Stars and Stripes is published by the Pentagon but maintains editorial independence. The Obama administration, eager to get Russia’s cooperation in dealing with Iran, is putting out several conflicting public relations messages. After cancelling the Bush anti-ballistic missile defense plan in an effort to appease Russia, it wants to appease Poland and other Central European nations by promoting a militarily insignificant Patriot missile placement. At the same time, the U.S. administration also wants to send a signal to Russia that the Patriot system to be placed in Poland has little military value and will not lead to a large number of U.S. soldiers being stationed in Poland.

Governments in Central Europe are concerned by Washington’s unwillingness to criticize the Kremlin. There was no public protest from the Obama administration when Russia recently staged the largest military exercises near Poland’s eastern border in the last 20 years. Russian troops practiced simulated attacks on Poland. According to unconfirmed Polish media reports, use of nuclear weapons was part of the exercise.

The Poles believe that President Obama’s foreign policy goals in dealing with countries like Russia, Iran and Cuba are based on naive assumptions. They also realize that the proposed Patriot system is of little military value to them but want a larger number of U.S. soldiers to be stationed in Poland as an extra guarantee of U.S. commitment to protect its ally against Russia. That number is not expected to be large but will be greater than the contingent of six American soldiers who are currently stationed in Poland.

End of Opinia.US report. Republication is permitted.

Read the Stars and Stripes article by Nancy Montgomery:

Critics call Poland Patriot missile plan a symbolic gesture
Germany-based unit is likely to be sent as early as the spring
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, November 26, 2009
HEIDELBERG, Germany — Soldiers from U.S. Army Europe’s Patriot missile battalion could be deploying to Poland as soon as the spring for a six-month rotation as part of the Obama administration’s new missile defense plan in Eastern Europe.

But critics say the Patriot deployment — the first to put U.S. troops in Poland — is nothing more than a symbolic, diplomatic gesture. READ MORE

Stars and Stripes is published by the Pentagon but maintains editorial independence. The Obama administration, eager to get Russia’s cooperation in dealing with Iran, is putting out several conflicting public relations messages. After cancelling the Bush anti-ballistic missile defense plan in an effort to appease Russia, it wants to appease Poland and other Central European nations by promoting a militarily insignificant Patriot missile placement. At the same time, the U.S. administration also wants to send a signal to Russia that the Patriot system to be placed in Poland has little military value and will not lead to a large number of U.S. soldiers being stationed in Poland.

Governments in Central Europe are concerned by President Obama’s concessions to Moscow at the expense of U.S. allies in the region and his unwillingness to criticize the Kremlin for its authoritarian policies at home and aggressive behavior toward Russia’s neighbors. There was no public protest from the Obama administration when Russia recently staged the largest military exercises near Poland’s eastern border in the last 20 years. Russian troops practiced simulated attacks on Poland. According to unconfirmed Polish media reports, use of nuclear weapons was part of the exercise.

The Poles believe that President Obama’s foreign policy goals in dealing with countries like Russia, Iran and Cuba are based on naive assumptions. They also realize that the proposed Patriot system is of little military value to them but want a larger number of U.S. soldiers to be stationed in Poland as an extra guarantee of U.S. commitment to protect its ally against Russia. That number is not expected to be large but will be greater than the contingent of six American soldiers who are currently stationed in Poland.

End of Opinia.US report. Republication is permitted.

Read the Stars and Stripes article by Nancy Montgomery:

Critics call Poland Patriot missile plan a symbolic gesture
Germany-based unit is likely to be sent as early as the spring
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, November 26, 2009
HEIDELBERG, Germany — Soldiers from U.S. Army Europe’s Patriot missile battalion could be deploying to Poland as soon as the spring for a six-month rotation as part of the Obama administration’s new missile defense plan in Eastern Europe.

