While there were some differences between Democratic and Republican administrations, there was a general agreement on what represents good public diplomacy. Anyone who now thinks that there is such a thing as bipartisan public diplomacy designed to further long-term U.S. interests around the world regardless of who sits in the White House would have to conclude after watching the latest snubbing by American diplomats of the legacy of a former U.S. president — one who is particularly revered in Eastern Europe — that this idealistic assumption is no longer true. Most career State Department officials these days think first and foremost about who calls the shots at their embassies and in Washington, their performance evaluations, their next assignment, and their considerable perks. Keeping each one of these senior Foreign Service Officers abroad costs U.S. taxpayers at least $250,000 a year.

The State Department’s public diplomacy infrastructure has become highly bureaucratized and politicized. If we had a Republican president or even a less ideological Democratic president like Bill Clinton, I would bet that all or most U.S. diplomatic posts in Central and Eastern Europe would not miss Ronald Reagan’s birthday as an opportunity for a public diplomacy event or a special posting for their website. Even though most Foreign Service Officers probably don’t think much of Ronald Reagan, they would undoubtedly do something to mark the occasion with the different kind of leadership from the White House and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But Barack Obama made it clear that he wants a “reset” with Russia and does not care much for public encouragement of human rights and pro-democracy movements a la Ronald Reagan. Only very few among the current generation of U.S. diplomats would dare to go against the tone set by the President and supported by the Secretary of State, even if she is not as keen as her boss on talking nicely to anti-American dictators.

A conspiracy theorist might think American diplomats gave the whole issue a lot of professional thought but ultimately concluded that calling attention to Ronald Reagan would cause the East Europeans to draw uncomfortable comparisons between President Reagan and President Obama. In my view, that was not the case.

One could even understand if not excuse this kind of thinking — giving priority to short-term foreign policy goals of a particular U.S. administration over long-term national interests. I’m afraid, however, that the truth is more prosaic. Having worked with American diplomats for over 30 years, I can say with some confidence that for most of them, if they were worried at all, they were worried primarily about their careers. Marking Ronald Reagan’s birthday with any kind of embassy-sponsored special events would be career-risky. It would look bad to their political bosses in the State Department and to the White House. For the vast majority, their decisions had nothing to do with what would be good for public diplomacy, long-term U.S. interests in the region, and expectations from the American taxpayers who pay their salaries. We no longer have many Foreign Service Officers of the same caliber as Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane or Public Affairs Specialist John H. Brown. Ambassador Bliss Lane resigned during the Truman Administration in protest against the continuation of FDR’s policy with regard to Poland. John H. Brown resigned in protest against George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. Each represented the kind of diplomat who would not be afraid to risk his career to do what he thought was good for the United States.

In terms of effective public diplomacy themes in East-Central Europe, one could not ask for a better one than the centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birthday. For the East Europeans, Ronald Reagan not only contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union and helped the “Captive Nations” achieve full sovereignty and independence. Reagan also represents the final break in U.S. foreign policy from the legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt who, in the words of the words of Ambassador Bliss Lane, had “sold down the river” Poland and other East European nations at Tehran and Yalta to Josef Stalin.

What the East Europeans see now is a partial return to Roosevelt-style diplomacy in their region. Just as Roosevelt had been fooled by Stalin, Obama has shown FDR-like naivety in dealing with Vladimir Putin and his ex-KGB team that now owns Russia and runs it. Celebrating Ronald Reagan’s legacy at U.S. diplomatic posts in East-Central Europe would have send a signal to the government leaders, the media and the general public that not all U.S. presidents can be fooled by autocratic leaders and not every U.S. president is ready to abandon important political and military commitments to America’s allies to suit his particular personal worldview. For showing that most Americans would not tolerate a betrayal of U.S. allies, the Reagan anniversary offered a highly useful public diplomacy opportunity in East-Central Europe.

But U.S. public diplomacy has indeed become an expensive farce. Consider this fact: among dozens or perhaps even hundreds of highly-paid U.S. diplomats and other State Department officials who knew in advance that President Obama was going to announce his controversial decision to cancel President Bush’s missile defense commitments to the Polish government, apparently not a single one tried to warn the White House that making the announcement on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland would be a highly embarrassing public diplomacy disaster. They also allowed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to embarrass herself with the Russian mistranslation of the “Reset Button,” and the “reset” idea itself was, in the words of Zbigniew Brzezinski, “childish” as a public relations stunt.

There is no longer bipartisan consensus of what U.S. public diplomacy ought to be and no strategic plan of action. Hundreds of U.S. Public Affairs Officers abroad and public diplomacy specialists at the State Department have been unwilling or unable to save the Obama administration from other highly embarrassing public relations missteps in the foreign policy arena. Why even bother to have the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs if promoting hip-hop music takes precedence in Eastern Europe over Ronald Reagan’s legacy of support for freedom and human rights and his contribution to ending the Cold War and the freeing of the region from Soviet domination. The United States and the Free World no longer have a leader willing to lead the struggle for democracy and human rights, and therefore it has no public diplomacy to support this long-standing U.S. foreign policy goal. Ronald Reagan was such as leader. Sadly, President Obama is not.

The timing of the announcement has been seen around the world as a public diplomacy disaster for America and was described with ridicule in U.S. and foreign media reports. Needless to say, not only the decision itself, but also the historical symbolism of the date when it was announced, greatly upset the Polish Government and Polish Americans. It turned out to be a major embarrassment for President Obama.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow cables released so far by Wikileaks and examined by Opinia.US still do not shed sufficient light on the timing of the announcement. Neither do the Wikileaks released cables originating from the State Department in Washington.

We do know, however, that a cable sent from the State Department to U.S. Embassies gave American ambassadors advanced warning of the September 17 announcement. Conceivably, one of the hundreds, if not thousands of U.S. diplomats and other State Department officials and officials of other U.S. Government agencies who had seen the cable could have warned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama that releasing this news on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland was not a particularly bright idea. Unless someone, perhaps a U.S. Presidential adviser, deliberately wanted to send a message to the Poles that they should rely less on U.S. support and should seek an accommodation with the Kremlin.

Another theory is that Russian intelligence media specialists deliberately planted the September 17 announcement idea with historically-clueless American diplomats who somehow got the White House to fall for this clever ruse designed to make the Poles feel more vulnerable, and therefore more likely to adopt a more pro-Moscow attitude.

We still do not know if anyone sounded a warning but we do know that President Obama made his announcement on September 17.

The talking points in the leaked secret cable signed by Mrs. Clinton (The cable was not written by her, but most outgoing State Department cables bear the signature of the Secretary of State.) were addressed to U.S. Embassies except for those in Warsaw and Prague. We have learned from the leaked cable that separate talking points on missile defense were prepared for Poland and the Czech Republic, but Wikileaks has not yet put them on their website, assuming it has them. Also, no cables from the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw have been released by Wikileaks so far.

What we do know is that the Obama Administration had not negotiated a priori any concessions from the Kremlin for making this important decision, which severely undermined the sense of security of Poland and other U.S. allies in the region. We also found out that government officials in France had warned a high ranking U.S. diplomat that the Russian leaders would pocket this unilateral gift from the Obama Administration without giving Washington anything in return.

It also emerged from the leaked cables that one of the strongest advocates for the concession on missile defense to the Kremlin was U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. We also learned that he badly wanted Russian help in moving U.S. military supplies to Afghanistan. (It would be interesting to find out which U.S. private military contractors would benefit from these transports through Russian airspace and territory and what are their links to current DOD officials.)

The ever-so down-to-earth and cynical French warned an American diplomat that the Russians might actually help Washington in this particular area because the Kremlin wants to see the U.S. bogged down in the Afghanistan quagmire. It was also clear that President Obama expected Moscow’s help in dealing with the nuclear issue in Iran in exchange for his unilateral concession on missile defense in Central Europe.

It is incredible but not surprising that ideologically-driven and inexperienced U.S. President failed to get a firm deal with the Kremlin on this point ahead of time. In any case, both French and even U.S. diplomats had warned, according to the leaked cables, that the current Russian leadership would have no interest in helping the U.S. in Iran, and in fact is very much interested in keeping the Iranian crisis simmering on indefinitely for a number of good reasons related to their perception of Russia’s national interest. One of them is the high price of oil, from which Russia (read: the state energy sector controlled by Mr. Putin and to a lesser extent Mr. Medvedev) benefits economically.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a holdover from the Bush Administration, emerges from the cables almost as naive about dealing with Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev as President Obama himself. In one of the cables from Paris, he is describes as informing the French Defense Minister, apparently with a straight face, that Mr. Putin had once told him that Iran represents the greatest threat for Russia. Apparently both Secretary Gates and President Obama bought this story from Mr. Putin, one of the most sophisticated ex-KGB disinformation experts Russia has ever produced. When it comes to diplomatic intrigue and safeguarding your own and your country’s interests, neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Gates are a match for Mr. Putin, and not even Mr. Medvedev.

Of course, Mr. Putin’s perception of Russia’s interests are not really what the Russian people would benefit from if they had full democratic freedoms and were allowed to develop normal, mutually beneficial relations with America and the rest of the free world.

