Shortly after the imposition of martial law, VOA Polish broadcasts were expanded from two and a half to seven hours daily. Ä few weeks later, Voice of America aired the audio for the special television program “Let Poland Be Poland,” which was produced by the United States International Communications Agency (USICA). The agency, ran by President Reagan’s close friend Charles Z. Wick, was earlier known as the United Information Agency (USIA). Later, its name was changed back to USIA. At that time, the Voice of America was one of the elements of USICA.

The 90-minute program included statements of support from Henry Fonda, Charlton Heston, Glenda Jackson, Kirk Douglas, Paul McCarthney, Bob Hope, President Ronald Reagan, Frank Sinatra, who performed the Polish folk song, “Ever Homeward” in both English and Polish, Czeslaw Milosz, Helmut Schmidt, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and others famous political leaders and artists. In total, 16 heads of state and government leaders made statements in support of Poland and of Solidarity.

Frank Sinatra singing “Ever Homeward” in “Let Poland Be Poland.” Link

A better recording of the song can be found in this video.

A scholar of U.S. public diplomacy, Paul Rockower, wrote that the program, “Let Poland be Poland,” was unique in its scope for multiple reasons (Link):

The Voice of America was not directly involved in the production of “Let Poland Be Poland,” but the then deputy chief of the VOA Polish Service and later its chief, Ted Lipien, was responsible for getting Polish poet and Nobel Prize winner for literature Czeslaw Milosz to participate in the television program.

The Voice of America broadcast radio programs in Polish from 1942 until 2000.

This is an excerpt (in Polish) from the book by Jarosław Jędrzejczak about the history of the Polish Service of the Voice of America, which covers the period of the martial law in Poland. The book is expected to be published in 2012.

Radio stanu wojennego

Fragment książki Jarosława Jędrzejczaka o Sekcji Polskiej Głosu Ameryki. Wydanie książki jest spodziewane w 2012.

W grudniu 1981 roku po ogłoszeniu w Polsce stanu wojennego rozszerzono program z 2,5 godzin do 7 godzin na dobę. Na specjalnych etatach Białego Domu zatrudniono dodatkowo w Polskiej Sekcji 10 osób. Większość z nich wywodziła się z najnowszej, solidarnościowej emigracji. Audycja poranna nadawana była codziennie początkowo od 6.30 do 7.45 a następnie od 6.00 do 8.00. Blok wieczornych audycji zaczynał się o 20.00 i kończył o pierwszej po północy.

W owym okresie wielonakładowy amerykański tygodnik U.S. News and World Report okładkę wydania z 11 stycznia 1982 roku zatytułował „Wielka wojna propagandowa”. W artykule pod tym samym tytułem pisał:

Kryzys w Polsce intensyfikuje to, co przeradza się w zmasowaną globalną walkę propagandową między Stanami Zjednoczonymi i Związkiem Radzieckim o serca i umysły milionów ludzi na świecie.

Bezpośrednio po narzuceniu Polsce stanu wojennego w grudniu 1981 roku Marek Święcicki wystartował z codzienną godzinną audycją „Echa wydarzeń dnia Głosu Ameryki”. Razem z powtórką pojawiały się dwa programy o 20 i 22 czasu środkowoeuropejskiego. Sam autor audycji w swoich wspomnieniach napisał:

Sądząc z wielu listów i opinii ustnych odegrała ona niewątpliwą rolę w podtrzymywaniu na duchu społeczeństwa polskiego w mrocznym okresie zwielokrotnionej przemocy komunistycznej.

W 1981 roku w przemówieniu telewizyjnym i radiowym do narodu z okazji świąt Bożego Narodzenia ówczesny prezydent Stanów Zjednoczonych Ronald Reagan olbrzymią większość czasu poświęcił Polsce. Zachęcił wtedy Amerykanów by tak jak on w oknie Białego Domu, postawili w wigilię Bożego Narodzenia w oknach swych domów i mieszkań palącą się świeczkę na znak solidarności z cierpiącym narodem polskim.

Tego dnia paląca się świeczka stała również w oknie apartamentu papieskiego w Watykanie. Później z inicjatywy prezydenta Reagana w telewizji zorganizowano wielki koncert pod tytułem zapożyczonym z piosenki Jana Pietrzaka „Żeby Polska była Polską”. Obszerne fragmenty koncertu ukazały się na antenie Głosu Ameryki.

Poszerzenie czasu emisji polskiego programu na falach VOA spowodowało, iż stare, mniej atrakcyjne w formie audycje zostały zastąpione nowymi pojawiającymi się sukcesywnie. Jednocześnie wraz z nowymi produkcjami przed mikrofonami zaistnieli ich autorzy rozpoczynający prace w VOA. Wówczas między innymi rozbrzmiały w eterze: „Przegląd wydarzeń tygodnia”, „Nashville – muzyka country” Róży Nowotarskiej, „Video, komputer”, „Z mikrofonem przez historię” Marka Święcickiego, „Notatnik rolniczy” Zdzisława Mikulskiego, „Teatr w Ameryce” w opracowaniu Sylwii Daneel, „Wydarzenia i ludzie”, „Świat książek” Jarosława Andersa, „Ameryka w przekroju” w opracowaniu Ireny Broni Radwańskiej, „Motorama” Wojtka Minicza, „Polonia”, „Przegląd pism emigracyjnych” Tadeusza Walendowskiego, „Czwartkowe spotkania z poezją i prozą” Nowotarskiej, „Americana”, „Amerykańskie opinie”, „Przegląd filmowy” Zwanieckiego, „Top 10 lista przebojów” Wojtka Żórniaka, „Z Ameryką na co dzień” oraz „Świat muzyczny Willisa Conovera” prowadzony przez Renatę Lipińską.

Do niedzielnego programu o 21.00 włączono transmisję Mszy Świętej w języku polskim. Było to zasługą ówczesnego szefa Sekcji Polskiej Feliksa Bronieckiego.

Według informacji Marka Walickiego Msze Święte w okresie stanu wojennego były rejestrowane w kościele polskiej Misji w Silver Spring pod Waszyngtonem. Do kościoła VOA wysyłał technika, który nagrywał nabożeństwo z polskim kazaniem. W niedzielnej audycji Mszę Świętą jedynie odtwarzano z taśmy magnetofonowej.

W waszyngtońskim studio znaleźli swoje miejsce, przybyli prosto z Polski, ludzie różnych profesji. Byli wśród nich między innymi: iberysta Piotr Niklewicz, muzyk i muzykolog Mirosław Kondracki, profesor filologii angielskiej Zdzisław Mikulski, krytyk literacki Jarosław Anders, lektor języka angielskiego Waldemar Chlebowski, lektorka radiowa Małgorzata Gerlicz, dziennikarz Radia Polonia Piotr Mroczyk, filmowiec Tadeusz Walendowski, bibliotekarz Witold Sułkowski, finansistka Helena Skotowska i jej kolega po fachu Andrzej Zwaniecki, dziennikarka Radia Wrocław Iwona Skoczylas, radiowe małżeństwo anglistka Anna i informatyk Marek Zalewscy, filolog języka angielskiego Marek Rudzki, dziennikarz TVP Bogdan Wojciechowski .

W 1982 roku rozpoczyna współpracę z Głosem Ameryki Jan Grużewski. Grużewski pełni nieetatową funkcję paryskiego korespondenta VOA. Był autorem przeglądów prasy francuskiej i zagranicznej. Jak wspomina Marek Walicki „Był on – poza Zofią Korbońską – jednym z niewielu bliskich mi powstańczych warszawiaków”.

W drugiej połowie lat osiemdziesiątych pojawia się audycja nosząca tytuł „Bez montażu”, pierwsza współtworzona przez słuchaczy, z którymi telefonicznie na antenie rozmawiali prowadzący program dziennikarze z Sekcji Polskiej Głosu Ameryki między innymi Bogdan Marison, Wojtek Żórniak, Waldemar Chlebowski i Janusz Hewell. Obok słuchaczy przed radiowym mikrofonem VOA występują najwybitniejsi przedstawiciele polskiej opozycji politycznej.

Według danych The East European Audience and Opinion Research, w 1984 roku w Polsce tygodniowy wskaźnik audytoriów zachodnich stacji przedstawiał się następująco: RWE – 66%, Głos Ameryki – 48%, BBC –33% i DLF – 9%. Wskazywano jednocześnie, iż najlepsze godziny emisji audycji to 22-23. W związku z powyższym główne programy informacyjne polskojęzycznych stacji ukazywały się właśnie w tym czasie. RWE – 22.10 – Fakty, wydarzenia, opinie; Głos Ameryki – 22.10 – Echa wydarzeń dnia, BBC – 21.40 -Reflektorem po świecie.

W latach 1985 –1987 w centralnej redakcji VOA pracował wywodzący się z Polskiego Radia, były dziennikarz Rozgłośni Polskiej Radia Wolna Europa Marek Łatyński. Łatyński w 1987 roku powrócił do RWE, gdzie do 1989 roku sprawował funkcję dyrektora sekcji polskiej RWE. We wspomnieniowej książce „Ogród Angielski 1” Łatyński o pracy w Głosie Ameryki napisał:

Robiłem programy o wydarzeniach we wschodniej Europie i w ZSRR dla działu centralnego Głosu Ameryki, a więc po angielsku. Sam język nie był dla mnie główną trudnością: mówiłem i pisałem po angielsku od dziecka. Trudności polegały na innych dziennikarskich konwencjach, które sprowadzały się do czystej i dość suchej relacji o wydarzeniach i ukrywaniu własnego poglądu, a nie interpretowaniu ich na podstawie własnej znajomości rzeczy, jak w Wolnej Europie, a także na przystosowaniu się do nowego otoczenia w pracy.

W dziejach Sekcji Polskiej VOA nie brakowało też, specjalnych programów nadawanych w dodatkowym czasie antenowym. Dobrym przykładem są audycje emitowane podczas wizyt papieża Jana Pawła II w Polsce i w Ameryce. 11 października 1979 roku Marek Walicki otrzymał podziękowanie za wkład pracy i profesjonalną obsługę papieskiej wizyty w USA. Od 1980 roku jednym z współtwórców radiowych transmisji pielgrzymek Ojca Świętego był jezuita Stefan Filipowicz. Z perspektywy minionych lat ojciec Filipowicz w liście do mnie tak wspomina okres swojej radiowej działalności w VOA:

Pracowałem w VOA prawie 8 lat, informując Polskę o różnych przejawach życia Kościoła w USA i na świecie. Nadto komentowałem uroczystości papieskie, jak pasterki czy na przykład całą drugą wizytę Jana Pawła II w kraju, kiedy to władze komunistyczne nie dały nam łączy telefonicznych i korzystaliśmy z bieżącego komentarza Radia Watykańskiego, wyciszając głos mojego kolegi z Watykanu, ojca Floriana Pełki, i w to miejsce wkładając mój komentarz. Było to jedno z trudniejszych przedsięwzięć. Wsłuchiwałem się w głośnik, a kiedy wyczułem, że ojciec Pełka wciąga powietrze, by się włączyć z komentarzem, bezbłędnie wchodziłem ja z moim własnym. (… ) W moich archiwach zostawiłem jedynie tematy kilkuset audycji nadawanych w tym pionierskim okresie.

Praca ojca Filipowicza i radiowców z Polskiej Sekcji relacjonujących drugą pielgrzymkę Jana Pawała II do Polski w czerwcu 1983 roku została dostrzeżona przez dyrekcję USIA. 20 czerwca 1983 roku Sekcja Polska otrzymuje specjalną pochwałę Amerykańskiej Agencji Informacyjnej za radiową obsługę papieskiej wizyty w ojczystym kraju.

W lutym 1982 roku Sekcja Polska z rąk naczelnego dyrektora Jamesa Conklinga, otrzymała Wielką Nagrodę Głosu Ameryki – A Superior Honor Award za wyjątkową służbę, wysoki poziom zawodowy i pełne oddanie w przygotowywaniu i opracowywaniu programów dla objętej stanem wojennym Polski. Było to największe wyróżnienie, jakie mogło spotkać polskich radiowców z VOA. W wydanym z tej okazji pamiątkowym dyplomie wymieniono nazwiska szesnastu stałych pracowników Polskiej Sekcji. W kolejności alfabetycznej, w oryginalnej angielskiej pisowni na dyplomie znalazły się następujące osoby: Feliks Broniecki, Wacław Bniński, Irene Broni, Sylvia Daneel, Henryk Grynberg, Jan Herburt-Hewell, Ewa Jaxa-Debicka, Rose Kobylinski, Tadeusz Lipien, Boyden Marison, Richard Mossin, Elizabeth Speidel, Roma Starczewska-Murray, Marek Swiecicki, Marek Walicki i Zbigniew Wierzbicki.

Dalsze zmiany w polskim programie możliwe były już dzięki niezwykłym zdolnością najmłodszego wśród kierowników sekcji językowych VOA Tadeusza Lipienia, który zastąpił przechodzącego na emeryturę Feliksa Bronieckiego. W 1982 roku, gdy obejmował stanowisko szefa Sekcji Polskiej Lipień miał 27 lat. Nowy szef ukończył wcześniej studia na wydziale spraw międzynarodowych Uniwersytetu George Washington w Waszyngtonie.