But critics say the Patriot deployment — the first to put U.S. troops in Poland — is nothing more than a symbolic, diplomatic gesture. READ MORE

Media w USA nie informowały o wcześniejszych rosyjskich manewrach wojskowych, o których minister Sikorski mówił z dużym zaniepokojeniem w swym wystąpieniu w Waszyngtonie. Jego wizyta w Waszyngtonie nie spotkała się z większym oddźwiękiem w media amerykańskich, zwłaszcza liberalnych, co odzwierciedla stosunek administracji prezydenta Obamy do Polski i Europy środkowo-wschodniej. Sekretarz stanu Clinton odwołała swoje spotkanie z Sikorskim, postanawiając pozostać dłużej na Bliskim Wschodzie.

The Polish foreign ministry protested after the Russian news agency Interfax dispatch from Washington of November 5, 2009 attributed to Sikorski a statement “We would desire to secure American troops, deployed in our country as a shield against Russian aggression,” which the ministry stated he had never made.

The Polish ministry suspected that the Interfax report might have been an intentional manipulation designed to embarrass Sikorski during his visit to the U.S. by presenting him as an russophobe. Sikorski did speak in Washington with alarm about recent Russian military exercises, which according to Polish news reports included simulated attacks on Poland, but he made no reference in his comments to “Russian aggression.” There is little doubt, however, that Poland would like to have more U.S. troops stationed on its territory as an extra guarantee of American and NATO defense commitments.

In his remarks in Washington, Sikorski said that Poland had observed recently the largest Russian military exercise on its border in 20 years, in which 900 tanks were used. He also pointed out that there are now only six American soldiers stationed in Poland.

But as far as the quote attributed to him” the Interfax news agency admitted that “it was a reporter’s mistake.” It was described as “the result of a reporter’s poor work.”

If there was an attempt to use the story for propaganda purposes, the damage had already been done before the apology was issued, as some U.S. media outlets, which had ignored the earlier news story about Russian military exercises on Poland’s borders, picked up the Interfax report with the inaccurate quote from Sikorski. Russian politicians quickly jumped on the bandwagon, calling Sikorski’s statements “absolutely unacceptable.” The Russian government-funded Russia Today international television channel immediately reported extensively on Sikorski’s alleged remarks and provided a review of criticism from Russian officials.

The Polish foreign ministry viewed these Russian media reports with some suspicion as possibly being orchestrated to make Poland look bad in the West, as well as for internal propaganda purposes in Russia. The Polish foreign ministry observed that the Interfax report “has evoked – possibly as intended – extensive reactions.”

The New York Times, The Washington Post and other mainstream U.S. media largely ignored the whole controversy. Reflecting the Obama administration’s diminished interest in Central Europe, the Voice of America (VOA) English Service, the U.S. government-funded international broadcaster, did not report on Sikorski’s visit to Washington.

Listen to Foreign Minister Sikorski’s remarks

Read Foreign Minister Sikorski’s remarks

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-scenes 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

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.

Listen to Foreign Minister Sikorski’s remarks

You can convice 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?

Oświadczenie Polskiego Ministerstwa Spraw Zagranicznych w sprawie niezgodnych z prawdą doniesień agencji prasowej Interfax

2009.11.06

W depeszy Interfaxu z 5 listopada 2009 r. relacjonującej wypowiedzi ministra Radosława Sikorskiego w trakcie wizyty w USA, w sposób zupełnie nieuprawniony zostały przypisane ministrowi słowa, których nie wypowiedział: „Chcielibyśmy, żeby Ameryka rozmieściła u nas swoje wojska, jako tarczę przed rosyjską agresją”. Wydaje się, że w tym przypadku mamy do czynienia z intencyjną manipulacją; zdanie zostało przytoczone jako cytat, a więc trudno byłoby te uchybienia interpretować, jako li tylko przypadek braku należytej precyzji, czy dziennikarskiej rzetelności w relacjonowaniu sensu wypowiadanych słów. To, czy słowa te w rzeczywistości zostały wypowiedziane, można było z łatwością ustalić na podstawie sporządzonego zapisu przebiegu konferencji.