The leaked cables also show that U.S. diplomats were too timid to challenge vigorously what they knew to be the President’s views, but at least some brave souls tried to point out, albeit weakly and indirectly, that Mr. Obama’s plans with regard to Russia were based on rather naive assumptions. Overall, the American diplomatic service again failed the President and the American people. But with President Obama in the White with his progressive view of international politics, similar to that of President Roosevelt in his dealings with Stalin, the U.S. diplomats probably did not have much of a chance to influence his thinking. That job is now left to the American voters. Let’s only hope it is not too late.

This op-ed may be republished with attribution to Opinia.US.

Ted Lipien, a writer and journalist, was in charge of the Voice of America radio broadcasts to Poland during the Solidarity-led struggle for democracy. He is now president of Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org), a California-based NGO which supports media freedom worldwide.

Opinia.US

Classified cables released by Wikileaks also show the U.S. Embassy in Moscow warning that it is in the interest of the current Russian leadership to maintain the threat of nuclear weapons in Iran. The same arguments have been advanced by U.S. critics of President Obama’s foreign policy who accuse him of lacking foreign policy experience and naive assumptions about national interests of countries like Russia.

The cables suggest that even among U.S. diplomats there is lot of scepticism about President Obama’s decisions on missile defense, “reset” of relations with Russia, and the Obama Administration’s desire to obtain Moscow’s help in dealing with Iran. The cables appear to confirm that the controversial policy initiatives on missile defense and Russia’s help in Iran originated with President Obama, his Russia advisor, and possibly Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, without much input from professional diplomats at the State Department.

Robert Gates, who also served in this position in the Bush Administration, has a strong interest in using Russia’s help in supplying U.S. troops in Afghanistan. We have suggested earlier that this is the only area in which the interests of U.S. military contractors and the Kremlin coincide. Both want to keep the U.S. troops in Afghanistan for as long as possible. While the U.S. is bogged down in Afghanistan, Russia can more easily try to expand its influence in Eastern and Central Europe.

According to one of the released cables, during a visit Paris in September 2009, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Gordon was told by the French that some in Russia have concluded their interests are served by keeping the west “tied down in an Afghanistan quagmire” and by sustaining the status quo in Iran.

A French government official said that a solution that thwarts Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions and restores Iran as a normal member of the international community could undermine Russian regional and energy interests.

Moreover, the Russian leaders appear to have concluded — a French official warned — Russia can pocket a projected U.S. decision to scale back or abandon the Bush administration’s Missile Defense initiative without paying any cost.

Another cable shows a U.S. diplomat in Moscow warning that as the world’s largest exporter of oil and gas, Russia benefits significantly from the “instability premium” embedded in world oil prices due to tensions with Iran. Even a USD 5 per barrel instability premium would net Russia almost 9 billion U.S. dollars per year for oil and approximately 2-4 billion from its gas exports. Finally, given Iran’s position as the second largest owner of gas reserves — the cable points out – Russia’s gas sector clearly benefits from the lack of international investment in the development of Iran’s natural gas sector.  The cable further suggests that Prime Minister Putin would not agree to any sanctions against Iran that could hurt Russian economic interests.

As with most U.S. State Department cables, the leaked cable from Moscow is signed by the U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation John Beyrle. This does not mean, however, that Ambassador Beyrle actually wrote the cable. They are usually drafted by senior Embassy officials.

As of Sunday morning, the Wikileaks site does not list any secret or classified cables originating from Warsaw. The cables from other U.S. embassies that have been released so far suggest, however, that President Obama made his concessions on missile defense at the expense of security needs of Poland and other U.S. allies in the region without getting any concessions from the Kremlin and despite warnings from U.S. diplomats that his policy assumptions vis-a-vis Russia are unrealistic.

Another cable from Paris appear to suggest that U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates may have taken at face value what Russian Prime Minister Putin had once told him that Iran was Russia’s greatest threat. Secretary Gates told his French counterpart, French Minister of Defense Herve Morin, that Russia is now of a different mind on Iran because of Tehran’s
persistent rejection of international proposals for negotiated
solutions and its concealment of its nuclear facility.

The cable also suggests that in his talks with the French officials, Secretary Gates also seems to be accepting at face value the Kremlin’s objections to the Bush Administration’s missile defense plan: 1. the radar in the Czech Republic would have been so powerful that it could see into Russia; 2. Russia believed that the three-stage Ground-Based Interceptor could have been converted easily to an offensive weapon. The SM-3 missiles in the new approach can only be defensive in nature, however. For these reasons, the U.S. believed partnering with Russia is once again potentially possible, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told the French Defense Minister.

Most of the radio interviews with Józef Światło were aired by the Polish Service of Radio Free Europe, but he was also interviewed by the Polish Service of the Voice of America. Richard H Cummings quotes from the article by Gene King, VOA’s program director, who wrote in 1955: “We give the U.S.S.R. and the Soviet-controlled areas about 76 1/2 hours daily. Despite all efforts to prevent, The Voice of America does get through. We have conclusive evidence of that. Josef Swiatlo, former head of the Communist secret service in Poland, tells us that The Voice of America is the most effective instrument employed by the free world in combating the spread of communism and in keeping hope alive in the hearts of the peoples behind the Curtains. He reports having attended sessions of the Polish secret police where the topics of discussion were The Voice of America and how to keep the Poles from listening. Nevertheless, according to his report, the broadcasts are heard; and they are effective. We have literally thousands of similar reports. Practically all escapees and defectors, in fact, report having listened. And that goes for the U.S.S.R. as well as Communist China and the satellites.” (“The Hollywood Quarterly, 1945-1957“)

Read Richard H Cummings’s article in Historytimes.com.

Read more:
Solidarity underpins labor’s antipathy toward authoritarianism

This is sent with permission of Professor Mark Kramer [translator] and the Harvard University Cold War Archives. It can be reprinted or reposted with acknowledgment.

“The Katyn Problem in Contemporary Russia”

Aleksandr Guryanov, “Memorial” Society

Esteemed Mr. Chairman and Ladies and Gentlemen:

First of all I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the organizers for
inviting me to this conference marking the seventieth anniversary of the Katyn crime and for giving me the honor of speaking to you as a
representative of the Russian “Memorial” Society.

The Memorial Society, in addition to its work in defending human rights in Russia in our own time, pursues the study of the history of political repression in the Soviet Union, documenting the fate of repressed people and assisting their moral and legal rehabilitation.

Among the millions who were repressed in the USSR from the 1930s to the 1950s for political reasons, one of the national groups most heavily affected were the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Poles and Polish citizens of other ethnic backgrounds who were subjected in the USSR to various types of repression: mass deportations to special relocation camps in the far north and eastern regions, confinement in prisons and Gulag camps and POW camps, or the supreme punishment of being shot.

The postwar Polish historiography, which for a long while had to be based on very rough and unreliable sources, estimated the total number of repressed Polish citizens in the USSR at around 1-2 million. Although the real number turned out to be 2-3 times smaller, it still is such a large number that even now the Stalinist mass repressions evoke mistrust and even hostility among Poles toward Russia.

On the basis of Soviet archival sources, above all NKVD documents to which access became possible after 1991, we acquired a solidly based tabulation of Polish citizens who were subjected in the USSR to various types of repression for political reasons, as many as 590,000 people in total in the period from 1939 to 1956, including up to 490,000 who were repressed in the period from 17 September 1939 to August 1941, bearing in mind that during these two years more than 25,000 of them died in camps and in exile and more than 33 thousand were shot.

Among those who were shot are the 22,000 victims of the Katyn crime, who became one of the symbols not only of Soviet repressions against Poles but also of the whole Stalinist political terror in the USSR. Memorial believes that Katyn is not only a problem in Russia¹s relations with Poland but also an internal problem in Russia itself, where the task of overcoming Stalinism is a vital necessity.

My remarks will focus on sentiments toward the Katyn crime in current-day Russia, including certain legal aspects.

Although the moral aspects are also part of the theme of our session, I will not go deeply into them because I believe they are deeply personal. Each of us decides individually and independently whether we should be seen as part of something that our country perpetrated before we were born. My own view is that if a citizen of Russia who was born after the war believes that he has the right to be proud of the USSR¹s victory over fascism, then he also should feel responsibility for Soviet atrocities. But I do not here denigrate those who have decided on some other approach for themselves.

The majority of people in Russia have very confused impressions about the Katyn crime. According to the sociological survey carried out in March 2010 by the highly respected Levada Center, only 43 percent of the respondents had ever heard anything about Katyn. Only 19 percent of those who had heard of it realized that the Polish prisoners of war were shot by Soviet forces, and 28 percent of them believed that the Germans did it. The remaining 53 percent were unable to give an answer. Up to now, the ideas that most Russians have about Katyn have been shaped mainly by a lack of knowledge of basic facts pertaining to the Katyn crime and by the many years of Soviet propagandistic lies about Katyn.