W owym okresie dzielnie pomagał mu pełniący obowiązki zastępcy kierownika sekcji Marek Walicki, który słuchaczom zachodnich stacji bliżej znany był pod swoimi radiowymi pseudonimami jako Jan Korsak z VOA lub wcześniej jako Jan Łada z fal Rozgłośni Polskiej Radia Wolna Europa. Walicki obok pracy administracyjnej przygotowywał audycje popularyzujące ogólnie rozumianą naukę oraz najnowsze wynalazki amerykańskie głównie techniczne i medyczne.

Prosto z Londynu ściągnięty zostaje do Waszyngtonu Piotr Mroczyk, który wcześniej związany był z Telewizją Polską. Po rozstaniu z Ameryką Mroczyk kieruje pracami Rozgłośni Polskiej Radia Wolna Europa. Był jej ostatnim dyrektorem, a następnie szefem istniejącego trzy lata w Warszawie Radia Wolna Europa Inc., które swoją działalnością nawiązywało do istniejącego przez czterdzieści dwa lata w Monachium Radia Free Europe.

Korespondentem nowojorskim, a później także pracownikiem centrali w Waszyngtonie był wówczas Sławomir Suss. Po odejściu z VOA kontynuował radiową pracę w RWE w Monachium.

W 1987 roku dyrekcja VOA wyróżnia Marka P. Krzyżańskiego i Bogusława Jerke za audycję poświęconą Nagrodzie Praw Człowieka im. Roberta F. Kennedy. Program został wyemitowany w czwartym kwartale 1986 roku.

W latach osiemdziesiątych Głosu Ameryki słuchali niemal wszyscy, a niektórzy świadectwo tego zamieścili w swoich publikacjach. Ojciec Jacek Salij w książce „Nadzieja poddawana próbom” w treść swoich rozważań wplata wątek związany z odbiorem audycji radiowych z Waszyngtonu.

Tak się złożyło, że w latach 1988-1989, kiedy chciałem wysłuchać wieczornego dziennika, najczęściej włączałem „Głos Ameryki”. Uderzyło mnie, że tak wiele mówiła ta radiostacja o prezydencie Reaganie i że skończyło się to dosłownie z dnia na dzień, z chwilą, kiedy przestał być prezydentem. Odtąd tamte dzienniki niezwykle wiele miejsca zaczęły poświęcać nowemu prezydentowi. Zatem osoba prezydenta była przedmiotem tak ogromnego zainteresowania nie ze względu na nią samą, ale ze względu na swój urząd, dzięki któremu każdy kolejny prezydent symbolizuje jedność państwa i jakoś całkiem realnie ją kształtuje. ( … )

W listopadzie 1985 roku Zespół Analiz Ministerstwa Spraw Wewnętrznych PRL opracował dokument „Kierunki propagandy dywersyjnych rozgłośni polskojęzycznych”. Wspomniany dokument znajduje się w zbiorach Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej. Urzędnicy MSW analizie poddali audycje pięciu polskojęzycznych redakcji: Radia Wolna Europa, Głosu Ameryki, BBC, Deuchlandfunku i Radia France Internationale, które łącznie w ciągu doby emitowały 37 godzin i 45 minut programu. W owym okresie RWE nadawało 22-godzinny program, VOA 7-godzinny, BBC 4-godzinny, DLF 3,45 godzinny i RFI 1-godzinny. Autorzy dokumentu jako główny cel programów omawianych rozgłośni podają „oczernianie i zdyskredytowanie ideologii socjalistycznej i wszystkich sił społecznych i politycznych realizujących przemiany socjalistyczne w Polsce”. Charakteryzując Głos Ameryki lat osiemdziesiątych autorzy opracowania pisali:

Głos Ameryki pełni niejako funkcje rozgłośni autorytatywnie interpretującej wydarzenia polityczne w świecie. Wydaje się więc, że audycje tej rozgłośni przeznaczone są dla słuchaczy interesujących się polityką, bez specjalnego ukierunkowania na grupy zawodowe, czy słuchaczy o określonym poziomie wykształcenia.

W 1992 roku przy okazji realizacji filmu dokumentalnego „Głos z Ameryki” Jan Nowak Jeziorański były dyrektor Rozgłośni Polskiej Radia Wolna Europa udzielając wywiadu Beacie Postnikoff powiedział:

Nie było między nami właściwie współzawodnictwa aczkolwiek nasi koledzy z Głosu Ameryki zazdrościli nam znacznie większych środków, całodziennych programów, a przede wszystkim swobody redakcyjnej. Bo jednak Głos Ameryki jest część amerykańskiego aparatu państwowego. Podczas kiedy myśmy byli nie tylko jako organizacja bardzo autonomiczni, ale polska załoga redakcyjna miała właściwie zupełną swobodę i inicjatywę. Myśmy mieli prawo mówić jak Polacy do Polaków z naszego punktu widzenia. Podczas kiedy Głos Ameryki jest niejako projekcją Stanów Zjednoczonych. Może to nie jest koniecznie ograniczone tylko do punktu widzenia rządowego, ale Polska w tych audycjach ma się ukazywać tylko w kontekście ogólnym, amerykańskim. No więc na przykład rola i działalność Polonii Amerykańskiej, bo to jest częścią obrazu amerykańskiego. W moim przekonaniu obie te radiostacje miały swoje charakterystyczne właściwości. Każda inne, które niejako wzajemnie się uzupełniały.

Kiedy byłem pytany przez Amerykanów czy wobec dużego sukcesu, jaki Wolna Europa odniosła w Polsce, Głos Ameryki jest w ogóle potrzebny? Odpowiadałem zawsze – absolutnie tak, bo to jest dla nas tarcza, która nas osłania przed używaniem nas jako instrumentu na co dzień rządu amerykańskiego. Dopóki istnieje Głos Ameryki mamy spokój. Gdyby Głos Ameryki przestał istnieć wówczas znaleźlibyśmy się pod wielkim naciskiem organizacji rządowych żeby przedstawiać ich punkt widzenia.

Rząd Amerykański no powiedzmy może nie wtrącał się na co dzień, ale jednak są, muszę powiedzieć stałe tendencje i Głos Ameryki jest bardzo przygnieciony przez państwową służbę i państwową biurokrację… Ale mimo to jak twierdzę robi dobrą robotę.

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 woud 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.

TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, USA, January 03, 2011 — Who is the leader of the Free World when democracy is under threat?

For a moment on New Year’s Eve 2010, I thought the leader of the free world was still George W. Bush. The President of the United States reads a message of solidarity with the people of Belarus, whose rights and freedoms have been once again trampled by an authoritarian ruler. Except that those reading the message were a former U.S President and a former U.S. Secretary of State, both Republicans. They were joined other world leaders, former statesmen, and human rights activists — courageous individuals like former Czech President Vaclav Havel, human rights activist Yelena Bonner, the widow of Soviet-era dissident Andrei Sakharov, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, and many others.

Former President Bush read the names of five Belarusian presidential candidates still being held in a KGB prison. The other participants read the names of other political prisoners in Belarus. But there was no high-ranking member of the Obama administration among the participants in the “Voices of Solidarity” project.

Most Americans and millions in the rest of the world expect the President of the United States to speak up forcefully when democracy abroad is under major attack. When shortly before Christmas 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed martial law in Poland, there was not a slightest doubt that President Reagan would appear in front of television cameras to express the support of the American people for the Polish independent trade union movement Solidarity and its imprisoned leader Lech Walesa. In the last weeks of 2010, few expected President Obama to act forcefully and effectively in face of yet another attack against freedom and democracy in Belarus.

Both attacks on democracy supporters happened during a holiday season. President Reagan, who was in 1981 much older than President Obama is now, had showed remarkable energy, determination, and leadership in letting the world know what the United States thought about a communist dictator like General Jaruzelski. Much younger Barack Obama left Washington for a family vacation in Hawaii.

If you do not see the video of President Reagan’s Christmas address to the American people in 1981, try this link.

When elections in Belarus were stolen and democracy supporters beaten and imprisoned just before Christmas 2010, the White House issued a short written statement. Granted, the severity of repression in Belarus now has not reached the same level as in Poland in 1981, but presidential leadership in the U.S. was still woefully and significantly inadequate. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton issued a statement on the post-presidential elections situation in Belarus. It was short and, as the title suggests, without much bite. Again, it does not compare in any way to President Reagan’s numerous statements and speeches after the imposition of martial law in Poland.

If you cannot see the video of President Obama’s Christmas 2010 address, click here.

President Reagan with Pope John Paul II in Fairbanks, Alaska, 1984. In his numerous efforts to help Solidarity, President Ronald Reagan consulted with Pope John Paul II.

One could presume it was yet another of President Obama’s public diplomacy blunders, but unfortunately it is much more than that. This and other acts and omissions reflect his deliberate decision, taken at the outset of his presidency, to give up for all practical purposes the role of the leader of the Free World.

After two years, it is now obvious that President Obama assumed the office determined not to upset totalitarian dictators. Operating under the illusion that by avoiding an overly confrontational posture he’ll be able to negotiate concessions and help them to reform later, he has emboldened dictators and insulted numerous loyal U.S. allies.

Former Solidarity Leader, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former Polish President Lech Walesa.

Many, especially those who had lived or still live under communist and other totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, knew perfectly well that this approach would result in a retreat for democracy. Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, and other leaders in East-Central Europe even sent a warning letter to the White House early into the Obama presidency. Still some pro-democracy and human rights activists, especially in Western Europe, were initially impressed with his soft power diplomacy as a welcome alternative to military interventionism of George W. Bush. Granted, President Obama has not started any new costly and unnecessary wars, but a series of public diplomacy disasters over the last two years, culminating in his weak response to repression in Belarus just before Christmas 2010, have exposed him at home and abroad as an ineffective U.S leader.

President Obama’s public diplomacy strategy stems from his view of America as a threatening power, a popular theme among his left-wing friends and among revisionist academics who became his advisers on Russia and the Middle East. I became concerned that U.S. public diplomacy under his presidency was in crisis when not a single U.S. diplomat or any other official was able to advise him that announcing his unilateral decision to end George Bush’s anti-missile program in Central Europe on the day of the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland would be received by the Poles as an ultimate insult.

But the first real sign that confirmed to me President Obama’s intention to relinquish his role of leading the Free World in defending democracy was his refusal to meet Dalai Lama in an apparent effort to avoid upsetting the aging communist leaders in China. 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, but exactly with these minor compromises start the big and dangerous ones, the real problems.”

When President Obama finally received Dalai Lama, the media released a photograph showing the Tibetan spiritual leader being ushered out of the White House by a side entrance, passing by a pile of trash bags. It was yet another example that no one in the administration was in charge of public diplomacy.

The answer to wielding influence abroad in defense of democracy is not blind, uninformed military interventionism of George W. Bush being pushed into war by advisers with a hidden agenda, but neither is it “resetting” of relations with ex-KGB spies and other opponents of democracy. President Obama could learn a lot from the leadership style of Ronald Reagan, who knew what he stood for and knew how to select and control his advisers and communicate his message to the American people and the world. But to be like Reagan, President Obama would have to first change his political philosophy and his vision of America. I don’t think that is likely to happen.

It is fairly clear by now that the Free World will have to wait for a new leader until the end of President Obama’s presidency. That role cannot be assumed by George W. Bush or Senator John McCain. Only the President of the United States, as the elected leader of the most powerful nation in the world, can assume this role, but only if he wants to. It is now obvious that President Obama does not want that role. In fact, he is ashamed of it, as he has demonstrated many times, delighting dictators and instilling fear among U.S. allies.

Snapshot from RFE/RL Website, January 02, 2010.

It’s a shame that public diplomacy on behalf of the American people, American values, and America’s long-term interests around the world is now being conducted not by the administration but has to be pursued by former U.S. leaders like George W. Bush, who is not particularly popular abroad. But if President Obama won’t find time to become a public voice in support of freedom, at least the former president has shown what many Americans think and that demonstrated that they won’t be silent when democracy abroad is in danger even if the current occupant of the White House prefers to stay on the sidelines.

RFE/RL President Jeff Gedmin

Interestingly, the initiative of conducting U.S. public diplomacy in defense of freedom has been taken up also by the U.S.-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), which had played a major role in helping to bring down the communist system. I have been in the past critical of RFE/RL, especially its treatment of its own journalists, but many of these policies had been imposed on the station by former members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and the BBG’s executives in Washington, D.C. Under the leadership of Bush-era appointed president Jeff Gedmin, RFE/RL has been trying to fill the gap created by the lack of a long-term U.S. public diplomacy strategy in East-Central Europe. RFE/RL has been broadcasting messages of support for the people of Belarus and providing news about the struggle for democracy to a number of countries in Eurasia.

Unfortunately, without a high-profile support from the White House and the State Department, RFE/RL’s work will never have the same impact as it had during the Cold War. If anything, it further demonstrates the crisis of U.S. public diplomacy by sending a message that any change in American human rights policy and in relations with the countries of East-Central Europe will not come until the end of the Obama presidency. At least, RFE/RL is making it clear to its audiences that not all Americans agree with President Obama and his vision of America and the world.

Still it is unfortunate that practically the only voice on behalf of the majority of the American citizens who had voted against the Democratic Party in November 2010 and indirectly voiced their opposition not only to President Obama’s economic policies but also his foreign policy, is a radio station which is practically unknown to most Americans. Although it is funded by the U.S. Congress, RFE/RL is based in the Czech Republic and most of its employees are foreign journalists who have never been to the United States.