Ponieważ depesza wywołała, być może zgodnie z intencją, liczne, daleko idące reakcje, rzecznik prasowy MSZ wystąpił do agencji Interfax o szybkie i jednoznaczne sprostowanie przekłamań oryginalnego doniesienia.

Since the publishing of the interview, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has cancelled her scheduled meeting in Washington with Minister Sikorski when she decided to extend her diplomatic trip to the Middle East. The State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said that “the Secretary looks forward to an early rescheduling of this meeting and a re-launch of our strategic dialogue with Poland.”

Now that the administration has found its feet and listened to our concerns, I have every confidence that we will be working with this administration as we have with every previous administration. Radosław Sikorski

First, President Obama made public his strong desire to “reset” relations with Moscow, based apparently on a naive assumption that Russian leaders would help him deal with nuclear Iran, as if helping the U.S. could ever advance their own authoritarian ambitions. He later declined the Polish government’s invitation to attend the 70th anniversary commemoration of the outbreak of World War II, which was held in Gdansk, the birthplace of Solidarnosc, on September 1, a date of great historical importance to the Poles. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was there along with other foreign dignitaries.

This American diplomatic snub, combined with the fact that the White House and the State Department were silent during the summer, as various Russian government officials and Kremlin supporters defended Stalin and his pre-World War II pact with Hitler, did not escape the attention of Polish leaders and the Polish public. The Hitler-Stalin pact resulted in Poland’s partition by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, with the Soviet attack launched on September 17, 1939.

The final blow came when President Obama made his decision to cancel U.S. plans to build the anti-ballistic missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic, and chose to announce it on the very day the Poles were commemorating the tragic anniversary of the Soviet invasion of their country. Countless public diplomacy experts in the White House and the State Department, including President Obama’s future ambassador to Poland, did nothing to prevent this completely avoidable insult. Wired headline said it all: Dear Poland, Happy Soviet Invasion Day. Love Uncle Sam.

Alarmed by naive foreign policy statements coming from Washington, Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel and other Central European leaders had sent a letter to President Obama in July 2009, warning him of the Kremlin’s aggressive behavior toward Russia’s neighbors. The mishandling of the ballistic missile defense (BMD) issue and subsequent events have shown that their alarm was justified, but their warnings have been ignored.

Finally, after an outcry of media criticism following the September 17 missile shield cancellation announcement, the White House hastily dispatched Vice President Joe Biden on a face-saving mission to Central Europe. While visiting Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic, Mr. Biden praised the courage of pro-democracy demonstrators who toppled communist regimes in 1989 while facing tanks and occasional gunfire.

But these Central Europeans, who easily saw through communist propaganda and like to match actions with words, could not fail to notice that only a few days earlier Mr. Biden’s boss had refused to meet in Washington with the revered Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. This was apparently out of fear of offending the aging Chinese communist leaders, who were not brandishing guns but merely frowning at him thousands of miles away from the White House. U.S. NATO allies in Central Europe also learned from news reports that, citing scheduling conflicts, President Obama had canceled his plans to attend the 20th anniversary observances in Germany of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will represent the U.S. Hoping to score a public diplomacy coup, Russia’s President Dmitri Medvedev later announced that he would attend along with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and a score of other heads of state.

Mr. Obama is too busy to go to Berlin to honor those who fought against communism in Eastern and Central Europe. The White House did say that he would meet the Dalai Lama, but only after his official presidential visit to China. Reacting to this news, former Czech president and human rights activist Vaclav Havel sadly observed that “these minor compromises start the big and dangerous ones.”

Repeated diplomatic blunders of the Obama administration embolden dictators who now see the U.S. president as a weak and ineffective leader. They are likely to act upon this perception by further restricting human rights and press freedoms in their countries, while also threatening their smaller neighbors. This is bad news for America and the spirit of freedom that sustained the 1989 peaceful overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe.