After the Germans discovered the graves in the Katyn Forest in 1943, for a stretch of 47 years the official position of the USSR was the deliberately false assertion that the Polish prisoners were shot by Hitler’s forces. This position served as the basis of the conclusion of the specially formed commission headed by academician Nikolai Burdenko. Today we know that the essential evidence and eyewitness testimony used by the Burdenko Commission were fabricated by officers of the NKVD and NKGB.

Not until 1990 under President Gorbachev did the Soviet Union acknowledge its guilt in perpetrating the Katyn crime and transfer to Poland lists of prisoners of war who were executed. In 1992, at the directive of President Yeltsin, documents were turned over proving that the extralegal shootings of Polish citizens were perpetrated at the direct order of the leadership of the USSR. These materials included:

— a memorandum from the minister of internal affairs Beria with the proposal to shoot Polish prisoners of war and regular prisoners, a document bearing the handwritten signatures of Stalin, Voroshilov, Molotov, and Mikoyan as well as a notation regarding a vote in favor by Kalinin and Kaganovich.

— a decision taken by the VKP(b) Politburo on 5 March 1940
regarding this memorandum;

— a very important later memorandum from 1959 from the KGB chairman Shelepin to the CPSU First Secretary Khrushchev

and other documents.

Starting in 1990 an investigation of the Katyn crime was carried out first by the Soviet and then by the Russian Main Military Procuracy.

In 1993 President Yeltsin uttered the words “Forgive us . . .” when laying a wreath in Warsaw at the monument to the victims of Katyn. In 2000 at the site of the graves of the Polish POWs who were shot in Katyn Forest and near the village of Mednoe, a Russian-Polish memorial cemetery was officially opened. A memorial cemetery was also opened in the Kharkiv region in Ukraine.

But it turned out that the Katyn lie in Russia had not been fully overcome.

Almost as soon as Gorbachev turned around in 1990 in acknowledging that the Polish POWs were shot by the Soviet authorities, Gorbachev himself initiated an “anti-Katyn” putting forth the accusation against Poland of having destroyed several tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers who were in Polish captivity during the Soviet-Polish war of 1919-1920.

Although afterward as a result of joint archival research by Polish and
Russian historians it was shown that in the Polish camps no more than
18,000-20,000 Red Army prisoners perished and although their deaths resulted from malnutrition and mass disease rather than the purposeful destruction by the Polish authorities, attempts to diminish Soviet guilt for the Katyn crime by invoking the guilt of Poland for “anti-Katyn” continue in Russia to this very day.

Soon after documents were brought to light showing that the Stalinist
leadership of the USSR perpetrated the Katyn crime, current-day Russian Stalinists the “patriot-great power advocates” and Communist deputies of parliament began and even now continue their attempts to revive the old Soviet lie about German guilt and to mislead society into believing that the documents that came to light were forgeries and were fabricated by a worldwide conspiracy of enemies of Russia. For some 15 years, except over the past few weeks, this went on with the tacit complicity of the Russian
state authorities.

In September 2004 the “Katyn affair” investigation being carried out by the Main Military Procuracy was halted “on account of the death of the guilty.” In this connection, the main materials of the case were reclassified by one of the highest government organs the Interdepartmental Commission on the Protection of State Secrets, the activity of which is supervised by the President of the Russian Federation.

The reclassification of the “Katyn case” materials flagrantly violates the existing Russian Law on State Secrets, which does not permit one to make a state secret and classify information about facts pertaining to violations of human rights and freedoms and also facts pertaining to violations of the law by state organs and their employees.

Despite this, the Main Military Procuracy and the Interdepartmental
Commission on the Protection of State Secrets to this day refuse to rescind their decision about reclassification. For the past two years the Memorial Society has been trying through judicial means to get them to reconsider it. Currently the examination by the Russian authorities of our statement about declassification has not been completed.

Up to now, the Main Military Procuracy has refused to carry out the existing Russian Law on the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression, asserting that the political motive and even the facts of the shootings concerning individual POWs cannot be established because individual documents about the shootings were not preserved.

They stated this even in relation to those who were identified in Katyn
during the German exhumations in 1943 and also those who were identified during the sporadic exhumations carried out in 1991 by the Main Military Procuracy itself.

The monuments at the memorial cemeteries in Katyn and Mednoe feature more than 4,400 and more than 6,300 personal tablets of executed POWs. Their names and surnames have been authoritatively established on the basis of NKVD documents that were brought to light in 1990 by the Soviet Union. On 7 April 2010 Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin laid a wreath at the Katyn memorial cemetery, honoring in this manner each person whose name is inscribed on the monument. It is paradoxical that despite this the Russian procuracy regards all those who were shot as anonymous statistics of a
multitude of nameless victims!

The Memorial Society over the past four years has been trying to achieve official acknowledgment of the names of the concrete Polish prisoners as victims of political repression for the past three years by judicial means, bearing in mind that judicial recourse inside Russia is now nearly exhausted and we are now awaiting examination of our complaint in the European Court on Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The Main Military Procuracy, citing the secrecy it itself established,
refuses to provide the names of those whom it identified as guilty, having
said only that this includes “individuals from the leadership of the USSR NKVD,” the actions of whom were characterized by point b of Article 193-17 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (1926) as “an excess of authority that had adverse consequences in the presence of specially aggravating circumstances.”

Thus, Stalin and the members of the Politburo, having adopted the decision about the mass shooting of Polish citizens, are not acknowledged by the procuracy to be guilty of the Katyn crime, which previously in the TASS statement of 13 April 1990 was called “one of the most odious crimes of Stalinism.”

The crime itself, carried out at the orders of the USSR leadership and being a genuine act of state terrorism, is now characterized as an excess of authority by individual supervisory officials at the department level, in other words as their willfulness that is, as a general criminal act to which the procuracy and the Russian courts apply the ten-year statute of limitations, refusing to resume the stalled investigation.

From our point of view, the extralegal shootings of POWs and regular
prisoners must be characterized in accordance with Points b and c of Article 6 of the Statute of the International Military Tribunal that judged the main Nazi criminals at Nuremberg, namely, as a war crime and a crime against humanity having no statute of limitations.

The Memorial Society in its recent appeal to the president of Russia,
Dmitrii Medvedev, insists on the resumption of the investigation of the
Katyn case on the ground that numerous tasks obligatory for any
investigation remain unfulfilled. The investigation is obliged to:

— to establish a full legal register of the names of personnel
who were shot,

— to establish a full legal register of the names of those who
were guilty of inspiring the crime and of carrying it out at all levels, and

— to establish a full legal characterization of the crime in
accordance with the norms of Russian and international law.

In recent weeks we have observed a definite change of position of the
Russian authorities toward the Katyn affair, something that began even before the tragic catastrophe involving the Polish presidential plane.

Prime Minister Putin took part in the commemorative ceremony in Katyn together with Polish Prime Minister Tusk and described the shootings of the Polish prisoners of war as a crime of totalitarianism. President Medvedev publicly and even more decisively identified the perpetrators as Stalin and the Stalinist leadership.

Andrzej Wajda’s moving film was twice shown on Russian nationwide television stations.

On the official website of the Russian state archival service, the main
Soviet archival documents have been posted for general viewing, including the Beria memorandum bearing the signatures of Stalin and other members of the Politburo and the decision taken by the Politburo on 5 March 1940. This amounts to an official public attestation of the authenticity and genuineness of these documents.

In this manner the 15-year curtain of official silence around the Katyn
crime is being drawn back, which is absolutely essential to educate Russian society about the matter.

However, the Russian Main Military Procuracy continues to adhere to its former position, which contradicts the April 2010 speeches by Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev and also contradicts the efforts being made in the mass media to inform society about the Katyn case. In the view of Memorial, what is key here are the legal steps about which I spoke and which we will achieve.

Dr. Aleksander Gurjanow, MEMORIAL (Research, Information and Public Enlightenment Center) Polish Committee of the “Memorial” Society
http://www.memo.ru

Read more:
Polish plane crash claims leading democrats of Solidarnosc generation

According to the Polish foreign ministry, the Russian news agency Interfax dispatch of November 5 2009 attributed “to the Minister comments which, in fact, he never made: ‘We would desire to secure American troops, deployed in our country as a shield against Russian aggression.’” The Polish foreign ministry said that this appears to be an intentional manipulation. “The passage at issue is in the form of a quotation, so there can be no question of it being distorted through an inaccurate interpretation or a lack of journalistic diligence. It would have been easy to check if the quoted statement had ever been made by examining a recording of the conference,” the Polish foreign ministry said.

During a panel discussion in Washington on Wednesday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Radoslaw Sikorski spoke about recent Russian large scale military exercises near Poland’s borders, which alarmed Polish officials. This is what he said in response to a question about security assurances from the Obama administration in light of the potential threat to Poland from Russia.

Listen to Foreign Minister Sikorski’s remarks

You can convince people by words. And we’ve just had a very good trip by the Vice President [Joe Biden]. And the words are convincing. But the point is — well, I’m a former defense minister — and what really convinces are the capabilities. And as I mentioned in my introduction, we’ve just had the largest Russian military exercise on the NATO border, on our border, in 20 years, using 900 tanks.