RFE/RL’s primary role has always been to serve as a surrogate domestic radio in the countries to which they broadcast. The role of explaining U.S. foreign policy and any opposition to it among Americans has always been assigned to the Voice of America, another U.S. government-funded international broadcaster which is based in Washington, D.C. and managed by the same U.S. Federal agency, the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

Snapshot of VOA English Service Website on Jan. 02, 2011.

Yet it appears from a quick review of its English and Russian websites that the Voice of America did not even report on the RFE/RL’s Belarus initiative or the fact that George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice participated in it as the most prominent Americans. A search for “Bush, Belarus, and RFE/RL” on the VOA websites did not return any results.

If these two stations, working under the same BBG management, cannot consult with one another, it’s rather obvious that no one in Washington is in charge of coordinating public diplomacy and international broadcasting.

What a big difference compared to Christmas time in 1981 during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, when I received numerous phone calls at home late at night from officials of the now defunct United States Information Agency (USIA) who wanted to know what kind of assistance the Voice of America’s Polish Service, where I was a managing editor, needed to expand immediately its medium wave and shortwave radio broadcasts to Poland.

The Voice of America has not had any programs in Belarusian. It used to broadcast, however, radio programs in Russian, a language which is widely understood in Belarus. What made VOA largely ineffective in East-Central Europe was the BBG ‘s decision to terminate Russian radio programs in 2008, just 12 days before the Russian military attack on Georgia. The BBG also ended all VOA programs in Central European languages.

The VOA English Service in the meantime has been broadcasting numerous news reports in support of President Obama’s “reset” policy with the Kremlin with very little balancing input from Republican lawmakers and other responsible critics of the administration — a legal requirement for VOA journalists under the VOA Charter approved by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Gerald Ford.

One particularly one-sided VOA English Service analysis of U.S.-Russian relations, which completely ignored any Congressional and other U.S. criticism of President Obama’s approach to managing relations with the Kremlin, was first broadcast in English and then translated and put on the VOA Russian website. It was also translated by other VOA language services which lack resources to originate their own, more balanced reporting.

And while democracy supporters in Belarus were still being rounded up and independent media outlets raided by the secret police, VOA and BBG officials issued a self-congratulatory press release bragging about VOA’s ability to communicate with the audience in Belarus through the Internet and social media. They failed to mention that social media sites were blocked in Belarus by the regime during the contested elections and the violence that followed. They also failed to note that Internet access in Belarus is still very limited, and that the number of visitors from Belarus to the VOA Russian Service website, if they even can be accurately counted, is statistically insignificant.

Only a few days after the issuing of the deceptive press release, there was nothing left on VOA Russian Service website home page Sunday to indicate that Belarus was still a significant U.S. foreign policy concern. In fact, there was not a single news item on Belarus. Neither VOA Russian or VOA English home page features any banners with a link to more coverage of dramatic events in Belarus — something human rights defenders would certainly welcome.

The State Department website, state.gov, when I checked it on Sunday, January 2, had nothing on its home page on Belarus. Another State Department website, America.gov, had on its home page only one link to the statement on presidential elections in Belarusdelivered by the charge d’affairs of the United States Mission to the OSCE. Again, it was short and without any bite: “The United States has made clear throughout its engagement with the government of Belarus that the government’s respect for human rights and the democratic process is at the center of our bilateral relations. The actions taken by Belarusian authorities following the elections represent a clear step backwards on these issues.” There were no “Solidarity with Belarus” banners of any kind on the State Department websites, but then U.S. diplomats should not be expected to do anything that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would not want them to do. The example has to come from the top.

The Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale

The Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, who — according to the State Department website — “leads America’s public diplomacy outreach, which includes communications with international audiences,” is Judith McHale, appointed to this position by President Obama. But one could also say in her defense that nothing she did not do President Obama really wanted to be done. He certainly did not show much interest himself in the tragic events in Belarus. State Department officials are pursuing his public diplomacy, not necessarily public diplomacy serving long-term U.S. interests.

In 1981, VOA Polish Service did not have a website, but millions listening to our radio programs knew that the United States was fully behind the people of Poland. But then there was also no doubt what President Reagan, the White House, and the State Department stood for.

During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, U.S. public diplomacy had a powerful message in support of freedom, and U.S. international broadcasting played its journalistic role of reporting on it. While I can understand that VOA English and Russian services cannot report on something that the Obama White House and the State Department are NOT doing to keep Belarus in the news, they could at least report more on what others outside of the administration have been doing to draw attention to the violations of human rights which continue everyday, even when U.S. officials and many VOA and BBG managers are on a holiday vacation.

In light of all these developments, the initiative of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to broadcast the message to Belarus from former President George W. Bush and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is highly commendable. It’s vastly better than the totally ineffective public diplomacy outreach to Belarus from the Obama administration. Let’s hope that RFE/RL’s creative initiative will do some good, especially when Bush and Rice are heard alongside of many non-American statesmen and human rights activists.

But the participation of George W. Bush and the prominent placement of his photo on the RFE/RL’s website — but not on the VOA website — also send another powerful public diplomacy message, and not a very good one: the pilot of the Free World is still missing from the plane. The people in Belarus and in other countries under dictatorships are justified in asking who will be leading America in its support for human rights and democracy for the next two years. Unfortunately, they have already concluded, that it is not going to be President Obama.

We should be grateful that we still have Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Americans like George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice, but these are not U.S. institutions and leaders who can have the greatest possible impact on public opinion abroad. The leadership in support of democracy has to come from the President and the White House to be taken seriously by dictators and authoritarian rulers like Russia’s ex-KGB spy Vladimir Putin. That type of leadership has been missing for the last two years.

As a former United States Information Agency and Voice of America employee with over 30 years of U.S. government service, my unofficial and subversive — from the perspective of the current White House and the State Department — public diplomacy message for foreign audiences is that President Reagan’s response to events in Poland in 1981 was much more typical for what most American’s would want now than President Obama’s practical non-response to the assault on democracy and human rights in Belarus.

Another unofficial public diplomacy message — again for what it’s worth since I have absolutely no current connection to the administration — is that President Obama’s foreign policy should not be always identified with the desires of the American people. In other words, democracy supporters abroad should not blame the American people and the United States for President Obama’s weak support for human rights. It is also worth remembering, especially in light of the results of the 2010 U.S. Congressional elections, that Barack Obama may no longer be president in 2013 and that American voters may soon help bring U.S. foreign policy back on its more traditional course.

About Ted Lipien

Ted Lipien is a former Voice of America acting associate director. He was also a regional BBG media marketing manager responsible for placement of U.S. government-funded radio and TV programs on stations in Russia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries in Eurasia. In the 1980′s he was in charge of VOA radio broadcasts to Poland during the communist regime’s crackdown on the Solidarity labor union and oversaw the development of VOA television news programs to Ukraine and Russia. After leaving U.S. government service, he founded Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org), a California-based NGO which supports media freedom worldwide.

He is also author of “Wojtyla’s Women: How They Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church”(O-Books – June 2008). The book, which describes Pope John Paul II’s views on feminism, also includes evidence of the importance of Western radio broadcasts during Karol Wojtyla’s life in communist-ruled Poland and in the first ten years of his papacy. The book also has references to the efforts of the KGB and other communist intelligence services to place spies in the Vatican and to influence reporting by journalists covering the Polish pope.

This commentary by Ted Lipien may be republished in full or in part with attribution to FreeMediaOnline.org.

Related posts:

1. Why U.S. Public Diplomacy No Longer Works and Can It Be Fixed?
2. US Public Diplomacy Failure to Reach Out to the Russians After Terrorist Attack in Ingushetia – FreeMediaOnline.org (Free Media Online Blog)
3. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Faces Ethnic Discrimination Charges at the European Court of Human Rights – Free Media Online Blog (FreeMediaOnline.org)
4. Walesa on Obama’s Missile Diplomacy – American Diplomacy Failed Obama in Poland Update
5. American Diplomacy Failed Obama in Poland

 Sourced from: TedLipien.com

Within only a few minutes my comment was removed. After successfully challenging censorship for more than 30 years by bringing balanced news to communist-ruled Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Bosnia, Afghanistan and other countries, I was finally successfully censored by my former employer, the United States government.

While I was in charge of the Voice of America radio broadcasts to Poland during the Jaruzelski regime crackdown on Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement, I managed to ignore a few minor attempts by State Department officials to censor VOA news content. Of course, the same government is now censoring members of the U.S. Congress, so the removal of my comment seems hardly significant but is typical for this administration. After leaving my last government position of acting associate director of the Voice of America, I founded and began working for Free Media Online, an NGO promoting independent journalism worldwide, which explains my continuing interest in government censorship, propaganda and public diplomacy.

The current problem with having effective U.S. public diplomacy is largely due to the recent breakdown of domestic consensus on important values and foreign policy issues that existed during the Cold War, but bureaucratic inertia and incompetence also play a very large role. As a journalist, former government employee, manager, and executive, I had a direct knowledge of the inner-workings of the Voice of America, the now defunct United States Information Agency, the State Department, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors. I have never seen U.S. public diplomacy in such a crisis as it is now, not even during the George W. Bush administration.

One could ask how the United States government can engage in shaping public opinion abroad if the President publicly accused Republican senators of playing politics with the START treaty? Even if it were partly true for some lawmakers, such a public accusation reported to the entire world is unprecedented, especially since Senator McCain and other prominent Republicans raised some serious questions about START and President Obama’s overall approach to dealing with the authoritarian rulers in the Kremlin. This kind of public rebuke of U.S. lawmakers is almost equivalent to members of Congress criticizing the administration while on their trips abroad. It’s simply not done and it is terrible public diplomacy.

But regardless of how bitter or divided are the current foreign policy debates in the United States, there can be no effective public diplomacy if the administration is afraid to or does not want to tell foreign audiences what Americans really think and say about foreign and domestic issues. Censoring members of Congress by State Department officials is particularly outrageous, but in some cases even professional journalists employed by the U.S. government practice self-censorship or promote the administration’s policies, because they agree with them, without regard for full accuracy and balance.

I have checked the Voice of America’s recent coverage of the START treaty debate and found that the VOA English Service devoted about 90 percent of its online START news content to views in support of the treaty. While a VOA spokesperson described my claim as incorrect, a text analysis of all recent online VOA English Service stories on this subject can be easily done by anyone using an word count application. By law, the Voice of America, which is funded by American taxpayers to communicate with audiences abroad, is required to offer balanced news coverage.

I’m not arguing that public diplomacy cannot be effective when there is no strong domestic consensus on foreign policy. But to be effective, especially if there is no broad consensus, it must be conducted professionally by individuals and organizations devoted above all to promoting long-term U.S. national interests. Public diplomacy is sometimes described as strategic communications, which implies pursuing U.S. strategic interests, which may not be the same as short-term foreign policy goals of a particular administration. They may later turn out to be misguided. This should be a primary lesson for all current and future State Department officials engaged in public diplomacy.

It is unlikely however, that an effective organizational setup can be established within the U.S. government for formulating implementing long-term public diplomacy goals or that the current structures can be reformed without strong pressure from the U.S. Congress and the American public.

Public diplomacy and international broadcasting have not been a high priority issue in the United States after the end of the Cold War. There is a small chance, however, that this may change as a result of old and new foreign policy blunders, revelations by Wiki Leaks, but especially due to new activism on behalf of individuals and organizations using new media, if such citizen initiatives achieve a certain momentum and attract the attention of sympathetic members of Congress.

We can be fairly sure that the public diplomacy and international broadcasting bureaucracy is not going to reform itself from within without constant public and Congressional scrutiny, which fortunately is increasing due to the power of social media. In addition to the lack of domestic political consensus on foreign policy, one of the other key obstacles to overcome is the incompetence of government bureaucrats. It has now reached new levels even at the State Department and the White House.

Another major difficulty to overcome by the same bureaucrats who are part of the problem is the revolution in quick dissemination of news, including the leaking of secret government communications by Wiki Leaks and others. Very few U.S. government officials in charge of public diplomacy have the necessary training and experience in journalism and new media. Again, without public criticism and pressure, they are not likely to change their way of conducting public diplomacy.

Why are U.S. government officials unable to stop embarrassing foreign policy and public diplomacy blunders? We no longer have at the highest levels independently-minded Foreign Service officers like Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane who resigned to register his protest against the sellout of Poland to Stalin by President Roosevelt and the lack of proper response to the fraudulent post-war Polish elections by the Truman administration.

In fact, not a single highly-paid U.S. diplomat or White House official managed to prevent President Obama from insulting our Polish allies when he made his announcement of the cancellation of the Bush missile defense plan in Central Europe on the anniversary of the invasion of Poland by the Soviet Union. No advisor was also able to convince President Obama that his refusal to meet Dalai Lama at the White House, in an apparent effort to please the communist leaders in China, would send a powerfully negative signal to human rights and democracy activists around the world and to America’s democratic allies. And when the Voice of America fails to deliver news to Belarus during the recent crisis, the bureaucrats who terminated VOA Russian radio broadcasts issue a self-congratulatory press release.

Numerous public diplomacy blunders of this kind raise questions about the ability of U.S. government officials to advise presidents and to manage strategic communications with the outside world. While the current president and his administration seem particularly incompetent, the George W. Bush administration did not fare much better in public diplomacy abroad, although it managed to develop a successful pro-Iraq war propaganda at home — propaganda that was not effectively challenged by the American media. There is a solution, however, to this problem. It involves a much greater reliance on independent analysis, courage to challenge political appointees, applying journalistic standards of fairness and balance, and a greater appreciation of the sophistication of foreign audiences.