The White House would like everyone to believe that bad translators and hostile media are misinterpreting President Obama’s foreign policy initiatives. The State Department recently blamed a Polish translator for undiplomatic remarks by President Obama’s new ambassador in Warsaw, Lee A. Feinstein, who hinted in a television interview that Poland plans to increase its engagement in Afghanistan.

While the hint was believed to be accurate, Polish government officials were furious that it was made public before foreign minister Sikorski’s scheduled visit to Washington. They did not want the Polish public to learn about it from the U.S. ambassador while sensitive negotiations were still being conducted. To make things worse, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cancelled her meeting with Sikorski when she decided to extend her trip to the Middle East.

The latest diplomatic crises with Poland show a new level of incompetence as well as arrogance of the new Obama administration foreign policy team. The real problem with Obama diplomacy are not bad translators and journalists, but naive assumptions, surprising arrogance and dangerous incompetence. The world needs a U.S. president whose diplomacy is not lost in confusion.

Ted Lipien was in charge of Voice of America radio broadcasts to Poland during the Solidarity movement’s successful struggle for democracy. He now runs a media freedom nonprofit in San Francisco, CA.

 Sourced from: TedLipien.com

Subscribe to Opinia.US

The war in Afghanistan is not popular with the Polish people, and neither is the idea of committing more Polish troops to help President Obama who removed the U.S. missile shield from Poland on the anniversary of the invasion of the country by the Soviet Union in 1939. He had earlier declined the Polish government’s invitation to participate in the 70th anniversary observances of the start of World War II. And Secretary of State Clinton cancelled her scheduled meeting in Washington this week with visiting Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski, when she unexpectedly extended her visit to the Middle East. He was going to discuss with her, among other things, Poland’s contribution to the war on terror in Afghanistan.

As to the earlier diplomatic scandal, State Department and U.S. Embassy officials tried to place fault with a Polish translator who admittedly used two extraneous words while interpreting the ambassador’s controversial remarks during a television interview. The interpreter added the words, “soldiers” and “Polish contingent,” when translating Ambassador Feinstein’s answer, in which he praised the Polish prime minister’s and president’s “commitment to being in Afghanistan, and,” he added, “actually to enhance its presence in Afghanistan.”

In a strong and angry reaction to this undiplomatically revealing answer, Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich said that “the ambassador committed a blunder.” “Neither the prime minister, nor the minister of foreign affairs, nor the minister of national defense,” said Mr. Klich, “made any declarations to the American side about an increase in the contingent.”

It was obvious that the U.S. envoy was implying some kind of a military commitment. While the translator made a minor error, the translation did not distort the ambassador’s essential message. The English-language Krakow Post and other Polish media outlets analyzed the transcript and came to the same conclusion.

Lee A. Feinstein’s public remarks deeply embarrassed Polish government leaders, who in an attempt to help their country’s declining standing with the Obama administration may have made vague promises to Vice President Joe Biden during his recent visit to Warsaw about increasing their military engagement in Afghanistan. But under no circumstances they wanted the Polish public to hear about it first from the U.S. envoy at a time when most Poles feel that President Obama ignores and does not understand their country.

Even the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw admitted in a news item posted on its official website prior to Ambassador Feinstein’s arrival in Warsaw, and still available online, that deep disappointment in Mr. Obama is a common sentiment shared by the Poles. Yet despite the insults, Poland was planning to send a few hundred extra soldiers to Afghanistan. The Polish leaders know that their strategic military alliance with the United States and Poland’s friendship with the American people must be kept strong regardless of who occupies the White House at the moment.

 Sourced from: TedLipien.com

Wiadomość tę podał rzecznik prasowy Departamentu Stanu Ian Kelly.

Jutro, oczywiście, [Hillary Clinton] ma spotkanie z prezydentem Mubarakiem. Jest oczywiste, że musieliśmy przetasowć jej program, i te zobowiązania oznaczają, że niestety nie może się spotkać z polskim ministrem spraw zagranicznych Sikorskim. Sekretarz Stanu pragnie szybkiego wyznaczenia nowej daty tego spotkania i wznowienia strategicznego dialogu z Polską.