NATO planners used to say that God created Poland for tank warfare. And so these tanks that were exercising were 250 kilometers of flat ground from our capital city. We don’t know what kind of message the Russian Federation was trying to send to us, but you can imagine what we heard. And, as Zbig Brzezinski said — and he wasn’t the only one — what really reassured Germany, for example, during the Cold War was not Article 5 [NATO Treaty], which is in fact, you know, quite vague, but the presence of 300,000 American troops in Germany. Now, we have, I think, at the latest count, six American troops — one, two, three, four, five, six — outside the [U.S.] embassy. [Laughter] If you had, on the one hand, 900 tanks, and on the other, six troops, would you be convinced?

While the Polish foreign ministry statement focused on an apparently inaccurate quote in the Interfax news report, there is little doubt that Polish government officials would like to see more U.S. troops in Poland as an extra protection against Russia, and that this has been a subject of behind-the-scene negotiations with Washington.

Revealing their ambition to influence and control military and foreign policy of former Warsaw Pact nations, Russian officials object to such talks between Poland the the U.S. Responding to the Interfax news report, a member of the Russian parliament said that Sikorski’s statements are “absolutely unacceptable.” Konstantin Kosachev threatened that Sikorski’s comments may lead to cooling of Russian-Polish relations.

Konstantin Kosachev, who heads the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian State Duma, was quoted by the Russia Today international television channel as saying that “Sikorski de facto calls on the US to review agreement between NATO and Russia, which provided that no large military contingent will be deployed on the territories of new NATO members.”

According to foreign minister Sikorski, there are now only six U.S. soldiers based in Poland. There is no doubt that the Polish side would like to see this number increase in light of the Russian attack on Georgia last year and the most recent Russian military maneuvers near Poland’s borders.

Polish and British media reported that Polish news magazine Wprost disclosed it has seen documents which show that troop exercises near Poland’s border in September portrayed Poland as “a potential aggressor.”

According to the Polish news magazine, 30,000 Russian troops practiced not only defensive manoeuvres but also rehearsed landings on the beaches of Kaliningrad – a Russian controlled corridor linking it with the Baltic Sea – which was used to simulate Poland’s northern coast. Russian aircraft also practiced the use of nuclear weapons in the attacks, the magazine reported, but these reports could not be independently verified.

Mainstream media in the U.S., including The Washington Post and The New York Times, have not reported on the Russian military maneuvers. The Obama administration had no reaction — something that would be almost automatic during previous administrations. There was also no report by the Voice of America English service, which also ignored Sikorski’s visit to Washington. VOA has not been broadcasting radio programs to Poland for a number of years. In fact, most of the international coverage of Sikorski’s visit to Washington came from the Russian government-funded Russia Today television channel.

During his stay in Washington, Sikorski was interviewed by Associated Press but few U.S. newspapers and other media outlets used the AP news story based on the interview. He was also interviewed by Foreign Policy magazine.

This is how foreign minister Sikorski explained his current thinking about the Obama administration missile defense plans for Central Europe and about Poland’s view of Russia.

Radoslaw Sikorski: The administration has now explained its position more thoroughly, and we are now satisfied and want to go where the U.S. is leading, toward a more adaptive and more proven system. [The new system] will take longer to construct, but will create fewer tensions in our region. I think we’re now on the same page with the U.S., and we are ready to address the details and the amendments to the agreements I signed with the previous administration.

Sikorski also responded to a question whether the Obama administration’s “reset” with Russia is worthwhile?

Radoslaw Sikorski: I would only advise that the more you talk to Russia, the more you should talk to Russia’s neighbors, who sometimes feel vulnerable, particularly after what Russia did in Georgia a year ago. We would like relations between Russia and the U.S. to be better than they are. We don’t want to be a front-line state. Russia is our second largest trading partner. If there were a return to confrontation, we would be much more adversely affected than the United States. The trick is to persuade Russia that she can be a significant partner without using 19th- or 20th-century instruments that have been tried with such tragic consequences.

 Sourced from: Opinia.US

Mainstream U.S. media, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, ignored this story. There was also no reaction from the State Department or the White House. During previous U.S. administrations, it would have been highly unlikely for a similar news story not to be widely reported and commented by U.S. media. A Russian military threat against a neighboring country would have also likely bring about a strong protest from U.S. officials during previous administrations.

Taking a lead from President Obama’s strong desire to “reset” relations with Moscow, the State Department has been silent on a number of aggressive actions and statements by Russian officials directed toward Russia’s neighbors. President Obama’s National Security Advisor General James L. Jones visited Moscow on October 28-29. He and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed the new START treaty, Iran, Afghanistan, and NATO-Russia relations. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow reportedthat both sides agreed to make every effort to fulfill President Obama’s pledge to conclude negotiations for a new START treaty by December.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski is visiting Washington, where he is scheduled to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. There were no reports in mainstream U.S. media about his visit, even though he is expected to discuss Poland’s military contribution to the U.S.-NATO war effort in Afghanistan.

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“Some — maybe even understandably — jump to the conclusion that this new missile defense approach was meant to appease Russia at the expense of Central Europe. Nothing could be further from the truth. That is absolutely wrong. Missile defense is not about Russia. Our approach is driven by security requirements of the United States and our NATO allies, period. Period.”

This was a quote from Vice President Biden’s speech delivered Thursday in Bucharest, Romania.

For Opinia.US analysis, based on an earlier briefing for reporters by Mr. Biden’s national security advisor, Tony Blinken, who was more frank in reflecting Mr. Biden’s real views to the point of perhaps being undiplomatic, see “Biden’s advisor: think less of what U.S. can do for Central Europe.”

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The following is the full text of Vice President Biden’s remarks, as released by the White House.*

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Vice President

——————————————————
For Immediate Release October 22, 2009

REMARKS BY VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN ON AMERICA, CENTRAL EUROPE, AND A PARTNERSHIP FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Central University Library
Bucharest, Romania

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Director, Mr. Mayor, former Presidents who I’ve had the honor to meet in the past, it’s good to be back in Romania. And, Mr. Mayor, as we say in America, thank you for the passport to come into your city. I appreciate it very much.

What a magnificent forum, what a magnificent forum. And I say to all the students, thank you. I’m honored that you are here.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s an honor to be back in Romania. This is not my first trip, nor God-willing, will it be my last. And it’s great to be back in Central Europe to help mark an extraordinary season of change. Twenty years ago, the world watched in awe and admiration as the men and women throughout this region broke the shackles of oppression and emerged a free people.

It’s literally hard to imagine that this beautiful library was the scene of such heavy fighting in 1989. I was reviewing pictures of what it looked like with tanks stationed outside. Ladies and gentlemen, when the firing stopped and the smoke cleared, the façade of this building was scarred by shells and bullets. Five hundred thousand books were burned, part of your history and your legacy. And just blocks away, in University Square, some of freedom’s young defenders were struck down. But their courage and conviction prevailed, and I hope and know set an example to all of you who followed.

When the Iron Curtain was lifted, the wall fell in Berlin, in their places grew democracy, a democracy that you’ve deserved for a long time. Across Europe, a new sense of possibility took hold, galvanizing the region, uplifting a continent, and literally inspiring the world. The story of freedom –- your story — is one of the greatest achievements in modern history. And it’s important that we celebrate that remarkable — that remarkable moment. It’s also important that we remember how far Central Europe has come in the last 20 years.

Early in my career as a United States Senator, a young senator then, I brought my two now grown sons, but then very young sons, to Central Europe as they reached their teenage years. I took them immediately to Dachau, so they would begin to know what men and women are capable of at their worst, but also understand what men and women were capable of at their best.

I took them to the Berlin Wall. I had them walk through Checkpoint Charlie, so that the rest of their lives, they’d remember, they’d understand that the freedom we sometimes take for granted was not a birthright for tens of millions of people on this continent.

And today, I come back to Central Europe and Romania, not only with an official delegation from the United States government, but with my 11-year-old granddaughter, Finnegan Biden. Finnegan, stand up. I want these people to see you. (Applause.) And my daughter, Kathleen Biden. Would you stand up, Kathleen? I’m going to embarrass you, I know. (Applause.)

I brought them along, because I want them to understand, particularly my granddaughter — as my son learned — I want them to see and understand first-hand the story of this region and of this continent. My granddaughter is visiting museums and monuments that chronicle the turmoil of the 20th century in Poland, here and in the Czech Republic.

And she has seen with her own young eyes, she has seen in the people she meets and in the vibrancy of your cities and your streets the incredible, incredible possibilities of this 21st century. She is a witness to a powerful fact: that the true validation of 1989, the real story of your country and this region lies less in what you tore down, and more in what you have built.

Those of us who know about the bloodshed and the freedom fighters in Hungary in 1956; those who felt the chilling end to the warm Prague spring of 1968 in Wenceslas Square; those who shut down the shipyards in Gdansk in 1980; those here in Romania who endured the most ruthless totalitarian dictatorship in the latter half of the 21st [sic] century in Europe. Each and every one was struggling not only against something, but for something — for government, a government that responds to the needs of its people; for a more tolerant society, built on respect and dignity; for the freedom to think, to believe, and to pursue your dreams.