The START treaty debate is a good example of how public diplomacy should have worked but did not. Telling the Russian public and the Kremlin through VOA and America.gov that the START treaty enjoyed widespread support and its approval by the Senate was a piece of cake was not only factually wrong. It was also bad public diplomacy and bad for long-term U.S. interests. It mislead foreign audiences and it may make the Russian leaders even more inclined to make further demands on the Obama administration for additional concessions. It assumed that foreigners who are consumers of U.S. government-generated news and information are morons with no access to alternative sources of information.

I’m not saying that the Obama administration could not have still bragged about being able to get the Senate’s approval for the treaty, but a balanced message would have been far more credible and, for some East and Central Europeans, somewhat more reassuring. It would have been educational for the majority of the Russian public which supports Prime Minister Putin’s KGB-like tactics in dealing with the opposition, independent journalists, and leaders like President Obama. The impression left by the State Department’s America.gov website and the Voice of America is that nothing much matters to the Obama White House than making deals with the Kremlin, not even the discovery of sleeper Russian agents in the U.S., their hero welcome in Russia by Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev, and a statement by a Kremlin insider that assassins are being sent to America to track down and kill a former Russian spy who betrayed them.

Telling the whole truth and even stressing the objections to the treaty would have been a good lesson in American domestic politics for the Russians and their leaders. It could have sent also a signal to worried U.S. allies in East-Central Europe that the American people and their representatives in Congress are beginning to pay a close attention to President Obama’s foreign policy and that his political future is now in doubt after the 2010 congressional elections.

The public diplomacy message, as it was delivered by the State Department and independently through the Voice of America news, could only be described as boring and naive journalism, almost an insult to the intelligence of foreign audiences. It was not much different from Kremlin-style propaganda. Considering that foreign media are apparently one of the target audiences for the America.gov website, it’s highly doubtful that any foreign journalist would use such one-sided material. It also made a mockery of the State Department’s promotion of objective journalism and media freedom abroad. The Voice of America did not do not much better in that respect.

What could make U.S. public diplomacy abroad more effective? We could start by offering better education in diplomatic history in American high schools and colleges. Perhaps then we could elect presidents who would have some knowledge of history and were able to gain some meaningful foreign policy experience. The same goes for selecting the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, and the Secretary of Defense. One could very well ask where were Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates when President Obama was getting ready to make his missile defense announcement? Did none of them study European history? If they were too busy to advise President Obama on the timing of one of the most significant foreign policy announcements of his presidency, where was the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith A. McHale?

The next step is the selection of future U.S. diplomats. The testing standards should be set much higher and candidates should be checked for their willingness to raise effective objections to bad and naive decisions of their superiors, even at the cost of their careers.

Making public diplomacy independent of the State Department, as it was more of less during the Cold War when the United States Information Agency (USIA) was charged with managing direct communications with foreign audiences, would help, assuming it was led by a high-profile, independent and experienced professional with direct access to the President and the Secretary of State.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which has mismanaged the Voice of America for years, should be abolished and journalistic independence and standards at VOA and other government-funded U.S. international broadcasters significantly strengthened under some type of public monitoring and oversight.

The Congress should above all insist that the U.S. foreign policy establishment accept the fact that when there is no clear domestic consensus on foreign policy and other issues, U.S. officials in charge of communicating directly with audiences abroad be required to present a balanced message. A balanced message and telling the whole truth is in the long run more credible and better for promoting American interests abroad than one-sided government propaganda.

I have seen tremendous bitterness of Polish media, politicians, and average citizens as a result of President Obama’s policies toward East-Central Europe and Russia. While some blamed specifically President Obama, most of it has been directed against “the Americans” and “the United States.” Very few Poles tried to distinguish between President Obama’s particular assumptions about the Russian leaders and America’s long term support for democratic values and nations like Poland which are victims of bullying by authoritarian regimes of their much bigger neighbors.

Part of the new public diplomacy message could be that U.S. foreign policy mistakes, such as the sellout of Eastern Europe to Stalin at Yalta, are eventually discovered and reversed because the American people are not going to stand for policies that go against basic American values, once they know the full facts. History teaches that they won’t. But my friends in Central and Western Europe tell me that it may take new U.S. administrations decades to reverse the damage done to relations with America’s European allies by President Obama’s so far futile attempts to curry favors with the Kremlin at the expense of solid American friends in the region.

I don’t really expect the State Department to come up with a sophisticated message that promotes President Obama’s goals while explaining historical and strategic objections to his policies. America.gov could, however, try to pay slightly more attention to the critics of the Obama administration. The Voice of America could, with even fewer problems, offer in-depth, objective and balanced reporting because its journalistic independence is guaranteed by the Congress. Unfortunately, the BBG terminated all VOA broadcasts and online reporting to Central Europe long time ago. It also ended VOA Russian radio programs in 2008, just 12 days before the Russian military attack on Georgia.

This brings me to my final point on additional and alternative ways of conducting U.S. public diplomacy abroad. I don’t expect much action from the Obama administration, and even under the best circumstances, the U.S. government bureaucracy is not likely to be able to overcome its internal barriers to promoting effectively and without political bias long term, strategic U.S. interests.

While it was difficult for citizen public diplomacy to be effective during the Cold War due to the high costs of communicating and overcoming communist censorship, the Internet makes it possible now to achieve some form of limited direct communication with the public in most foreign countries. Individuals and organizations in the United States can help to expose foreign policy and public diplomacy mistakes, demand action, and in some cases communicate directly with audiences abroad.

Unfortunately, however, citizen diplomacy is not the complete solution to the current problem. Statements and actions by NGOs do not have, again in most cases, the same impact as communications on behalf the of the U.S. government, and NGOs simply lack the resources available to federal agencies. So whether we like it or not, NGOs cannot completely replace the U.S. government in this area of foreign policy. Greater scrutiny and reform of the U.S. public diplomacy establishment must therefore become a goal of all individuals and organizations concerned with the state of America’s relations with her allies and the rest of the world.

Related posts:

1. US Public Diplomacy Failure to Reach Out to the Russians After Terrorist Attack in Ingushetia – FreeMediaOnline.org (Free Media Online Blog)
2. Sen. Voinovich criticizes Obama for public diplomacy disaster
3. Misleading foreign audiences – America.gov or America.STATE – U.S. Senate Ratifies New START Treaty
4. Walesa on Obama’s Missile Diplomacy – American Diplomacy Failed Obama in Poland Update
5. Voice of America English programs go the way of Voice of Russia, says former VOA journalist

 Sourced from: TedLipien.com

Dec 20 2010

A Flawed, Mishandled Treaty

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor Monday regarding the consideration of the START treaty:

“Over the weekend, I indicated that I would be voting against the START Treaty. This morning, I would like to explain my decision in a little more detail.

“And I’ll begin with the most obvious objection.

“First and foremost, a decision of this magnitude should not be decided under the pressure of a deadline. The American people don’t want us to squeeze our most important work into the final days of a session. They want us to take the time we need to make informed, responsible decisions. The Senate can do better than to have the consideration of a treaty interrupted by a series of controversial political items.

“So leaving aside for a moment any substantive concerns, and we have many, this is reason enough to delay a vote. No senator should be forced to make decisions like this so we can tick off another item on someone’s political check list before the end of the year.

“Yet looking back over the past two years, it becomes apparent why the administration would attempt to rush this treaty. And it’s in this context that we discover another important reason to oppose it. I’m referring, of course, to the administration’s pattern of rushing to a policy judgment, and then subsequently studying the problem that the policy decision was intended to address, a pattern that again and again created more problems and complications than we started out with.

“First there was the Executive Order to close Guantanamo Bay without any plan for dealing with the detainee population there. As we now know, the administration had no plan for returning terrorists who were held at Guantanamo to Yemen, and it’s still grappling with questions of how best to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

“Next was the President’s rush to remove the Intelligence Community from interrogating captured terrorists, without any consideration as to how to deal with them, whether they were captured on the battlefield or at an airport in Detroit. This became all the more concerning when the President announced his surge strategy in Afghanistan, which predictably led to more prisoners. And even in announcing the strategy itself, the President decided to set a date for withdrawal without any sense at the time of what the state of the conflict would be in July 2011.

“Then there was the administration’s approach on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The President announced his determination to repeal this policy during his campaign, before the military had the time to study whether this change in policy was in the best interest of combat readiness, before senior enlisted staff and noncommissioned officers of the military had testified, and before those who are currently serving had told us whether, in their expert opinion, the policy should be repealed. Moreover, when the Commandant of the Marine Corps suggested the change would harm unit cohesion, he was ignored.

“The administration has taken the same cart-before-the-horse approach on the treaty before us. In this case, the President came to office will a long term plan to reduce the nation’s arsenal of nuclear weapons and their role in our national security policy. The plan envisioned a quick agreement to replace the START Treaty that was allowed to expire, with no bridging agreement for arms inspections, followed by efforts to strengthen international commitments to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, reconsideration of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and further reductions in nuclear arms over time. And he spoke of ultimately reducing nuclear weapons to `global zero’.

“In other words, the New START Treaty was just a first step, and it needed to be done quickly. Leave aside for a moment the fact that the New START Treaty does nothing to significantly reduce the Russian Federation’s stockpile of strategic arms, ignores the thousands of tactical weapons in the Russian arsenal, and contains an important concession linking missile defense to the strategic arms. We had to rush this treaty, according to the logic of the administration, because it had become an important component in the effort to `reset’ the bilateral relationship with the Russian Federation. It was brought up for debate prematurely because it was the first step in a pre-determined arms control agenda. The Senate’s constitutional role of advice and consent became an inconvenient impediment.

“The debate over the McCain amendment to strike the language in the preamble of the treaty was instructive. The language in the preamble concerning missile defense is harmful to our foreign policy because of how it will be viewed not by our President, but how it will be viewed by our allies in Europe and by the Russians. The Russian government opposed the Bush Administration plan to place 10 silo-based missiles in Poland and a fixed radar installation in the Czech Republic. Although the Bush administration had reached agreement with the governments of our two allies, and the proposed ballistic missile defense plan posed no threat to Russia’s overwhelming ability to strike Europe and the United States, Russia sought to coerce our eastern European allies.

“It’s worth noting that neither Poland nor the Czech Republic ratified the agreements to go forward with the plan, which the Obama administration cancelled. The McCain amendment would have removed any strategic ambiguity that the Russian Federation will exploit to intimidate NATO members. Many of our NATO partners have been slow to accept the concept of territorial missile defense, and rest assured that they will be slower to fund the program. It is a certainty that if the language in the preamble survives, and this treaty is ratified, the Russians will mount a campaign to obstruct missile defense in Europe. There is no good argument for having voted against the McCain Amendment, which would have significantly improved this treaty.

“The principal argument raised against the McCain amendment was that any amendment to the Treaty would result in the State Department having to return to a negotiation with the Russian Federation. That may be true, or the amended Treaty could be considered by the Russian Duma. In either case, the argument brings into question the Senate’s role in providing advice and consent to ratification. If it is the position of the majority that the Treaty cannot be amended, as the Senate was unable to amend so many other matters before us these last weeks of this session, why have any debate at all?

“This leads us to the subject of verification — a second matter of serious concern. Although the Senate will meet today in closed session to discuss the flawed nature of the verification procedures envisioned by the New START Treaty, the Majority has filed cloture and stated that the Treaty cannot be amended. The senior Senator from Missouri, the Vice Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, has provided his views to the Senate on this matter, and I join him in his concerns.

“Senator Bond has provided a classified assessment of the details related to verification and chances of Russian breakout of the treaty’s warhead limits which is available for all Senators to review. To quote the Vice Chairman of the Intelligence Committee,

`I have reviewed the key intelligence on our ability to monitor this treaty and heard from our intelligence professionals. There is no doubt in my mind that the United States cannot reliably verify the treaty’s 1,550 limit on deployed warheads.’

“I agree with the conclusion that the New START Treaty central warhead limit of 1,550 cannot be conclusively verified. The New Start Treaty allows the Russians to deploy missiles without a standard or uniform number of warheads. The limited number of warhead inspections provided for under this Treaty also limits the access of our inspectors to an upper limit of three percent of the Russian force. It can thus be said that this treaty places higher confidence in trust than on verification.

“Compounding these concerns is the history of Russian Treaty violations. As the State Department’s recent reports on arms control compliance make clear, the Russians have previously violated provisions of the START Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty and the Biological Weapons Convention.

“This is a not a track record to be rewarded with greater trust. It’s a reason to take our verification duties even more seriously.

“Despite my opposition to this Treaty, I hope the President remains committed to modernizing the nuclear triad. The war on terror has required an expansion of our nation’s ground forces, the Marine Corps, the Army, and our Special Operations Forces, and our near-term readiness. As we continue the effort to dismantle, defeat and disrupt Al Qaeda, we must also plan for the threats that our country will face in the coming decades.

“We must invest not only in the delivery systems and platforms that will preserve our nuclear delivery capability, such as the next generation bomber, nuclear submarines and a new intercontinental ballistic missile, but also in the strike aircraft and naval forces required to control the Pacific Rim as economic growth and the military capabilities of China increase.