Koniec wiadomości/analizy Opinia.US. Można ją opublikować z powołaniem się na Opinia.US. End of Opinia.US report/analysis. Opinia.US reports/analyses may be republished with attribution.

Ten tekst by Opinia.US is licensed under a Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa 3.0 Stany Zjednoczone License.

This work by Opinia.US is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Subscribe to Opinia.US

Tomorrow, of course, she has a meeting with President Mubarak. Obviously, we’ve had to juggle her schedule for tomorrow, and these commitments mean that unfortunately, she’s unable to meet with Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski. The Secretary looks forward to an early rescheduling of this meeting and a re-launch of our strategic dialogue with Poland.

The cancellation of the meeting is another diplomatic setback for Poland in her relations with the Obama administration. President Obama declined the Polish government’s invitation to attend the official observances in Gdansk of the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II. He later cancelled U.S. plans to place the anti-ballistic missile defense (BMD) system in Poland.

The BMD system was designed to protect Europe and the U.S. from Iranian missiles, but Polish leaders wanted it also as an extra guarantee of America’s commitment to defend Poland against possible intimidation from Russia. President Obama made the missile shield removal announcement on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland, causing outrage among many Poles.

The White House later sent Vice President Biden on a visit to Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic to reassure the nervous Central European NATO allies of America’s continued defense obligations. Soon afterwards, however, President Obama’s new ambassador to Warsaw, Lee A. Feinstein, created another diplomatic incident by revealing in a TV interview the nature of sensitive U.S.-Polish negotiations about increasing the level of Polish troops in Afghanistan. Polish government officials were furious. The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw and the State Department blamed it on a translation error.

Prior to Foreign Minister Sikorski’s visit to Washington, Polish media reported that during military maneuvers, held in Belarus in September, Russian forces practiced launching an attack on Poland. According to these reports, which could not be independently confirmed, the Russian military exercises included a simulated nuclear strike. Obama administration officials did not react to these news reports. During previous U.S. administrations, such news would normally elicit an official U.S. government response with a warning against raising military and political tensions in the region.

Koniec wiadomości/analizy Opinia.US. Można ją opublikować z powołaniem się na Opinia.US. End of Opinia.US report/analysis. Opinia.US reports/analyses may be republished with attribution.

Ten tekst by Opinia.US is licensed under a Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa 3.0 Stany Zjednoczone License.

This work by Opinia.US is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Subscribe to Opinia.US

Dzienniki The New York Times i The Washington Post, nie miały żadnej informacji na ten temat. Nie było też żadnej reakcji ze strony Białego Domu i Departamentu Stanu. W czasie rządów poprzednich administracji amerykańskich, tego rodzaju wiadomość byłaby obszernie komentowana w środkach przekazu i wywołałaby ostry protest władz USA. Media amerykańskie nie informują również o wizycie w Waszyngtonie polskiego ministra spraw zagranicznych Radosława Sikorskiego, chociaż ma on prowadzić rozmowy z sekretarzem stanu Hillary Clinton na temat polskiego kontyngentu wojskowego w Afganistanie.

Departament Stanu nie reagował w ostatnich miesiącach na szereg agresywnych posunięć i oświadczeń Kremla wobec Polski i innych sąsiednich krajów. Doradca prezydenta Obamy do spraw bezpieczeństwa państwa generał James L. Jones był z wizytą w Moskwie 28-29 października. Ambasada USA w Moskwie poinformowała, że obie strony postanowiły uczynić wszelkie możliwe wysiłki aby w grudniu zakończyć negocjacje w sprawie nowego traktatu START. Ambasada podkreśliła, że prezydent Obama zobowiązał się dotrzymać tego terminu.

Koniec wiadomości/analizy Opinia.US. Można ją opublikować z powołaniem się na Opinia.US. End of Opinia.US report/analysis. Opinia.US reports/analyses may be republished with attribution.

Ten tekst by Opinia.US is licensed under a Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa 3.0 Stany Zjednoczone License.