You have begun to realize those dreams that only the bold imagined 20 years ago — a Europe whole and free, anchored in a European-Atlantic alliance institutions of NATO, and the European Union.

We Americans are incredibly proud to have been your partners in the peaceful reunification of Europe. As President Obama said on the eve of NATO Summit last spring, and I quote him, “This shared history gives us hope –- but it must not give us rest. This generation cannot stand still.”

We cannot stand still because we now face another season of change, another season of challenge — an economic crisis that has hurt too many people and eroded their confidence, a war in Afghanistan now in its eighth year, and new forces shaping this young century. Those new forces, among other things, include the spread of weapons of mass destruction and dangerous disease; the expanding chasm between the rich and poor; ethnic animosities and failed states; a rapidly warming planet and an uncertain supply of energy, food, water; the challenge to freedom and security posed by radical fundamentalism.

I come here today with a straightforward, simple message: The United States and Europe, a Europe whole and united, will meet these challenges together, for that’s the only way they can be met. No amount of idle talk, no distortion of the facts, can chip away at this unassailable truth: The United States of America remains committed to our alliance with Europe, which we Americans believe, and continue to believe, is the cornerstone of American foreign policy, as it has been, for the last 60 years. We are all the more committed, because our European partners have grown broader and stronger. We, the United States, cannot succeed without you. And if you will forgive my presumption, I do not believe you can fully succeed without us.

I know that some in Central Europe look at the problems and responsibilities the United States has assumed around the world, and conclude that we have no longer focused — we no longer are focused on this region of the world. In fact, it’s precisely because of our global responsibilities and your growing and capacity and willingness to meet them with us that we value our partnership with Central Europe and Europe now more than we ever had. It’s quite to the contrary.

Together, we have responsibilities to shoulder, and we have promises to keep. Those responsibilities are larger now, and the promises more significant. We see Central Europeans rising to this moment, heeding the call to leadership of major regional and international institutions. Twenty years ago, imagine the Presidency of the European Parliament, head of UNESCO, Chair of the Council in Europe, Justices on the European Court of Justice, Commissioners in the European Commission. The time for Central Europe has come. You have shown yourselves ready for our common challenges, willing to tackle them, and able to overcome them. That’s why in America, we no longer think in terms of what we can do for Central Europe, but rather in terms of what we can do with Central Europe.

First and foremost, we are bound together by shared values, and a common commitment to protect those values, whenever and wherever they are challenged. NATO is the bedrock of that commitment. One of the high points of my career was leading the effort as a United States Senator to expand NATO to Central Europe. As a matter of fact, Mr. President, you’ll remember, I suggested that Romania should be in the first tranche. I was the one who fought until the very end to see it included in the first tranche. Thank you for making me look so prescient, you’ve done so well.

As President Obama has said, there are no old members, there are no new members of NATO; there are just members. Under Article 5, an attack on one is an attack against all. Our countries are bound together by America’s dedication to European security –- and by Europe’s dedication to America’s security, which you demonstrated quickly and powerfully in the wake of 9/11, the first time Article 5 was invoked, without us asking.

Today, we carry heavy responsibilities — we, all of us. Our sons and daughters, like my son, are serving side by side in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in the Balkans. For this -– for the courage of our friends and for their losses –- the American people are grateful.

Our alliance was built around consultation and collaboration for collective defense. That’s what it is about. But faced with new threats, we need a new vision on how to meet them, and new capabilities to succeed.

That’s why the decision to develop what we call a new strategic concept for NATO is so very important -– and that’s why it is so vital that Central European voices make themselves heard in this process.

One powerful example of how this can work is our partnership on — our new approach to missile defense.

In the 20th century, NATO successfully prepared to defend Allied territory against what was then a very real Soviet challenge on what we all used to call the “central front” that divided Europe. Today, a new major threat is growing that could reach all of our European allies well before it reaches the United States. It comes from ballistic missiles — short-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles — a technology that has spread to many new countries, and less stable countries, since the end of the Cold War. This technology, coupled with the spread of nuclear know-how, poses a great threat to all of us.

And we are determined — we are determined to ensure that our NATO allies have the protection they need when they need it, because that’s our solemn obligation under Article 5. Taking into account how the threat has evolved, and how our technology has improved significantly, the United States believes there is a better way to defend against ballistic missiles than the approach we had been pursuing up until several years ago.

This phased adaptive approach the United States is proposing, it has adapted its design to meet the growing threat to Europe, with a proven technology that will cover more of Europe –- including Central Europe –- more effectively than the previous approach.

It meets the missile threats of today, and allows us to improve our defenses against that threat well into the future. Its flexibility will enable us to adapt if the threat changes. Its very existence will deter those who might think about coercing or attacking our forces, or our allies in Europe –- and it will defend them, our friends in Europe, against that threat should deterrence fail. Simply put, our missile defense plan means greater security for Europe, and greater security for America.

Some — maybe even understandably — jump to the conclusion that this new missile defense approach was meant to appease Russia at the expense of Central Europe. Nothing could be further from the truth. That is absolutely wrong. Missile defense is not about Russia. Our approach is driven by security requirements of the United States and our NATO allies, period. Period.

What is true is that we are working to strengthen our relationship with Russia. We believe that a more constructive relationship with Russia will benefit all. But we’re not naïve. The truth is we share some common interests: cutting the arsenals of nuclear weapons; securing vulnerable nuclear materials; stabilizing Afghanistan; preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

And we also continue to have disagreements with Russia on matters of basic principle. In February, in Munich, Germany, in the very first major foreign policy speech of our administration, I enunciated our administration’s outline for foreign policy, and I made clear our core principles. The United States stands against the 19th century notion of “spheres of influence.” We will not tolerate it, nor will we be co-opted by it.

We stand for the right of sovereign democracies to make their own decisions, to choose their own alliances, without the right of any country to veto those decisions. We will never make a deal about anything with anyone above your heads or behind your backs. The maxim we live by is clear: nothing about you without you, nothing about you without you. And I would argue, look at our track record, look at our track record.

We’ve all learned over the past two years that as the globe around us shrinks, the bonds between us grow. We are partners in today’s global economy. That’s why we worked with our European partners — the IMF and the World Bank — to make sure international support for your economies was there when you needed it most.

That’s why it’s heartening to see how many of you have successfully braved this worldwide recession and put your nations on the road to recovery. And working together, we can all learn lessons from this crisis that will help us lay the foundation for a renewed century of growth and to rebuild prosperity.

One lesson we need to work together toward is a more secure energy future. We need sustainable energy security that includes diversification of supplies and transit routes, smart investments to deal with climate change. The connections between European countries should exist not just through European countries. Here, in this region — by history, geography and necessity — the countries of Central Europe are well placed to lead all of Europe.

Ladies and gentlemen, finally, let me say a word about leadership in an area that Central Europeans are uniquely qualified to provide — the advocacy of democracy. Americans, I believe, are rightly proud that people around the world occasionally look to our example, and look for our leadership. But the truth of the matter is you are the model for millions — not us, you — Romania and other Central European countries. The example you set 20 years ago inspired the world. The leadership you exert over the next 20 years can change that world, encouraging, supporting, and consolidating young democracies in Central and Eastern Europe.

In Eastern Europe, countries still struggle to fulfill the promise of a strong democracy, or a vibrant market economy. Who to look to better than you? Who to look to better than Central European countries that 20 years ago acted with such courage and resolve, and over the last 20 years, have made such sustainable progress? You can help guide Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine along the path of lasting stability and prosperity. It’s your time to lead. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus can benefit from your personal experiences. The E.U. Eastern Partnership Initiative is a good example of how you can energize the effort. And we will partner with you in working to fulfill the promise of 1989. But your leadership needs to be bold and your voices loud.

There’s an old Romanian proverb: “The cheapest article is advice. The most valuable is a good example.” You are the “good example.” Twenty years ago, the people of Central Europe took the world history that they inherited, and willed it in a new direction toward greater freedom, justice, and fairness. The odds were stacked against you. We know from history that destroying old oppressive regimes is a great deal easier than building new flourishing democracies. But you’ve delivered on the promise of your revolution. You are now in the position to help others do the same.

Speaking to our Congress 20 winters ago, Vaclav Havel pointed to a special sense of empathy and imagination the people of Central Europe share. Years of subjugation, he said, “have given us, however unintentionally, something positive: a special capacity to look somewhat further than someone who has not undergone this bitter experience.” He went on to say: “A person who cannot move and live a normal life because he is pinned under a boulder has more time to think about hopes than someone who is not trapped in this way.” He was right.

Now you have the freedom to act on those hopes, and you are. And I believe together we can turn that hope that we shared into a history we can be proud of. This is the moment. You students, if we are smart, brave, and lucky will be able to tell your grandchildren you were present at the creation of a new Europe, a new security, a new era of peace, because you were bold enough to seize that moment. Be like those in ‘89. Be bold. Exercise your leadership. You have a history, and you have a tradition. You can make a gigantic difference. And we’ll stand with you.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening. And may God bless America and all of our allies. And may God protect all of our troops who are in harm’s way. Thank you very, very much. It’s been an honor to be here. (Applause.)