“Although the President has decided there is value in pursuing a disarmament agenda, this country may determine in the coming years to place a greater reliance upon the role of strategic arms, and we must remain committed to defense modernization. Our nation faces many challenges in the coming decades, some economic, some strategic. It would seem short-sighted to think that as North Korea, Iran and others work to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities we could draw our arsenal down to zero.

“So I will oppose this Treaty. I thank the Chairman and Ranking Members of the Foreign Relations, Armed Services and Intelligence Committees for the service that they have provided the Senate in reviewing it. It is unfortunate that something as important as the Senate’s consideration of a treaty like this one was truncated in order to meet another arbitrary deadline or the wish list of the liberal base. And it’s deeply troubling to think that a legislative body charged with the solemn responsibility of advice and consent would be deprived of this role because it would inconvenience our negotiating partners.

“As debate over this treaty has intensified over the past few days, these and other concerns have become increasingly apparent to a number of senators and to the American people. We should wait until every one of them is addressed. Our top concern should be the safety and security of our nation, not some politician’s desire to declare a political victory and host a press conference before the first of the year. Americans have had more than enough of artificial timelines set by politicians eager for attention. They want us to focus on their concerns, not ours, and never more so than on matters of National Security.”

###

 Sourced from: ГоворитАмерика.us

Senator McCain delivered powerful and reasoned arguments that President Obama and his White House advisers based their approach to Russia on naive assumptions. Few think that President Obama is capable of changing his ideological outlook, but he may respond to pressure from such influential Republicans as John McCain and from Polish American voters.  President Obama’s Russia policy lacks support of the American people and will not survive his presidency. Ted Lipien

REMARKS BY SENATOR McCAIN AT THE JOHNS HOPKINS’ PAUL H. NITZE SCHOOL OF ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

December 10, 2010

Senator McCain Discusses “Realism about Russia: Power, Interests, and Values”

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) delivered the following remarks today, Friday, December 10th at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS):
“Thank you, Kurt [Volker], for another gracious introduction. As Kurt mentioned, he was kind enough to introduce me when I spoke here a year ago, and my ears have been burning ever since. I am just happy to see that Kurt is still gainfully employed here at Johns Hopkins. You run a good work-release program.

“I want to thank Jessica Einhorn and all the leadership of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies for the opportunity to return to this tremendous university. I look forward to taking your questions after I say a few words this morning, and considering that I will be heading back to a busy day of work after this, you may need campus security to drag me out of here.

“As you know, one of the final items the Senate may consider during the lame duck session is the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the Russian Federation, or New START. I still hope we will be able to bring this up next week, and a lot of work is being done to that effect. My colleague Senator Jon Kyl is doing a tremendous job working with the administration to resolve the issues associated with nuclear modernization. I’ve been focusing my efforts on addressing the key concerns relating to missile defense. And I think we are very close.

“With so much focus now on one aspect of our Russia policy, this is a good time to pull back and reflect on this relationship more broadly. The administration has been quite clear that New START is a key component of its so-called reset policy – its effort to forge a more constructive relationship with Russia based on mutual interests and respect. It is a fine idea in principle, and I do not deny that it has borne some modest results, including New START. Nonetheless, I remain skeptical about how far this attempted reset will get us with the current Russian government, and to help illustrate my point, I would like to read an excerpt from a joint declaration issued recently by the U.S. and Russian heads of state. I quote:

‘[W]e reaffirm that the era in which the United States and Russia considered one another an enemy or strategic threat has ended…. Rather, we are dedicated to working together and with other nations to address the global challenges of the 21st century, moving the U.S.-Russia relationship from one of strategic competition to strategic partnership…. We will strive to identify areas of positive cooperation where our interests coincide … while minimizing the strain on our partnership where our interests diverge. Going forward, we intend to deepen our cooperation wherever possible, while taking further, even more far-reaching steps, to demonstrate our joint leadership in addressing new challenges to global peace and security….’
“Again, I share the sentiments and the aspirations of a statement like this. The problem is, it was issued on April 6, 2008 by George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin. Four months later, Russia invaded Georgia.

“The point, my friends, is that this administration’s effort to reset U.S. relations with Russia, however well intentioned, is not new. The Clinton administration and then the Bush administration each came into office thinking that its predecessor had mishandled Russia. They each thought they would finally unlock what many assumed to be the untapped potential of U.S.-Russia relations. Each administration tried in its own way to reset this relationship. The Bush administration even tried at least twice by my count. Ultimately, each administration oversold the benefit of cooperation with Russia and then under-delivered on it. And now here we are in the midst of yet another attempt to reset the U.S.-Russia relationship.

“For two decades, the question has been asked repeatedly: How can the United States forge a constructive global partnership with Russia? It still isn’t clear. So perhaps it is time to start asking some different questions: Such as, do the United States and Russia actually share as many interests as we would hope? Is Russia really as relevant to today’s global challenges, and as capable of helping to resolve them, as our repeated, significant investments in this relationship would warrant? And perhaps most of all, how effectively and reliably can we cooperate with a Russian government whose values are so increasingly antithetical to ours?

“Now, this is not to say that Russia is forever destined to be an enemy of the United States, as some members of my own party have recently seemed to suggest. What it is to say is that Russia has not developed as we had hoped, and that perhaps the actual prospects of our relationship with Russia have too often been exaggerated. Just look at the New START treaty. It is a modest accomplishment, but it has been so overhyped that you would think it is the administration’s most important foreign policy success to date – and that its ultimate ratification would be so consequential as to tip the balance of power within the Kremlin to America’s favor.

“What we need most now is a greater sense of realism about Russia – about the recent history of our relationship, about the substantial limitations on Russian power, about the divergences in U.S. and Russian interests, and about the lack of shared values between our governments. We don’t need Wikileaks to reach these conclusions, my friends. They have been staring us in the face for a very long time.

“Realism about Russia first requires a proper understanding of recent history. Despite multiple U.S. efforts to reset our relations with Russia after the Cold War, the myth persists that America bears much of the blame for Russia’s behavior – for allegedly lecturing and hectoring Russia, treating it as a vanquished enemy, and expanding NATO over Russian objections. Facts, however, are stubborn things. In actuality, the United States has provided Russia with $9 billion in assistance since 1992 to support its political and economic modernization. At our insistence, Russia has had a seat at the table in every NATO Summit but one since 2002. And U.S. leaders have spent countless hours with their Russian counterparts trying to find common ground on many contentious issues, from Kosovo to missile defense.

“What recent administrations have been guilty of is over-personalizing their policies toward Russia. Too often, we seem to have pinned our hopes on a single Russian leader. We seem to have mistaken a chummy relationship with one man – dare I say, after looking into his eyes and getting a sense of his soul – for a transformed relationship with Russia itself. So first there was Bill and Boris. Then there was George and Vladimir. And now I worry that we are repeating this mistake yet again and setting ourselves up for another disappointment – especially if the man on whom we are wagering so much is no longer the President come 2012.

“Realism about Russia also requires a recognition that it is no longer a great power. It is a declining power, which can certainly shape events in its region, but has a far more limited ability to play a leading role in resolving global challenges.

“There are many reasons for Russia’s declining influence. Its demographic base is collapsing. Its national cohesion is threatened by a host of separatist movements and domestic insurgencies. Its ability to project real military power barely extends beyond the Eurasian landmass. Its economy is still predominantly dependent on hydrocarbons, and therefore subject to volatile expansions and contractions due to swings in energy prices. Its political system is unresponsive and predatory, and the only thing it seems to do with great efficacy is misappropriate national resources and foreign investment on behalf of a quasi-criminal ruling syndicate.

“In its annual index of perceptions of corruption, Transparency International ranked Russia 154th out of 178 countries – perceived as more corrupt than Pakistan, Yemen, and Zimbabwe. More and more economists and investors are arguing that Russia no longer belongs in the company of Brazil, India, and China as one of the ‘BRIC’ economies, because corruption in Russia has become so malignant that it is deterring even the most risk-tolerant foreign investment. President Medvedev himself has lamented that his anti-corruption campaign has produced ‘no results.’”

“Russia’s decline is a human tragedy, but it is also a geopolitical reality. Put simply, Russia is becoming less and less capable of being a global, great power partner with the United States. Indeed, the broader challenge we may face with Russia could be less the projection of its success than the management of its weakness.

“Realism about Russia also demands a recognition that Russia’s interests, as defined by its present government, differ from ours in some rather considerable ways. To be sure, there are areas of convergence, and I credit the administration for making some progress in these places – not just signing the New START treaty, but also gaining Russia’s agreement to pass new UN sanctions against Iran and North Korea, to stop its sale of S-300 air defense missiles to the Iranian government, to open its territory to U.S. resupply efforts for our operations in Afghanistan, and to work more closely on certain counterterrorism and intelligence sharing activities.

“That said, even these limited moves by Russia have been near-run things, and there remain serious concerns about what was given or promised to the Russians in return. Furthermore, nearly every positive step the Russian government has taken thus far could be walked back at a moment’s notice: Arms sales to Iran that were turned off can easily be turned on again, resupply corridors that were opened can be easily closed, sanctions that were passed can easily be left unenforced, and intelligence that can be shared can just as easily be withheld. And to think: This is the relatively easy stuff, the issues on which our interests converge.

“What mostly lies ahead is the harder stuff, the issues where our interests diverge. For example, whereas the United States has an interest in improving and deploying missile defenses in Europe, Foreign Minister Lavrov has called these systems ‘absolutely inadmissible’ and threatened to pull out of New START if we do so. Whereas we have an interest in beginning negotiations with Russia to reduce its stockpiles of tactical nuclear weapons, which are nearly ten times larger than ours, Russia is increasingly relying on those weapons as part of its military doctrine, as recent news reports may suggest. Whereas we have an interest in an open global energy market, Russia still uses its oil and gas as political weapons. And whereas we support the independence and territorial integrity of Russia’s neighbors, Russia still treats these sovereign countries as part of its old imperial stomping grounds.

“The most glaring example of this remains Georgia. Over two years after its invasion, Russia not only continues to occupy 20 percent of Georgia’s sovereign territory, it is building military bases there, permitting the ethnic cleansing of Georgians in South Ossetia, and denying access to humanitarian missions – all in violation of Russia’s obligations under the ceasefire agreement negotiated by President Sarkozy. Despite the constant threat from Russia, Georgia is deepening its democracy and growing its economy. The World Bank considers Georgia the 12th best place in the world to do business; Russia is 123rd. In a major recent step, President Saakashvili even renounced the use of force to end Russia’s occupation, pledging only to defend non-occupied Georgia in the event of a Russian attack.

“Russia’s ongoing occupation of Georgia points to one final reason for realism about Russia: The fact that this government does not share our values. Now, this does not mean that we cannot or should not work with Russia where possible. The world doesn’t work that way. What it does mean, however, is that our engagement with Russia must always be checked by the recognition that this is a government that steals from, lies to, and assaults its own citizens with virtual impunity – so imagine how it will treat us.

“Today is Human Rights Day, so there is no better time to reaffirm our special obligation to speak up for justice, democratic values, and individual rights in Russia. President Medvedev speaks often, and at times eloquently, about the need for Russia to be governed by the rule of law, and to finally reckon with what he has called Russia’s ‘legal nihilism.’ And yet Russia under Medvedev’s administration seems to be just as mired in ‘legal nihilism’ as ever. Perhaps more so.

“Take the tragic cases of Russia’s last remaining independent journalists. A month ago, one Russian journalist who covered political movements and protests was beaten by attackers who broke his jaw, both his legs, and many of his fingers – a clear political message to other writers. No one has been charged for this crime. Another journalist who exposed corruption was attacked last year and left for dead, with brain damage so severe that he can no longer speak. He, too, had his fingers smashed, three of which had to be amputated, as did one of his legs. No one has been charged in this case either. Yet another journalist this year was beaten unconscious while covering a political rally, and then beaten further as he lay limp on the ground, by a gang of plain-clothes police officers. This attack was even captured on video, and not only were charges never brought against the officers, the victim was later pressured by authorities to accept blame for the attack himself. Sadly, I could go on and on like this, to say nothing of the many unsolved murders.

“Russia’s beleaguered political opposition fairs no better than its journalists. I have met a few times this year with former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, who organizes peaceful political rallies to protest the lack of democracy in Russia, as is their right under the Russian constitution. But these rallies are often targeted and violently broken up by Russian authorities. And then there is the sad ongoing saga of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose company was stolen from him, and who has languished in jail for seven years. When his sentence expired recently, new charges were manufactured against him. He is not being tried by a jury, just a single judge, and the political fix has been in for a long time. He could now face up to 12 more years in prison. If ever there were a case of ‘legal nihilism’ – of an affront to the very values of equal justice that we hold dear – the case of Khodorkovsky is it.

“The same can be said about the case of Sergei Magnitsky, a tax attorney for an American investor who uncovered the theft by Russian officials of $230 million from the Russian treasury. Because of Magnitsky’s relentless investigation into this corruption, the Russian Interior Ministry threw him in jail to silence him. He was deprived of clean water, left in a freezing cell for days, and denied medical care. After 358 days of this abuse, Sergei Magnitsky died. He was 37. Not only has the Russian government held no one accountable, several officials connected to Magnitsky’s imprisonment and murder have actually received commendations.

“Cases like these make a mockery of the idea that Russia is governed by the rule of law, and unfortunately, they lead to one of two conclusions: Either President Medvedev tolerates these injustices, or he is incapable of stopping them.