This work by Opinia.US is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Subscribe to 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.

Koniec wiadomości/analizy Opinia.US. Można ją opublikować z powołaniem się na Opinia.US. End of Opinia.US report/analysis. Opinia.US reports/analyses may be republished with attribution.

Ten tekst by Opinia.US is licensed under a Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa 3.0 Stany Zjednoczone License.

This work by Opinia.US is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Subscribe to Opinia.US

W dniach 1 – 4 listopada 2009 r. w Waszyngtonie będzie przebywał z wizytą roboczą Minister Spraw Zagranicznych RP Radosław Sikorski. Celem wizyty będzie kontynuacja dialogu z administracją USA w kluczowych sprawach dla relacji polsko-amerykańskich, w tym współpracy w dziedzinie bezpieczeństwa.

Program wizyty przewiduje spotkanie z Sekretarz Stanu USA Hillary Clinton, podczas którego zostanie oficjalnie wznowiony polsko-amerykański dialog strategiczny. Planowane są również spotkania z innymi przedstawicielami rządu USA oraz przewodniczącym Komisji Spraw Zagranicznych Senatu Johnem Kerry.

Ważnym elementem programu wizyty będą organizowane przez Ambasadę RP konferencje wysokiego szczebla w prestiżowych waszyngtońskich ośrodkach opiniotwórczych.

Konferencje w Brookings Institution, Banku Światowym i Center for Strategic and International Studies mają wskazać na istotną rolę Polski jako partnera USA i aktywnego członka Unii Europejskiej. Jednym z kluczowych wątków będzie podkreślenie sukcesu gospodarczego Polski i wskazanie na doświadczenia naszego kraju w walce z kryzysem.

*We post reports from government and nongovernment sources for informational purposes only. Their inclusion does not imply confirmation of facts or support by Opinia.US. To evaluate such reports, please see Opinia.US analyses. Opinia.US is a project of Free Media Online, a nongovernmental journalistic organization based in San Francisco, CA, USA.

On November 1-4, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, Radosław Sikorki, is paying a working visit to the United States, to continue dialog with the US administration on Polish-US relations, including security cooperation.

The program includes a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during which bilateral strategic dialog is to be officially resumed. Meetings with other members of the US government and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry are also planned.

Other highlights of Sikorski’s visit include conferences in Washington at the Brookings Institution, the World Bank and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, during which Poland will be presented as an important partner of the US and member of the European Union, which has achieved impressive economic progress and success in countering the global crisis.

*We post reports from government and nongovernment sources for informational purposes only. Their inclusion does not imply confirmation of facts or support by Opinia.US. To evaluate such reports, please see Opinia.US analyses. Opinia.US is a project of Free Media Online, a nongovernmental journalistic organization based in San Francisco, CA, USA.

Most Polish media interpreted Ambassador Feinstein’s comments as revealing that Polish leaders may have told U.S. officials, specifically Vice President Biden, that Poland would increase the number of  its soldiers in Afghanistan. Such secret commitments, if they were indeed expressed, would not be at all well received by the Polish public opinion. This might explain the strong reaction of Polish government officials to Ambassador Feinstein’s public  comments, which most experts would view as ill-advised and undiplomatic in the current political climate in Poland, no matter how they were translated.

The presence of Polish troops in Afghanistan is a delicate issue in Poland, where support for keeping them is steadily declining. To compound this problem, Polish-American relations took a major turn for the worse after President Obama did not show up for the 70th anniversary observances in Poland of the outbreak of  World War II  and later canceled the Bush Administration’s missile defense plans on September 17, the day when the Poles were commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of their country.

These decisions by the U.S. president were seen as a major affront to the historically-minded Poles. They are also upset over the need to secure visas to visit the United States, a policy that continues from previous U.S. administrations, but the main reason for the growing  opposition to keeping Polish troops in Afghanistan is a realization that the U.S. has seriously mishandled the war.