END

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Ambassador Feinstein made a public statement, in which thanked the Polish government for planning to enlarge its military contingent in Afghanistan, but Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich has denied that a decision to increase Poland’s troop deployment in Afghanistan has been taken.

On Saturday, Ambassador Feinstein said on the TVN24 Polish television channel that Poland’s president and prime minister “declared that not only would they be keeping Polish soldiers in Afghanistan, but they would also enlarge the contingent. This is something for which we are very grateful.”

Speaking Monday morning at a press conference, Bogdan Klich denied such claims and suggested that Ambassador Feinstein may have been guilty of a diplomatic faux pas. Mr. Klich said “The ambassador committed a blunder, since neither the prime minister, nor the minister of foreign affairs, nor the minister of national defense made any declarations to the American side about an increase in the contingent. But, please remember that these are the ambassador’s first days at a new post.”

Picking up on the Polish defense minister’s comments, the English-language newspaper Krakow Post ran an online headline “U.S. Ambassador to Poland ‘Committed a Blunder’.” The Polish Radio’s International Service posted on its website a report under a more diplomatic headline “Confusion over Poland’s Afghan deployment deepens.”

Polish Radio quotes Mr. Klich as saying “There is no such decision, nor plans.” The Polish defense minister added that the contingent of 2,000 Polish soldiers in the Ghazni province in Afghanistan will not be enlarged unless it is absolutely necessary. He did confirm, however, that 200 soldiers would be going to Afghanistan to be held in strategic reserve in case of emergencies.

Responding to questions about Ambassador Feinstein’s comments, President Kaczynski’s office said that no detailed plans had been sent by the defense ministry on the issue of enlarging the Polish military contingent in Afghanistan, and that it was far too early to make such a decision.

Surprisingly, U.S. media, which has been lately reporting extensively on Afghanistan, has not yet picked up on this story. It was reported by the Chinese news agency Xinhua. A brief summary of the Xinhua report was placed on The USA Today website.

Whether other U.S. media outlets report on this story will become clearer on Tuesday. An earlier diplomatic blunder between Poland and the U.S. over President Obama’s announcement about the removal of the U.S. missile defense shield system from Poland and the Czech Republic, which he made on the day of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland at the beginning of WWII, received considerable U.S. media attention.

Media criticism may have forced President Obama to send Vice President Biden on a face-saving mission to Central Europe. During the visit, Mr. Biden made several strong comments in support of U.S. commitments to the defense of Poland and other Central European nations, which President Obama may now find difficult to ignore in his attempts to improve relations with Russia.

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Many US and international commentators condemned and ridiculed the timing of the announcement, and the decision itself, as undermining US credibility and security of US allies, even if some of them agreed that on purely technical merits it may have been a right move. A number of influential Republican members of Congress, including Senator Richard Lugar, R-IN, and Senator George Voinovich, R-OH, were also critical of the way President Obama is treating US allies in East-Central Europe. A State Department official, who was asked to explain how such a public diplomacy disaster could have happened, refused to comment and suggested that these questions should be directed to the White House. The National Security Council, NSC, is believed to have been responsible for coordinating the evaluation of the anti-missile system. In a highly unusual move for a diplomatic mission abroad, the US Embassy in Warsaw acknowledged on its official website that that Poles believe that the “insensitive timing” — as the Embassy put it — of the White House announcement “shows that Obama does not understand Poland.”

One of the experts, who suspect that the US State Department and the White House may have been duped by Russian propaganda experts, is Dr. John Brown, a former US diplomat who had served in Warsaw and Moscow. In an article titled, The September 17 missile announcement: A speculation regarding this public-diplomacy disaster, Dr. Brown offered his theory that “the cynical but clever Putin oligarchy proposed the date of the announcement, knowing full well that the Americans, ignorant of history (or not caring about it, true to their national character) would have no objections, timed as it was to occur before Obama’s speech at the UN. The Putin-Russians, no fools and familiar with the Polish fear (and resentment) of being abandoned by the West, also realized full well that the date of the announcement would produce an anti-American backlash among the Poles, even among those who had opposed the shield in the first place, because it would be seen by them as yet another great power deal to diminish the influence of their country and leave it defenseless.”

Dr. Brown has not been a supporter of the Bush missile defense plan, and considers it both foolish and unnecessarily provocative toward Russia, but he has been highly critical of the way the Obama Administration handled the whole issue vis-a-vis Poland. During his diplomatic career of more than 20 years, he had served mostly in Eastern and Central Europe. He resigned from the US Foreign Service in protest against President Bush’s war in Iraq. Dr. Brown is currently affiliated with Georgetown University in Washington, where he lectures on public diplomacy.

Several factors suggest that the White House was indeed duped by Russian propaganda experts as part of a carefully planned public relations scheme. Prior to the September 17th anniversary, the Kremlin controlled media helped to raise enormous anger and fear among the Poles by publishing a number of news items and commentaries defending Stalin’s pact with Hitler that let to the German-Soviet partition of Poland. This was followed by Prime Minister Putin’s statement in Gdansk in connection with the earlier anniversary on September 1 of the Nazi attack on Poland, in which he appeared to condemn the Hitler-Stalin Pact while still defending Stalin and his policies. Despite its ambiguous nature, Putin’s statement made him look good to some Polish and many international media outlets, while President Obama was criticized for not attending the Gdansk ceremony and not even bothering to send a high level US official in his place.

It seems highly plausible that at about the same time Russian diplomats suggested to the White House or the State Department that they were planning to make an immediate announcement about canceling their plans to have Russian missiles placed in the Kaliningrad district near the border of Poland if President President Obama would make his announcement about the US missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic on September 17. They may have also suggested that President Obama’s announcement of his decision just before his speech to the UN General Assembly would be seen by President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin as a highly positive gesture and might generate future Russian concessions to Washington on dealing with Iran.

The official position of the State Department on the timing of the missile shield announcement, which was given to Dr. Brown in a phone conversation, is that “State Department sources could not explain the choice of that date.” Opinia.US has been trying to get the White House to respond. The White House press office has referred us to the National Security Council (NSC) and their press office. We have asked them a number of questions and were promised a response, but it did not come before our publishing deadline.

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The US embassy website annoucement dealt with the presentation of a book about Polish history to President Obama last week in New York by Polish President Lech Kaczynski. According to news reports, President Kaczynski sat next to President Barack Obama at a luncheon in New York where world leaders gathered for the UN session of the General Assembly. During his meeting with Barack Obama, President Kaczynski gave him a copy of Alex Storozynski‘s book about Tadeusz Kosciuszko: The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution. President Obama’s copy of The Peasant Prince had an inscription from the author which said: “To President Obama, May Kosciuszko inspire you to learn more about Poland, the country whose motto is, For Your Freedom and Ours.” Poles are particularly upset that the Obama administration in its desire to win favors with Moscow does not appreciate their military contributions in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Polish soldiers have been fighting alongside American soldiers and suffered casualties.

President Kaczynski, who was elected in 2005 for a five year term, had a close relationship with former President Bush and supported his missile defense plans. The current government in Poland is headed by one of President Kaczynski’s political rivals, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, but as most Polish politicians, he has also supported the Bush plan. Prime Minister Tusk was reported to be upset by the Obama administration announcement on September 17 and the lack of proper consultations with America’s allies in Central Europe to the point of refusing to accept a telephone call from President Obama, which came in the middle of the night in Poland on September 16.

The US Embassy in Warsaw noted that the book The Peasant Prince by Alex Storozynski outlines Kosciuszko’s pivotal role in the American Revolution and his efforts to spread that democratic revolution to Europe. If the first African American US president was not offended by being told in such a public gesture that he needs to improve his knowledge of Polish history and takes time to read the book, he would learn that in addition to fighting to overthrow the British monarchy in the United States, Kosciuszko championed the rights of black slaves in America. Kosciuszko was also a champion for the rights of white serfs in feudalistic Europe, Jews, women, Native Americans and all people who were disenfranchised. His motto was, “For your freedom and ours.”

The Embassy describes Kosciuszko was a true American hero. He joined the Continental Army in 1776, and after building forts near Philadelphia; he devised the strategy for the Battle of Saratoga – the turning point of the American Revolution. Kosciuszko also drafted the blueprints for West Point and built the fortress that Benedict Arnold tried to sell to the British. Jefferson said of Kosciuszko: “He is as pure a son of liberty, as I have ever known, and of that liberty which is to go to all, and not to the few or rich alone.”

President Obama may share some of the basic attitude toward Poland, Polish Americans and Russia as another progressive and popular US president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The Polish question became a major nuisance for FDR during World War II, just as it may now become for President Obama, who apparently believes that Russia’s help is essential in dealing with Iran and other global issues, said a former US government official who was in charge of American radio broadcasts to Poland during the Cold War.