“When we take the full measure of this Russian government, my friends, I think it calls for a more sober approach to our relationship with Russia. We need to stop overstating the successes of our cooperation. And we need to begin dealing with Russia more as the modest power it is, not the great power it once was. What that means, in part, is being more assertive in the defense of our interests and values.

“For starters, we need to resume the sale of defensive arms to Georgia. Our allies in central and eastern Europe view Georgia as a test case of whether the United States will stand by them or not. Russia views Georgia as a test case, too – of how much it can get away with in Georgia, and if there then elsewhere. It is the policy of our government to support Georgia’s aspiration to join NATO. And yet for two years, mostly out of deference to Russia, defensive arms sales have not been authorized for Georgia. This has to change. At a minimum we should provide Georgia with early warning radars and other basic capabilities to strengthen its defenses.

“Second, on the question of values, the U.S.-Russia Working Group on civil society is led, on the Russian side, by one of Putin’s closest allies and ideologists. Until this individual is replaced by a credible Russian voice on human rights, the United States should immediately cut off its participation in this exercise.

“Third, Congress should build on the legislation that Senator Ben Cardin and I introduced – which imposes sanctions and travel bans on those responsible for the murder of Sergei Magnitsky – and expand these measures to other Russian officials who are complicit in human rights violations. We should also block their families from traveling to, studying, and vacationing in America – and we should encourage our European allies to do the same. This would be a good first step in imposing some very personal costs on the most corrupt officials.

“Fourth, we need to make clear to the Russian government that, if its behavior does not continue to improve on matters of our concern, including human rights and the rule of law, it will jeopardize its chances to get what it wants most from us. I’m not opposed in principle to Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization, especially since it would benefit many hardworking Russians. That said, the WTO is a rules-based organization, and those rules will not be bent or broken for Russia. And lest anyone forget the U.S. Congress will have an important say in this matter.

“Ultimately, we need a national debate about the real nature of this Russian government, about what kind of relationship is possible wit h this government, and about the place that Russia should realistically occupy in U.S. foreign policy. Russia’s WTO accession offers a chance to have that debate. Some may want to avoid it, but Congress should use its power to force that debate to happen.

“As I have said today, I believe we need greater realism about Russia, but that is not the same as pessimism, or cynicism, or demonization. I am an optimist, even about Russia, and I often find sources for hope in the most hopeless of places. Mikhail Khordokovsky has languished in prison for seven years. Next week he will almost certainly be forced to endure many more. And yet, in a final appeal to the man in whose hands his fate rests, Khordokovsky had this to say:

‘I will not be exaggerating if I say that millions of eyes throughout all of Russia and throughout the whole world are watching for the outcome of this trial. They are watching with the hope that Russia will after all become a country of freedom and of the law…. Where supporting opposition parties will cease being a cause for reprisals. Where the special services will protect the people and the law, and not the bureaucracy from the people and the law. Where human rights will no longer depend on the mood of the tsar – good or evil. Where, on the contrary, the power will truly be dependent on the citizens and the court, only on law and God. For me, as for anybody, it is hard to live in jail, and I do not want to die there. But if I have to I will not hesitate. The things I believe in are worth dying for.’
“That there are still men and women of such spirit in Russia is cause for hope. And eventually, maybe not this year, or next year, or the year after that, but eventually, these Russians will occupy their rightful place as the leaders of their nation – for equal justice can be delayed, and human dignity can be denied, but not forever.”

###

 Sourced from: America.gov: English

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release December 08, 2010

Joint Statement by President Obama and President Komorowski of Poland

President Barack Obama and President Bronislaw Komorowski reaffirmed today their commitment to strengthening the U.S.-Polish alliance by expanding strategic and defense cooperation, supporting deeper economic links, and promoting democratic institutions in Europe and around the world.  The two leaders resolved to continue to work together to ensure that transatlantic ties remain strong and relevant to the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.  
 
President Obama conveyed his deepest condolences over the devastating and tragic loss of President Lech Kaczynski and First Lady Maria Kaczynska, along with many of Poland’s top civilian and military leaders, in the April 10, 2010 air crash.  President Obama reiterated his admiration for the strength of Poland’s institutions and the resilience of its people.  
 
President Komorowski expressed his gratitude to the President of the United States and the American people for their solidarity and compassion in those difficult times.
 
A STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP FOR THE 21st CENTURY
 
Both Presidents applauded the outcomes of the Lisbon NATO Summit, including the allied commitment to reaffirm the primacy of our Article 5 obligations to one another’s security and to adopt territorial missile defense as a core mission. President Obama confirmed the commitment of the United States to implement the Phased Adaptive Approach to European missile defense, including basing land-based SM-3 interceptors in Poland as part of this program in the 2018 timeframe, and expressed his gratitude for the commitment by the government of Poland to host this system.  Poland’s commitment is an extremely valuable contribution to the development of a NATO missile defense capability.

The two leaders agreed to enhance bilateral defense ties in the spirit of the 2008 U.S.-Polish Declaration on Strategic Cooperation.  This includes increased cooperation between our two Air Forces with the aim of strengthening interoperability as NATO allies through regular joint training exercises and establishment of a U.S. air detachment in Poland to support periodic rotation of U.S. military aircraft.

President Obama expressed appreciation for Poland’s contribution to increased worldwide nuclear security, including the removal of highly enriched uranium from the reactor in Poland. President Komorowski expressed Poland’s strong support for the prompt ratification of the New START Treaty, as it would bolster Polish and European security and contribute to the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s disarmament goals. The United States and Poland also emphasized the continued need for practical actions to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their delivery systems to states of proliferation concern and to terrorist groups. The two countries reaffirmed their commitment to work together under the Proliferation Security Initiative to counter illicit trade in WMD and missiles.
 
The Presidents appreciated the results of NATO summit in Lisbon regarding Afghanistan and highlighted their support for NATO’s efforts there, where U.S. and Polish troops fight side-by-side.  They also noted with satisfaction that ISAF and the Government of Afghanistan are entering a new phase of joint effort.  The United States will place 800 U.S. troops under Polish tactical command in Ghazni Province, a testament to Poland’s military leadership, and will also provide logistical assistance by loaning an additional 20 Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles to the Polish military.
 
SUPPORTING MUTUAL PROSPERITY THROUGH EXPORTS, INVESTMENT, AND TECHNOLOGY
 
The two leaders discussed their efforts to deepen mutual dialogue on energy security, and to that end they welcomed agreement in principle on a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding  to enhance cooperation on scientific, technical and policy aspects of clean and efficient energy technologies. They underlined their respective governments’ readiness to cooperate in good faith and in a fair, open and transparent manner on a broad range of energy-related issues, including civilian nuclear power, unconventional gas, energy efficiency, renewable energy and other clean power resources in Poland.  They welcomed new and continuing efforts under the Global Shale Gas Initiative.
 
JOINT EFFORTS TO PROMOTE DEMOCRACY IN EASTERN EUROPE AND AROUND THE WORLD
 
Pointing to the successful democratic transition of Poland and other Central European states, President Obama cited Poland as a model for other countries striving to build democratic institutions and praised Poland’s leadership in the Community of Democracies.
 
The United States and Poland call for genuinely free and fair presidential elections in Belarus on December 19.  President Obama and President Komorowski reiterated their strong support for the EU’s Eastern Partnership Initiative, designed to strengthen ties between the EU and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, and to spur reform and strengthen democracy in those countries.  The two leaders hailed NATO’s historic decision in Lisbon to create a strategic and modern partnership with Russia.  The United States and Poland are pursuing complementary policies of strengthening ties with Russia.
 
EXPANDING CITIZEN CONTACTS
 
The two leaders committed to expanding the Fulbright program; our two governments will also discuss expansion of the Parliamentary Youth Exchange.  President Obama and President Komorowski applauded the partnership between the Polish American Freedom Foundation and leading U.S. companies to bring Polish university students and young professionals to the United States for internships in the private sector.  
 
President Komorowski thanked President Obama and the American people for their hospitality, and extended an invitation to President Obama to visit Poland.

The leaked cable lists a number of public diplomacy missteps by the Obama White House, including the President’s decision not to accept the Polish government’s invitation to attend the September 1, 2009 commemoration in Gdansk of the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.

The Ambassador warns the Administration that many Poles see this kind of treatment of an ally as part of a broader trend of downgrading of U.S. interest in Central and Eastern Europe. He also makes a reference to the July 2009 letter from Central European leaders to President Obama, in which they asked for greater U.S. involvement in the region and warned about the Kremlin’s threatening foreign policy and restrictions of democratic freedoms in Russia. One of the signatories of the letter was former Solidarity leader and former Polish President Lech Walesa. Another signatory was former Czech President Vaclav Havel

President Obama ignored the warnings contained in the letter from the regional leaders. There is no indication that he had read Ambassador Ashe’s cable, which was sent on August 28, 2009, but his warnings were also ignored by the White House.

In another diplomatic blunder, which occurred less than three weeks after Ambassador Ashe’s cable was sent to Washington, President Obama chose September 17, 2009 — the 70th anniversary of the Soviet attack on Poland under the terms of the Hitler-Stalin Pact — to announce his decision to cancel the missile defense system promised Poland by President George W. Bush. Polish government leaders saw it as a major blow to Poland’s security and a betrayal of  U.S.  government’s earlier commitments. The Poles found the historical symbolism of  President Obama’s announcement highly offensive.  

Victor Ashe, former Republican mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee, was nominated to be the United States Ambassador to Poland by President George W. Bush in 2004. President Obama asked him to remain in Warsaw through most of 2009, apparently to make it easier for the White House to present to the Polish government a series of controversial decisions, which the Poles viewed as designed to weaken the U.S.-Polish ties to win favors with the Kremlin for the Obama administration. The leaked cable shows that Ambassador Ashe was a reluctant and critical envoy to Poland for the new president.

Ambassador Ashe was replaced as the U.S. Ambassador to Poland by President Obama’s nominee Lee A. Feinsten who was sworn in on September 28, 2009. President Obama later nominated Victor Ashe to serve as a Republican member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). The BBG manages all U.S. civilian international broadcasting, including the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio and TV Martí, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN)—Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television

 

Poland would see significant U.S. force reductionsinEurope as the latest in a series of disappointments with the U.S.: in their view, the U.S. failed to deliver promised Iraqi contracts, to bring a loyal Ally into the Visa Waiver Program, and most recently, to appoint an appropriately high-level presidential delegation to the September 1 commemoration in Gdansk of the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II. Many Poles see this as part of a broader regional trend, a downgrading of U.S. interest in Central and Eastern Europe. Three Polish statesmen, Lech Walesa, Aleksander Kwasniewski and Adam Daniel Rotfeld, were among the signatories of the July letter from Central European leaders to President Obama. The letter warned that the region’s stability and Atlanticist outlook cannot be taken for granted in the face of allegedly waning U.S. engagement.

Opinia.US Truckee, CA, December 6, 2010 — The Guardian newspaper in the U.K. has released and commented on a number of leaked U.S. cables dealing with Poland. There needs to be a much greater scrutiny of these cables by mainstream U.S. media and political pressure from Polonia voters to force President Obama to change his course on Poland. The cables describe shameful treatment of an important U.S. ally by the President naively obsessed with Russia and Iran. The cables show that nearly all of the White House decisions, which weaken Poland’s security — such as providing a Patriot battery without working missiles – are designed to keep the Russian leaders happy with President Obama’s “reset” of relations with the Kremlin.

U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher and the Ambassador [U.S. Ambassador to Poland Lee Feinstein] made it clear  [ to Foreign Minister Sikorski and Defense Minister Klich] that the Patriots would not be integrated into Poland’s air defense system. Such a move would require a U.S. Presidential decision, and the President has made no such decision. It would be important for Poland to work with the United States to cultivate realistic public expectations for future Patriot rotations.

However, this is a good juncture to point out the most glaring gap in understanding between us and the Poles. The Poles have not been told that the battery will rotate without actual missiles — i.e., not only will the rotation not be operational in the initial phase (due to C4ISR and other issues) but it will also not be operational, and certainly interoperable, at any point in our current plans. This will be a question of basic definitions for the Poles: is it a Patriot battery if it doesn’t have live missiles? The Poles think the Patriots will become not only operable, but interoperable, over time – thus enhancing Poland’s air defense. When told last Fall that the Patriots would not be operational, at least at first, Deputy Defense Minister Komorowski angrily responded that Poland expected to receive operational Patriot missiles, “not potted plants.”

Waszczykowski was less adamant about Patriots, stating that Poland and the U.S. had a binding political agreement on security matters, which he hoped the United States would respect. He added that Poland “wants U.S. boots on the ground” — not necessarily as a tripwire, but as a deterrent. Nowak similarly stressed Poland’s strong interest in “deepening” military cooperation, ideally to include a large U.S. footprint in Poland. He mused that one Patriot battery and ten MD interceptors do not constitute the “impressive presence” that Poland is hoping for.

 

Presidential Advisor Waszczykowski reacted more emotionally. While Washington is entitled to talk to Russia, to work toward a solution to the Iranian threat, and to make its own decision about the MD initiative, the U.S. should take care not to undermine Poland’s security. He then wondered aloud, “How long will it take you to realize that nothing will change with Iran and Russia?” Waszczykowski asserted that Moscow is trying to regain its sphere of influence and stressed the critical importance of an increased U.S. or NATO presence for Poland’s security. He added that Russia continues to deny its historical wrong-doings against Poland, imposes economic sanctions against Poland at will, and frequently disrupts the flow of oil and gas.