Reacting to Ambassador Feinstein’s remarks,  which clearly indicated that the Polish government was committed to staying in Afghanistan and possibly planning “ to enhance its presence,”  Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich said that “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,” Polish Defense Minister Klich added. 

The English-language newspaper Krakow Post ran an online headline “U.S. Ambassador to Poland ‘Committed a Blunder’.” Polish media reported extensively on Ambassador Feinstein’s and Minister Klich’s comments, although surprisingly this story has received very little attention in the U.S. media, possibly because of the confusion of what it really means for the continued presence of Polish troops in Afghanistan.  The Washington Times reported that the State Department spokesman Ian Kelly on Tuesday night attributed the controversy to an incorrect translation Saturday made on Polish television station TVN24. Ambassador Lee A. Feinstein, speaking in English, actually said that Polish officials planned to “enhance their presence” in Afghanistan and not send additional troops, Mr. Kelly said. As someone who has done thousands of translations from English to Polish, I can honestly say that the mistranslation was minimal and did not distort what Ambassador Feinstein really meant. Had it truly been a serious mistranslation, the embassy would have posted a correct translation on its website. It did not because it would show that Polish media reports about the essential meaning of the ambassador’s remarks were generally correct.

Blaming a translator is in this case a very ungracious way of trying to compensate for the ambassador’s diplomatic mistake. Other ambassadors might have received a rebuke from the Secretary of State for embarrassing their host government, but Ambassador Feinstein is very well connected within the Obama administration. His defense by the State Department adds to a series of offending statements and actions taken in recent months in Washington vis-a-vis Poland and shows a level of arrogance that was not seen even during the Bush administration, which was not known for being overly diplomatic in dealing with other countries.

Despite all the insults, it does not appear that Poland will withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. In fact, while being snubbed and embarrassed by the Obama Administration, Poland is planning to send  to Afghanistan additional 200 soldiers as an emergency reserve contingent. The Polish leaders understand that regardless of who is currently occupying the White House, to protect its independence Poland must have good relations with the United States.

Taking a lead from the State Department and Ambassador Feinstein, who is now in Washington for consultations prior to Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski’s visit, U.S. diplomats in Warsaw are now engaged in a  counterproductive effort of trying to put the blame for a diplomatic faux pas on Polish media and the  Polish translator, instead of admitting a mistake and moving on. Contrary to common sense and the often stated desire of the Obama Administration  to see more Polish troops in Afghanistan, these public diplomacy ”experts” are suggesting to their media contacts that Ambassador Feinstein’s words ” prime minister’s and president’s commitment” and  ”to enhance its presence” did not mean that he was talking about sending more Polish troops to Afghanistan. In an attempt to rescue the reputation of the new U.S. ambassador, they have painted themselves into a corner by implying that President Obama’s representative in Warsaw does not know what  the president and the United States want Poland to do.

This is only the latest  in a series of  the public diplomacy disasters in Poland created by the Obama White House and the State Department. The U.S. Embassy’s lame attempts to salvage the reputation of a novice American ambassador, who apparently did nothing to prevent the September 17 missile defense announcement, actually made the controversy worse by exposing a certain lack of sincerity on the part of the Obama administration.

Ambassador Feinstein’s nomination to be Ambassador to Poland was not yet confirmed by the U.S. Senate on September 17, but as an advisor to Hillary Clinton during her presidential campaign and later to the Obama White House, he had excellent contacts that could have helped him to prevent the embarrassment of  having the president announce the missile shield decision on the worst possible day for Poland.

Ultimately, however, the public diplomacy disaster ironically worked to the advantage of Central Europe. Stung by media criticism, the White House had to send Vice President Biden on a face-saving mission to Poland, Romania, and the Czech Republic, where he made a number of statements committing the U.S. to the defence of the region, which President Obama will now find difficult to ignore in his drive to “reset” relations with Moscow.  