FDR was convinced that the Soviet Union and Stalin were indispensable to maintaining peace in East-Central Europe and would help the US in the war against Japan while Poland was just a minor military ally. In an exchange that took place in 1943, FDR observed in response to doubts being expressed by one of his advisors about Stalin, “I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of a man. . . . I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won’t try to annex anything and will work with me for a world… of democracy and peace.”

FDR’s wildly optimistic assessment of Stalin and Russia led to the Yalta Conference agreement in February 1944, in which the United States and Great Britain effectively gave Moscow control over Poland and other nations in East-Central Europe. While American public opinion, US strategy and policy toward the Soviet Union changed drastically shortly after FDR’s death, it took several decades of the Cold War, the wars in Korea and Vietnam, and billions of dollars in military expenditures before the Soviet Union collapsed and Eastern Europe was liberated peacefully from Moscow’s domination.

The fear in Poland that history may repeat itself may explain, according to a former US official, the unprecedented frankness of the news item placed by American diplomats in Warsaw on the US Embassy website. Another explanation may be the absence of a US ambassador in Poland, the lack of usual bureaucratic supervision and the desire of the embassy staff to redeem themselves after failing to get the attention of the Obama White House that making the missile announcement on September 17 would be seen as a major offense in Poland.

It is not clear whether the news on the US embassy website is a purely local initiative of American diplomats in Warsaw or represents a major effort approved in Washington to repair the public relations damage from President Obama’s decision. A former employee of the now defunct US Information Agency, which was once responsible for conducting public diplomacy, said that in any case it was a commendable display of diplomatic frankness and courage.

President Bush’s ambassador, Victor H. Ashe, had left Poland last week. The new ambassador-designate to Poland is Lee A. Feinstein, a former political advisor to Hillary Clinton. He apparently also failed to educate the White House and his former and current boss at the Department of State on the sensitivity of this issue for the Polish people.

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Material from US Embassy Warsaw website.

President Barack Obama Receives a Copy of The Peasant Prince from President Lech Kaczynski
25 September 2009

Polish President Lech Kaczynski sat next to President Barack Obama yesterday at a luncheon in New York where world leaders were gathered for the UN session of the General Assembly. During his meeting with Barack Obama, President Kaczynski gave him a copy of Alex Storozynski‘s book about Tadeusz Kosciuszko: The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution, Polish Press Agency reported. President Obama’s copy of The Peasant Prince had an inscription from the author which said: “To President Obama, May Kosciuszko inspire you to learn more about Poland, the country whose motto is, For Your Freedom and Ours.” According to PAP, President Kaczynski expressed his disappointment over Obama’s decision to change a plan by former President Bush to place a missile shield in Poland. The timing of Obama’s announcement upset Poland and Polish Americans because it came on Sept. 17, the 70th anniversary of the Russian invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II.

Russian troops occupied Poland for the next five decades, and did not withdraw until after the Cold War. Poles believe that the insensitive timing of this announcement shows that Obama does not understand Poland.

The Peasant Prince by Alex Storozynski outlines Kosciuszko’s pivotal role in the American Revolution and his efforts to spread that democratic revolution to Europe. In addition to fighting to overthrow the British monarchy in the United States, Kosciuszko championed the rights of black slaves in America, white serfs in feudalistic Europe, Jews, women, Native Americans and all people who were disenfranchised. His motto was, “For your freedom and ours.”

Kosciuszko was a true American hero. He joined the Continental Army in 1776, and after building forts near Philadelphia; he devised the strategy for the Battle of Saratoga – the turning point of the American Revolution. Kosciuszko also drafted the blueprints for West Point and built the fortress that Benedict Arnold tried to sell to the British. Jefferson said of Kosciuszko: “He is as pure a son of liberty, as I have ever known, and of that liberty which is to go to all, and not to the few or rich alone.”

Alex Storozynski, The Peasant Prince author, visited Warsaw in August 2009. Please click here to read the report from his visit.

Prezydent Barack Obama otrzymał z rąk prezydenta Lecha Kaczyńskiego książkę „Chłopski książę”

25 września 2009

Na obiedzie wydanym wczoraj na cześć światowych przywódców przybyłych do Nowego Jorku na sesję Zgromadzenia Ogólnego ONZ prezydent Lech Kaczyński zajmował miejsce obok prezydenta Baracka Obamy. Jak podała Polska Agencja Prasowa, podczas spotkania z prezydentem USA prezydent Kaczyński wręczył gospodarzowi egzemplarz książki Alexa Storożyńskiego o Tadeuszu Kościuszce pt. „Chłopski książę”, zawierający następującej treści dedykację autora: „Prezydentowi Obamie z życzeniami, by Kościuszko stał się inspiracją do lepszego poznania Polski, kraju, który kieruje się mottem: „Za waszą i naszą wolność”. Według PAP-u prezydent Kaczyński wyraził rozczarowanie decyzją Obamy o zmianie podjętego przez prezydenta Busha planu budowy tarczy antyrakietowej w Polsce. Polaków oraz obywateli amerykańskich polskiego pochodzenia poruszył fakt, że decyzja prezydenta Obamy została ogłoszona 17 września, w 70. rocznicę rosyjskiej inwazji na Polskę w pierwszych dniach drugiej wojny światowej.

Wojska rosyjskie okupowały Polskę przez kolejne pięćdziesiąt lat i wycofały się dopiero wtedy, gdy zimna wojna dobiegła końca. Zdaniem Polaków wybór tak niezręcznej pory na ogłoszenie decyzji świadczy o tym, że Obama nie rozumie Polski.

W książce „Chłopski książę” Storożyński przedstawia kluczową rolę Kościuszki w Amerykańskiej Rewolucji oraz jego zabiegi o rozszerzenie demokratycznej rewolucji na Europę. Równolegle z walką o obalenie brytyjskiej monarchii w Stanach Zjednoczonych Kościuszko walczył o prawa czarnoskórych niewolników w Ameryce i chłopów pańszczyźnianych w feudalnej Europie, jak również o prawa Żydów, kobiet, Indian amerykańskich oraz wszystkich osób pozbawionych praw obywatelskich. Przez cały ten czas kierował się mottem: „Za waszą i naszą wolność”.

Kościuszko zyskał miano prawdziwego bohatera Ameryki. W 1776 r. wstąpił do Armii Kontynentalnej i zbudował fortyfikację wokół Filadelfii; opracował strategię bitwy pod Saratogą, która to bitwa okazała się punktem zwrotnym Amerykańskiej Rewolucji. Zaprojektował również i zbudował twierdzę West Point, którą później Benedict Arnold próbował sprzedać Brytyjczykom. Jefferson powiedział o Kościuszce: „To najprawdziwszy syn wolności, tej wolności, która stanie się udziałem wszystkich, nie tylko tych nielicznych i bogatych.”

“It wasn’t that the shield was that important, but it’s about the way, the way of treating us.”

–Lech Wałęsa, the former Polish president and Solidarity leader, regarding the US decision to drop the missile defense shield in Poland, John Brown’s Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review, Version 2.0

Dear Poland, Happy Soviet Invasion Day, Love Uncle Sam

Wired

Poland has not one but two Pearl Harbor Days in September: the anniversary of the start of World War II with the Nazi German attack on Poland on September 1, 1939 and the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland on September 17, 1939 under the terms of the Hitler-Stalin Pact. Someone at the State Department should have explained the significance of these two dates for Poland to Hawaiian-born US President. There was no good reason for snubbing Poland by sending a minor US official to the anniversary observances in Gdansk on September 1 to stand alongside of heads of state and Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and President Obama did not have to announce his missile shield decision on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. Ted Lipien

Update

2009 marks 90 years of diplomatic relations between Poland and the United States. This is the last week of US Ambassador Victor H. Ashe’s tenure in Poland. A holdover President George W. Bush’s appointee, he is scheduled to depart Warsaw permanently on September 26. President Obama’s Ambassador-Designate to Poland is Lee A. Feinstein who is on leave from the Brookings Institution, where he has been a Visiting Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies. He was National Security Director to Hillary Rodham Clinton during her presidential campaign. Ambassador Victor Ashe congratulated Mr. Feinstein: “President Obama made an excellent choice in announcing his intent to nominate Lee Feinstein as the next U.S. Ambassador to Poland. I know the Embassy and Polish-American relations will be in good hands under his leadership.” If confirmed, Mr. Feinstein will be the 25th U.S. Ambassador to Poland.

American Diplomacy Failed Obama in Poland

While American and international media blames President Obama for choosing to announce his decision on the removal of the missile defense system from Poland and Czech Republic on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet attack on Poland on September 17, 1939, surprisingly so far no one has called it a failure of American diplomacy. What makes this failure even more disturbing is that neither the State Department nor the White House has drawn any lessons from an earlier public diplomacy disaster when they gave grave offence by sending to Poland a low-level delegation to participate in the 70th anniversary observances on September 1 of the start of World War II, a date also of great historical significance to the Polish people.

Both missteps were completely avoidable. Why add insult to injury? Why offend even more a loyal US ally in the war on terror who has contributed troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan?