Waszczykowski, who served as Poland’s Ambassador to Tehran (1999-2002), agreed that Iran poses an increasing threat to the United States and Europe. He said that the Iranian regime has no incentive to warm relations with Washington because the regime has built its own legitimacy on the cornerstone of anti-Americanism.

Komorowski was skeptical that a regional approach to contingency planning was the best way ahead. Komorowski said Warsaw would prefer a unique plan for Poland, although he allowed that Warsaw could accept the notion of two complementary chapters for Poland and the Baltic States within EAGLE GUARDIAN.

Opinia.US Commentary

President Obama runs the show and uses Poland  in his naive game to win over Russia and change Iran. He has found an ally in Secretary of Defense Robert Gates who sees benefits for the military establishment and private military contractors by steering Obama toward expanding military operations in Afghanistan with the help of Russia.

U.S. officials visiting Poland have no authority to negotiate anything beyond what the President wants. Some U.S. officials appear unsold on Obama’s Utopian vision, but they are powerless to correct his policy. The leaked U.S. State Department cables show Polish officials as frustrated, embarrassed and resigned since Poland has no choice but to accept whatever President Obama is willing to offer.

Except for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Poland has never been treated in such a shameful way by any other U.S. administration. Looking on the bright side, President Obama’s foreign policy and his treatment of Poland are not typical of what the U.S. and the American people stand for and are not likely to survive his presidency, just as FDR’s appeasement of Stalin did not survive his. Barack Obama may very well be only a one term president.

Unless forced to do otherwise, the Obama Administration will be treating Poland as a country that only needs to be placated with empty gestures (Patriot battery without live missiles, sending Vice President Biden to Warsaw).

The only thing that can change the White House policy on Poland is sufficient public relations and political pressure from U.S. media, Polonia voters, and voters of other Central European backgrounds, that President Obama, his advisers, and the Democrats will fear and will not be able to ignore.

The Polish government should already have in place a public diplomacy campaign to explain and promote its views directly to the American public and the members of Congress.

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release November 20, 2010

Statement by the Press Secretary on the visit of Polish President Komorowski to Washington

President Obama will welcome President Bronislaw Komorowski of Poland to the White House on Wednesday, December 8.  Poland and the United States are essential allies, partnering together around the world to promote peace, prosperity, democracy, and freedom.  We are bound to each other through our solemn obligations to each other’s defense through Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, and Poland is a leading contributor to the NATO mission in Afghanistan.  The President looks forward to consulting with President Komorowski on a broad range of strategic issues of mutual concern to our two countries.

According to the text of the Poland-related cable disclosed by WikiLeaks, an unidentified U.S. diplomat in Moscow repeated Russian media reports and subsequent statements by Russian officials, which distorted comments about Russia and the Russian military made by Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski on his visit to the United States in November 2009. The Russian media reports referred to Minister Sikorski’s request for U.S. forces on the ground in Poland to “protect against Russian aggression” — a phrase he never used in his speech delivered at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Unlike some of the other leaked cables from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, which show a healthy amount of scepticism on the part of U.S. diplomats about the real intentions and behavior of Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev, the cable’s author in this case repeated and did not question doubtful claims made by Russian media and government officials.

Any sophisticated journalist or diplomat, however, would have good reasons to doubt whether the Polish Foreign Minister could have made such a provocative public statement. In fact, the cable’s author mentions in passing without any comment that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the press that he did not believe that Sikorski had actually made the remarks. On the day the cable was written, Opinia.US was already reporting that comments attributed by the Russian media to Minister Sikorski were completely made-up.

Opinia.US reported in November 2009 that the Russian media used falsified quotes from Minister Sikorski’s speech in Washington, which were then repeated by irate Russian officials who attacked the Polish foreign minister for being anti-Russian. These attacks were then picked up by American and other Western media and, as we now know, by a U.S. diplomat, and broadcast to a much larger audience.

The Russian news agency responsible for releasing made-up quotes eventually apologized for its false reporting, as did the Russian Foreign Ministry, but not before negative media publicity around the world and diplomatic reports reaching Washington and possibly other world capitals.

This particular U.S. Embassy Moscow cable seems unusual, not only because it accepts at face value nearly everything that the Kremlin-controlled media and Russian officials were saying about Minister Sikorski’s non-existent comments, but also for its own unbalanced commentary reflecting the Kremlin’s position:

“Unfortunately, the Polish government had seeded some of this Russian response through their sponsorship of and statements in support of the EU’s Eastern Partnership Initiative (Ref C) [reference to a different diplomatic cable] and show of support to Georgia during the 2008 Russia-Georgia War. Further, the Polish MFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] has established a Bureau of European Security, which Polish diplomats jokingly refer to as the ‘Office of Threats from the East.’”

The title of the report is also quite telling: POLISH PM SIKORSKI REOPENS OLD FIGHTS. It seems to suggest an attempt to identify Sikorski with Cold War mentality, which the Obama White House and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had criticized earlier while promoting a ”reset” of relations with Russia. The author may have been trying to make herself or himself look good to her or his superiors in Washington but managed to make  a mistake in the title of the cable: PM stands for Prime Minister, whereas Sikorski is Poland’s Foreign Minister. The leaked cable also includes the following final, and also unbalanced comment, suggesting that the Kremlin has every reason to be critical of Minister Sikorski while Poland has no reason to be afraid of Russia:

“Comment: The GOR [Government of Russia] will take some time to digest Sikorski’s comments, and evaluate whether or not to alter the current positive trend in bilateral relations. Russia has many levers, including delaying the approval of a pending gas deal (Ref D). Sikorski has given anti-western elements in Russia ammunition against improved Russian relations with NATO and even with the U.S.”

The cable was signed by the U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle who is an experienced career diplomat, but it does not necessarily mean that it was written or even seen by him prior to being sent to Washington, as most embassy cables are sent under the ambassador’s signature. Judging by the simplistic style and analysis, the cable’s actual author was more likely a junior diplomat, but we simply don’t know.

It could have been also a subtle and sophisticated way for a senior U.S. diplomat in Moscow who may favor the “reset” of relations and sides with the Putin/Medvedev team to get the State Department to put pressure on the Poles to soften their warnings about Russia and its military. Such a sophisticated scheme seems, however, unlikely, but the cable’s author’s use of the word “unfortunately” and a reference to Polish diplomats’ joke is a subtle way of conveying to Washington that the Russian media and Russian officials may have good reasons to be critical of Minister Sikorski’s comments and to attack Polish foreign policy.

There are two possible explanations how media disinformation originates in Russia. It could have been a mistake by a careless or overzealous Russian reporter. Another explanation points to a carefully organized disinformation campaign designed to undermine Poland’s credibility in Washington and around the world by portraying Polish officials as anti-Russian and irresponsible.

Even if the Russian Foreign Ministry has to apologize later for repeating inaccurate statements, the public relations damage is already done and can never be fully reversed. The costs to the real perpetrator are low or non-existent since the original source of disinformation will not be identified. As we now see from the leaked cable, the lie introduced into the public domain can also influence U.S. foreign policy if American diplomats fall for it, which in this case, at least one diplomat who wrote the cable and those who cleared it, apparently did.

One way Russian intelligence operatives use to pass on disinformation is to cultivate junior and less sophisticated U.S. diplomats who then report false facts and misleading claims to Washington. These operatives may pose as journalists, diplomats, academics, or other experts.

A former U.S. diplomat speculated that this method may have been used to get the Obama White House to pick the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland to announce the cancellation of the Bush missile defense system.

The historically symbolic timing of the announcement would have increased a sense of insecurity in Poland and convinced the Poles that the United States under President Obama has abandoned its ally as it did at the end of World War II under President Roosevelt. Russian diplomats, the Kremlin-controlled media, and Russian intelligence operatives in Poland could then exploit this both real and psychological Polish vulnerability to force a change in Poland’s foreign policy away from Washington and in favor of Moscow. This in fact has happened to some degree as Polish officials seem highly confused by the Obama Administration’s foreign policy and uncertain about their strategic options.

It is also doubtful that such sloppy and biased diplomatic reporting, as seen in the cable from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow about Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski, would have occurred if it were not for President Obama’s well-known preference for a “reset” in relations with Russia, which he has tried to achieve — so far without success — by depriving Poland of some of the U.S. missile defense plans and guarantees extended to Warsaw and other U.S. allies in Central Europe by the George W Bush Administration.

The author of this cable may be, however, an exception in her or his pro-Kremlin bias. Most of the other cables released so far by WikiLeaks show U.S. diplomats in Moscow pointing out, albeit in subtle ways, that President Obama’s hopes for a Russian quid pro quo in dealing with Iran, Afghanistan and other international issues are based on highly naive assumptions.

This report can be republished with attribution to Opinia.US.

Below is a copy of one of Opinia.US November 2009 reports which sets the background for this story.

Russia Attacks Sikorski on Comments About U.S. Troops in Poland

Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — A member of the Russian parliament has criticized Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski for his comments during his visit this week to Washington, but the Polish foreign ministry has disputed the accuracy of Russian news reports quoting Sikorski’s statement. The point of dispute is whether Sikorski has publicaly asked for U.S. troops to be stationed in Poland, and what he actually said. There is little doubt that Poland wants more American soldiers on its territory as a protection against Russia. Sikorski met in Washington with Obama administration officials, but his scheduled meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was postponed when she decided to extend her diplomatic trip to the Middle East.

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 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.

Opinia.US Truckee, CA, November 29, 2010 — Leaked secret State Department cables may help to resolve the mystery as to why President Obama chose September 17, 2009 to make his announcement on canceling President Bush’s missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. The announcement pleased the Kremlin, which had been pushing for the cancellation of the planned system for years. But why the Obama White House made the announcement on September 17, the anniversary of the Soviet military invasion of Poland in 1939 under the secret terms of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, is still not clear.

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.

The invitation extended by the recently-elected Polish president to the military dictator, who tried to crush the independent Solidarity trade union movement in order to preserve Soviet influence in Poland in the 1980s, is a direct result of the strategic confusion created in Central and Eastern Europe by U.S. President Barack Obama’s “reset” of relations with the Kremlin, said Polish American expert Ted Lipien.   

The  English-language paper The Warsaw Voice reported that Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski created much controversy by inviting former Polish President, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, the last communist, non-democratically elected head of state, to the Wednesday meeting of Poland’s  prestigious National Security Council (RBN).

According to Polish media reports, the RBN meeting was devoted to Polish-Russian relations ahead of the December 6 visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.  General Jaruzelski is viewed as a strong supporter of improving relations between Poland and Russia.

Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, General Jaruzelski was on very good terms with hardline Soviet leaders and sought their support to crush Solidarity’s democratic revolution.  In 2005, then President Putin awarded Jaruzelski a medal for his military service during Russia’s war with Nazi Germany

It is no accident that Jaruzelski’s views on relations with Russia are being sought during periods of a possible major realignment in Poland’s strategic position. In an interview with the Voice of America Polish Service conducted in August 1991 shortly after the unsuccessful coup against Mikhail Gorbachev and his policies of perestroika, Jaruzelski gave an optimistic assessment of the coup’s hardline communist leaders based on his personal knowledge of then President Yanayev, the KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov, and Defense Minister Dimitri Yazov. Jaruzelski told VOA then that “regardless of how events turn out in the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union will always be Poland’s closest great neighbor.”  

General Jaruzelski is blamed in Poland for causing the killing of Polish workers who had been protesting the banning of Solidarity by his regime and has been accused of committing other crimes during his stay in power as a military leader.

According to Ted Lipien, who was in charge of the Voice of America radio broadcasts to Poland during the martial law imposed by General Jaruzelski, the communist military junta ruler would not have been invited to the National Security Council meeting if Polish political leaders were not confused by President Obama’s policy of rapprochement with Russia. 

“Poland’s sense of security and that of other American allies in the region has been severely undermined by President Obama’s decision to cancel the plans for deployment of U.S. missile defense in Central Europe and his repeated diplomatic blunders in relations with Warsaw, which included making the missile defense cancellation announcement on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939,” Lipien said. According to Lipien, both President Komorowski and President Obama have shown a lack of understanding of historical symbolism and have a dismal record in their conduct of public diplomacy domestically and abroad.     

President Komorowski defended his decision to invite General Jaruzelski saying that he invited all the former Polish presidents and prime ministers to the National Security Council meeting and that it was not up to him to change history, wrote Gazeta Wyborcza daily.  

The Warsaw Voice writes that President Komorowski’s invitation of Jaruzelski was criticized not only by the head of opposition party PiS Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who said that Komorowski has made a political demonstration inviting a “dictator,” but also by the politicians of the ruling party PO, including PM Donald Tusk, who suggested that Jaruzelski was one of the politicians Tusk wouldn’t like to talk with about international relations. 

“Since President Franklin Roosevelt’s sellout of Central and Eastern Europe to Stalin at Yalta, Poland’s strategic position vis-a-vis Moscow was improving due to efforts of every subsequent U.S. administration until the election of Barack Obama.This is the first time since FDR that America’s relations with the Polish people have experienced a decline. As a journalist who was in charge of U.S. broadcasts to Poland when President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II conducted a successful effort to make Poland free and democratic, I see the invitation of General Jaruzelski to an important Polish government meeting as a highly symbolic and dangerous sign of the current confusion in U.S.-Polish relations, which was caused by the Obama Administration,” Lipien said. 