Still, the Poles, most of whom had grown up being exposed to communist propaganda and are quite cynical  about exaggerated declarations from government officials, had a good reason to be sceptical when Vice President Biden insisted in Romania that President Obama’s decision to cancel the missile defense system in Central Europe had nothing to do with Russia and was not meant to appease the Kremlin.  Central Europeans who have experienced life under communism like to match words with actions.

During his trip, Mr.  Biden was also effusive in his praise of the courage of Central and East European freedom fighters who had faced tanks and the threat of death or arrests as they were bringing about the fall of communist dictatorships 20 years ago. Yet today’s Central Europeans  knew from news reports, that a few days earlier merely a threat of displeasing aging Chinese communist leaders thousands of miles away in Beijing persuaded President Obama not to meet in Washington with the highly-respected Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Some also knew that President Obama had canceled his plans to participate in the ceremony to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

These additional public diplomacy blunders deepened a major crisis of confidence in the Obama Administration among the Poles and other Central Europeans, which Vice President Biden’s high declarations were not able to erase. Overall, however, his trip to Central Europe was helpful, as the former Bush-era ambassador to Poland Victor Ashe told a New York Times reporter. My own observation is that, if nothing else, Biden’s exaggerated statements have bound President Obama to a more cautious approach toward his rapprochement with the Kremlin.

In handling, or more accurately, mishandling the controversy over Ambassador Feinstein’s remarks, the State Department diplomats could have learned from what a Polish dissident writer said when he was living in Poland under communism. When you find yourself in a difficult situation and don’t know what to say, tell the truth.  They should also pay attention to what former Czech dissident, human rights activist, statesman, playwright, and Nobel Prize winner Vaclav Havel said after learning that President Obama had refused to meet the Dalai Lama.

“It is only a minor compromise,” Mr. Havel said of the nonreception of the Tibetan leader. “But exactly with these minor compromises start the big and dangerous ones, the real problems.”

The State Department and U.S. diplomats in Warsaw want journalists to believe that Ambassador Feinstein was not talking about more Polish soldiers in Afghanistan. What else could he have meant when he talked about “enhancing”  Poland’s presence in the Afghan war zone? Polish experts on crop rotation?

The following is the Polish-language corrected transcript of the TVN24 interview with  U.S. Ambassador to Poland Lee A. Feinstein. You may also follow this link to view a video of the interview, in which the relevant comments in English can still be partly heard in between the voice of the translator.

Maciej Wierzyński (in the early 1990s, Mr. Wierzyński was director of  the Voice of America (VOA) Polish Service in Washington, D.C. VOA no longer broadcasts radio programs to Poland or has any other news content in Polish, neither does the State Department nor Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, RFE/RL) :

Skoro mowa o Afganistanie, z pewnością wie Pan, że w Polsce poparcie dla obecności polskich wojsk Afganistanie słabnie. Niektórzy politycy otwarcie wzywają do wycofania polskich wojsk. Jak pan odpowiedziałby na takie obawy.

 

Lee A. Feinstein: To świetne pytanie, tak naprawdę to jest problem nie tylko w Polsce ale i w Stanach zjednoczonych. W Stanach poparcie społeczne dla narażania ludzi na niebezpieczeństwo to zawsze delikatna kwestia. Chcę więc powiedzieć o tym kilka rzeczy. Po pierwsze – Stany Zjednoczone są zdecydowane zostać w Afganistanie i co do tego nie powinno być żadnych wątpliwości. Prezydent, jak Pan zapewne wie, rozważa różne opcje w Afganistanie – dokładniej jak iść z misją do przodu. Jedna rzecz jest poza dyskusją – wycofanie. Prezydent jest zdecydowany zostać w Afganistanie i zwyciężyć. Mam nadzieję, że to daje trochę pewności, oczywiście to ciężka walka, jesteśmy wdzięczni polskiemu premierowi i prezydentowi za zobowiązanie by być w Afganistanie, w istocie, żeby wzmocnić obecność w Afganistanie. Jesteśmy niezwykle wdzięczni Polakom za wspólne poświęcenie. 

 

 

 Sourced from: TedLipien.com

Subscribe to Opinia.US