There may be some who think that the Obama White House deliberately snubbed and punished Poland because Warsaw was one of the strongest supporters among NATO members of President Bush’s foreign policy. I don’t think this was the case. President Obama and his closest advisors may be naive and historically challenged, but they would not sacrifice American national interests in such a way. The additional humiliation of Poland was not deliberate. It was unplanned, and much of it was certainly unnecessary and avoidable.

If only one US diplomat, one foreign service officer at the State Department, did his or her job well, some of the international headlines making fun of President Obama’s lack of appreciation of history would not have been written. Where was the US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale, one of President Obama’s appointees? (Photo) Where was the US Ambassador to Poland Victor Ashe?

As President Bush’s holdover appointee who is leaving his post in Warsaw this week, Ambassador Ashe would not have much influence with the Obama White House anyway. But where was President Obama’s Ambassador-Designate to Poland Lee A. Feinstein? The Brookings Institution Visiting Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies and National Security Director to Hillary Rodham Clinton during her presidential campaign should have been already advising the Obama Administration on a host of issues, including the sensitive area of history and trust in US-Polish relations. His statement made to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 15, just two days before President Obama’s ill-timed announcement, shows a certain appreciation of Poland’s history.

“Poland has endured great hardship and tragedy in its history. It has been occupied and dismembered by foreign powers time and again. It experienced a brief period of independence after World War I, but then fell prey to Nazi invasion and occupation, during which six million Polish citizens lost their lives, including three million Jews, most of Poland’s Jewish population. Then, following the war, the Soviet regime deprived Poles of their political liberty and imposed an economic system that kept the country in poverty and subjugation.”

President Obama’s Ambassador-Designate to Poland Lee A. Feinstein, September 15, 2009

Ambassador-Designate Feinstein did not specifically mention the Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939, but he undoubtedly knew about it, and knew about President Obama’s pending missile shield announcement. He probably also knows that the Poles still remember how the US Administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had betrayed Poland to Russia at the end of World War II. I specifically refer to FDR and his administration, and not the American people who did not want to see Poland being sold to Stalin.

Lee Feinstein should have called the White House to offer friendly advice on Polish history and perhaps quote from another part of his earlier statement: “As Secretary Clinton has said, Poland is ‘one of our closest allies.’ Poland was one of just three countries that entered Iraq with U.S. forces in 2003. It contributes forces for NATO’s KFOR mission in Kosovo. Polish forces have served in Afghanistan since the onset of the NATO mission in 2004.” Ambassador-Designate Feinstein summed up Poland’s special relationship with the US in this way: “In short, intrepid Polish forces stand with us in dangerous places with dangerous missions, and Poland has increased its contributions, which are prodigious.”

During World War II, Polish soldiers fought alongside of British and American soldiers against Nazi Germany. Those who understand how the Polish people feel about history and about America are reminded of Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane who served in Poland from 1945 until 1947 during the Truman Administration, resigned, and wrote a book “I Saw Poland Betrayed.” He described what he saw as the betrayal of Poland by the Western Allies at the end of World War II, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt playing a major part in selling out of Poland to Stalin at the Yalta Conference. Fortunately, subsequent administrations and the American people rejected Roosevelt’s naive assessment of Stalin and supported America’s participation in the Cold War until the Soviet Union collapsed and Poland along with other Central European nations became a member of NATO. The people of Poland can take some comfort in knowing that American democracy eventually corrects even some of the gravest mistakes made by US presidents.

Even if President Obama’s ideological preferences pushed him to embrace Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev rather than listen to Lech Walesa and Waclav Havel, who had sent him a letter warning him about Russia’s dangerous slide into authoritarianism and imperial expansion, there was still room for observing basic diplomatic protocol and good manners. At a lower level of US diplomatic corps, where was the PAO (Public Affairs Officer) at the US Embassy in Warsaw and dozens of other foreign service officers, each costing US taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars? Where was the Polish Desk officer at the State Department? Where were all the public diplomacy experts President Obama had promised to bring on board to correct the mistakes of the Bush Administration, whom he accused of dealing harshly with the rest of the world and of not listening to what others were saying?

Well, the Obama Administration is now talking softly to Moscow, Iran, and Cuba. But what about Poland, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and other nations in Central and Eastern Europe which already are or want to be America’s allies? What about the future of independent and democratic Ukraine? Is Ukraine going to become like Russia? Where was in all of this President Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his chief diplomatic advisor? We have also not heard much from Vice President Biden.

Ultimately, the US President is responsible for any foreign policy and public diplomacy disasters, but American diplomats should have managed the process and tried to soften the blow to Poland and other nations in the region. Perhaps they did warn the White House, and their warnings were ignored. This would still qualify as a failure of American diplomacy — the inability of State Department officials to affect something as simple as the timing of a critical announcement and selecting who should represent the United States at an important event abroad.

If warnings were issued to the White House and were disregarded, I hope we will soon find out. Comments from those who may know are welcome. Whatever happened, this will hurt President Obama politically among Polish-American voters and other Americans with roots in Central and Eastern Europe. With headlines like these, this diplomatic fiasco will likely have a negative political impact for the President and his party across the whole spectrum of the American electorate. But while President Obama may eventually pay a political price for the mistakes that were both his and the State Department’s, the damage to America’s reputation and credibility among our true allies abroad will be long-lasting and will not be easily undone.

This op-ed was written by Ted Lipien, president of Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org), a 501(c)3 media nonprofit promoting media freedom worldwide. Republishing is allowed.

Wired Headline: Dear Poland, Happy Soviet Invasion Day, Love Uncle Sam

P.S. (TedLipien.com)

By the way, we are taking away the thing that could prevent another one. Hope you don’t mind. Too much.

The Washington Times Headline: Obama not smooth on Gdansk: German attack that started World War II marked without him

Polish Radio Headline: US snubs Poland over WW II ceremony?

DigitalJournal Headline: Opinion: Obama chose wrong day to abandon missile defence shield in Europe

Polish News Headline: OBAMA ABANDONS MISSILE DEFENSE FOR POLAND: Makes Controversial Move on the 70th Anniversary of Soviet Invasion of Poland

examiner.com San Francisco Headline: Obama betrays Poland and every American EXCELLENT VIDEOS!

Drudge Report Headline: September 17: Obama kills missile defense for Poland on 70th anniversary of Soviet invasion…
And countless blogs:

Mother. Of. ALL. Snubs. Obama and the Polish Joke

President Obama acknowledges the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland… …by cancelling the missile defense in Eastern Europe

Obama Celebrates 70th Anniversary of Soviet Invasion of Poland…

Obama to Allies: Drop Dead

Obama’s second Polish joke: the Obama Doctrine

Wikipedia

Soviet invasion of Poland

Ted Lipien was formerly acting VOA associate director and helped to place BBG-funded radio and TV programs on stations in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and in other countries in the region. 

He is the author of a book about Pope John Paul II and new feminism, in which he discussed the attempts by the Polish communist secret police and the KGB to spy on the Polish pontiff and feed disinformation to Western journalists. He also described how communist agents tried to infiltrate U.S. radio stations broadcasting to audiences behind the Iron Curtain. He points out in his book that the main targets of the communist secret police blackmail and recruitment efforts were journalists, intellectuals, extremists of all types, and priests. 

He worked in Washington, D.C. and spent eight years as a regional  media marketing director for the BBG based at the RFE/RL headquarters in Prague.

Wojtyla’s Women: How Women, History and Polish Traditions Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church
Ted Lipien has written an incisive and penetrating book on the role remarkable women, played in shaping John Paul II’s outlook on important and controversial issues that defined his papacy. One of them was the Albanian-born nun and Nobel laureate Mother Teresa. Much of the ground that Lipien covers in his meticulously documented book is not familiar to students of John Paul II’s papacy. He presents new information on the Pope’s enduring relationships with women who had an enormous impact on his life, offers original interpretations, and makes a significant contribution in advancing the theoretical discussion on John Paul II’s papacy. The greatest strength of “Wojtyla’s Women” lies in the author’s impassioned analysis of astonishingly complex issues and events. Lipien’s landmark book opens new paths for other scholars and is essential reading for specialists as well as the wider public.
Dr. Elez Biberaj, author of Albania in Transition: The Rocky Road to Democracy

Extremely detailed research into a heretofore unexamined aspect of the beloved Pope John Paul II’s life. This book is worthwhile reading for anyone interested in the personal network of highly influential women who shaped John Paul II’s attitudes, particularly on the debate of women’s roles.
Dr. Nancy Snow, author of Information War

An important book. Few persons are as qualified as Ted Lipien to enlighten readers about Pope John Paul II’s Polish roots — and the impact that they had on his views on women. Lipien provides a stimulating analysis of the Pope’s ideas on gender roles and how John Paul believed the Church should deal with sexual issues. While he does not agree with many of the Pope’s stands on women, Lipien makes a laudatory effort to understand — and explain — them. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the relationship between feminism and Catholicism, a key issue of our times.
Dr. John H. Brown, former U.S. diplomat in Poland, editor of Public Diplomacy Press Review