Ted Lipien, who is now in charge of media freedom NGO Free Media Online, predicted that the political rehabilitation of General Jaruzelski prior to President Medvedev’s visit to Warsaw may prompt Polish Americans and their organizations to link forces with other groups of Americans of Central and East European origins, as well as with human rights NGOs, in an effort to change the Obama Administration’s policy toward the region and to protest its lack of serious concern about anti-democratic abuses of power in Russia, which threaten Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, and other countries formerly dominated by the Soviet Union.

Opinia.US Truckee, CA, November 24, 2010 — As reported to worldwide audiences by the Voice of America, the government-funded international broadcaster which helped the U.S. to win the Cold War, President Obama warned Senate Republicans who are calling for a further re-evaluation of the START arms reduction agreement with Russia that they are going against the rule of the late former President Ronald Reagan, “Trust but verify.” It was a disingenuous message from a desperate president who promised to “reset” relations with Moscow but instead alienated America’s allies and exposed his lack of moral courage to friends and enemies alike.

This latest Obama White House attempt to influence public opinion at home and abroad by invoking the words of the U.S. president perceived as a particularly strong and effective foreign policy leader is unlikely to produce any desired effects because it lacks credibility. President Obama’s warning runs counter to everything he has done in conducting U.S. foreign policy since taking office.

Many around the world have concluded that, blinded by his progressive ideology and unrealistic expectations, Mr. Obama is easily fooled by dictators and authoritarian rulers. Both democracy supporters and dictators now see Mr. Obama as the first U.S. president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt who has abandoned America’s active support abroad for democracy and human rights, not only in deeds but even in words. While FDR did not hesitate to sell out America’s allies to Stalin, he at least made strong public statements in support of freedom and democracy. President Obama has acquired a reputation as a weak leader who is afraid to stand up to dictators, as evidenced by his failure to offer strong support to the pro-democracy protesters in Iran and his refusal to receive Dalai Lama at the White House.

There is a grave danger in the U.S. President being perceived abroad as weak and lacking credibility on national security issues. President Obama’s reference to Ronald Reagan’s famous words runs especially hollow with America’s allies in East Central Europe whose sense of security has been severely undermined by Mr. Obama’s decision to cancel plans for the placement of U.S. defensive missiles in the region. But more and more Americans, including millions of concerned voters whose ancestors came from Eastern and Central Europe, also find his foreign policy pronouncements increasingly unpersuasive.

Ironically, President Obama also lacks credibility on security issues with the very people he has been wooing — President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin — a problem which should be of grave concern to all Americans. Because of the KGB mentality of the current Russian leadership, their low opinion of the American President may spell danger for the United States and America’s allies, as it did throughout the history of U.S.-Soviet relations when Soviet leaders concluded that an American president can be easily intimidated and manipulated. Stalin did not think the same way as President Roosevelt, and Vladimir Putin does not think the same way as Barack Obama. Neither FDR, who referred to Stalin as Uncle Joe, nor Mr. Obama, had sufficient grasp of history to understand the dangers of their naive faith in authoritarian Russian rulers.

The critical difference between President Obama and President Reagan is easy to see, especially for U.S. allies like Poland and Israel whose survival as secure and independent states depends on America’s strength and support. Unlike Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan negotiated with the Soviets from a position of strength and did not try to score points with the Kremlin and anti-American public opinion abroad at the expense of America’s friends.

Ronald Reagan did not ask the Kremlin leaders for anything other than tearing down the Berlin Wall and releasing political prisoners. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, from the very beginning of his presidency has put himself and the United States in a vulnerable position by eagerly seeking the Kremlin’s assistance on a number of ultimately inconsequential foreign policy issues.

President Obama was so convinced along with his pro-Moscow advisers that the U.S. needs Russia’s help that he started out by giving away the store without first even trying to negotiate substantive benefits for America and her allies. If he did, perhaps then he could have said “doveray no proveray.” But for Mr. Obama to use this famous Reagan phrase now, not against the Kremlin but against patriotic Americans in the U.S. Senate, is a sign of desperation and confusion.

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.

Had Mr. Obama bothered to listen to Mr. Putin’s public statements, he would have known that the Russian leader, the one who actually calls the shots at the Kremlin, sees America as Russia’s enemy and wants to weaken American power around the world. Perhaps an advisor convinced President Obama that Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev do not agree on this point. If he believed in such advice, sadly he was deceived. He should have known that neither Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev is interested in helping the U.S. in Iran or, for that matter, anywhere else. What they are interested in, other than a weak America, is pushing the Americans out and regaining their influence in Central and Eastern Europe.

The President should have known that the Russian leaders had absolutely no reason to give him the assistance he almost begged them for, which — in any case — America would not need if he really adopted Ronald Reagan’s successful approach to dealing with terrorists and authoritarian rulers. The current Russian leaders, who fit the latter category, would do anything they can to benefit from their perception of Mr. Obama’s and America’s weakness — a point that the President has failed to grasp.

Historically, Russia’s rulers responded much better to American presidents whom they perceived as strong and determined than to those whom they viewed as weak, young and lacking experience. Stalin was brutal in his treatment of President Roosevelt even though at their wartime conferences in Tehran and Yalta FDR gave him everything he wanted, including control over Eastern and Central Europe. Barack Obama shares Franklin Roosevelt’s progressive worldview, which includes an idealized view of Russia encouraged by incompetent advisers. President Obama applies this view in formulating his foreign policy, but sadly he lacks FDR’s leadership skills and ability to get things done. In describing Barack Obama’s treatment of U.S. allies in Central and Eastern Europe, one blogger called him FDR-Light.

The fear is not of another massive FDR-like sellout of Eastern Europe to increasingly imperialistic and aggressive Russia. Another Yalta is unlikely because the American people would not stand for it, and the current leaders in the Kremlin are too sophisticated to try something so crude and dangerous as a large-scale invasion, although they did attack and occupied parts of Georgia. But there is a real fear of Russia exerting economic and political pressure to reestablish its sphere of influence in the Baltic States and in Central and Eastern Europe. President Obama made this fear appear much more real in the region and increasingly among Americans.

The U.S. President became the Kremlin’s biggest ally in the Russian attempt to weaken American influence in the world and to enhance Russia’s political and military role. In dealing with Mr. Obama, Prime Minister Minister Putin and President Medvedev have adopted Stalin’s policy of making outrageous claims and using intimidation to get their way with the U.S. President and America’s allies. Their sense of security has been weakened by the decisions of his Administration, thus making them more vulnerable to political, military or economic blackmail from Moscow.

The intimidation strategy, reinforced by propaganda and public diplomacy, seems to work for dictators and authoritarian rulers when used against weak leaders. Hitler and Chamberlain, Stalin and FDR, Putin and Obama. There are countless examples of Stalin’s outrageous demands being accepted by idealistic, aging and ill Franklin Roosevelt. When the U.S. President tried to make a small gesture to help the Poles who were fighting the Germans in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, in a secret cable, Stalin cynically rejected his pleas to allow American planes to land on Soviet-controlled territory, calling the Polish anti-Nazi fighters “power-seeking criminals.” Roosevelt immediately backed off.

Stalin viewed FDR as a weak leader on the international scene who could be easily manipulated, and he was right with tragic consequences for Eastern Europe and for the United States, which had to spend billions of dollars on defense against Russia and fight Moscow-instigated wars in Korea and Vietnam. Not quite two decades after the end of World War II, Khrushchev concluded after a U.S.-Soviet summit meeting in Vienna that President Kennedy lacked both strong character and foreign policy experience and decided to challenge him by placing nuclear weapons in Cuba.

Compared to President Obama, JFK had been a forceful and vocal defender of the principles of democracy and human rights, yet to Khrushchev he still appeared as a prime candidate for intimidation because of the combination of his young age and inexperience — an American president who could be pushed around without much risk for the USSR. Khrushchev miscalculated in his assessment of JFK, but his miscalculation could have had truly disastrous consequences for both nations and the world.

In Poland, in the Baltic States, in other countries in the region, and even among the leaders of the democratic opposition in Russia, President Obama is seen as far more interested in appeasing Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev than in upholding the democratic values of the NATO Alliance. The citizens of the former Captive Nations who don’t want to lose their independence from Russia would have not thought the same about President Kennedy or any other U.S. president since FDR. Even Russian opposition leaders like Boris Nemtsov openly say that Russians are uncertain about President Obama’s support for democracy and human rights. Doubts about Mr. Obama’s commitment to the struggle for democracy in countries like Russia, China, and Iran represent a major failure of his public diplomacy — a failure not seen since the end of World War II.

The propaganda experts at the Kremlin understand and know how to take advantage of President Obama’s weakness and his psychological need to show some positive results of his “reset” policy with the Kremlin. Ex-KGB officers like Prime Minister Putin still use Stalin’s intimidation tactics by bombarding the media, the White House, the State Department with increasingly outrageous statements, gestures, and demands — tactics that had worked well in the Soviet dictator’s dealings with FDR and are working again since the Obama Administration took office.

At least Franklin Roosevelt was a master communicator and media manipulator. President Obama lacks FDR’s ability to manipulate U.S. and world opinion. As FDR was giving the nations of Eastern Europe to Stalin, he managed to get 90 percent of the Polish American votein 1944 by cleverly having himself photographed at the White House in front of a large pre-World War II map of Poland. Polish American voters interpreted FDR’s gesture as indicating his support for Poland’s territorial integrity. They were completely wrong, but the deception worked until it was exposed.

Last week President Obama said that Poland represents the best type of ally for America. Most people in Poland and Polish Americans either laughed at Mr. Obama’s words or concluded that he was right, but only inadvertently. Polish soldiers have fought and died alongside American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan while Poland had to endure public abuse from the Obama White House without being able to say too much. The Poles and the Polish Americans remember that President Obama refused to attend the observances in Gdansk of the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II, which began with Hitler’s and Stalin’s attack on Poland in September 1939. To make things worse, on the very anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland, in an unilateral attempt to please Moscow, President Obama announced his decision to cancel the deployment of U.S. missiles on Polish territory. He also refused to attend the anniversary observances of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and would not meet in the White House with Dalai Lama in order not to offend China’s communist leaders. In yet another public diplomacy blunder, Mr. Obama went to play golf on the day of Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s funeral. Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev could not have missed these signals in making their evaluation as to what they can get away with in dealing with the Obama Administration. Reacting to to the news of President Obama’s refusal to see Dalai Lama, former Czech president and human rights activist Vaclav Havel sadly observed that “these minor compromises start the big and dangerous ones.”

Just as Stalin held FDR in contempt, there is increasing evidence that Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev evaluate President Obama the same way. This creates a very dangerous situation for America, and even more dangerous for the nations of Central and Eastern Europe.

Rather than being grateful for Mr. Obama’s policy of appeasement, the Putin-Medvedev team has engaged in attempts to publicly humiliate him. How else could one explain the outrageous announcement to the media by an unidentified Kremlin insider that assassins have been dispatched to America to kill a former Russian intelligence officer. The intended victim had helped the FBI uncover a ring of Russian agents living in the United States who were later exchanged in a spy swap.

This announcement about sending assassins to commit murder on American soil, as well as Mr. Putin’s and Mr. Medvedev’s well publicized heroes welcome meetings with the expelled Russian agents, showed the Kremlin’s complete contempt for Mr. Obama and for the American people. And yet, we have heard nothing from the White House or the State Department about this humiliating threat to violate U.S. laws and sovereignty. Such talk by Kremlin officials and the silence from Washington are likely to encourage more lawless behavior, and possibly killings of other opponents of the regime, including journalists, many of whom had been assassinated or brutally beaten.

President Obama has been silent about the Kremlin’s outrageous behavior because he has invested way too much in the success of his “reset” policy with the Putin-Medvedev team. To speak out now about the Russian assassins running loose in the United States would expose the foolishness of his approach in dealing with Russia’s rulers and might undermine his chances of getting the START treaty approved by the Senate.

One could not imagine President Reagan being silent in the face of such a blatant provocation from Moscow. In his dealings with Russia, Barack Obama could compare himself to FDR, but not to Ronald Reagan.

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

Senator Voinovich is an excellent example of an American politician who is very responsive to the concerns of his constituents with family roots in Central and Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, most Polish American organizations have been largely silent on the issue of the U.S. strategic relationship with Poland and the dangers to Poland’s future from President Obama’s appeasement of the Putin-Medvedev team.

George Victor Voinovich (born July 15, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from the state of Ohio, and a member of the Republican Party. Previously, he served as the 65th Governor of Ohio from 1991 to 1998, and as the 54th mayor of Cleveland from 1980 to 1989. Voinovich will retire from the Senate in 2011 when his current term expires. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, his father was a Croatian Serb (from Kordun), and his mother was Slovenian. (Wikipedia)

Senator Voinovich also said that in his remaining time in the Senate, he will continue to work to strengthen the Visa Waiver Program, which he described as improving America’s image in the world and strengthened U.S. borders through enhanced intelligence sharing with allies abroad. When he retires next year, the Polish American community will lose a valuable supporter in the U.S. Senate.

I am concerned about the uncertainties surrounding a Russia that could revert back to a country seeking to expand its influence on the Baltic States and Eastern Europe. President Medvedev’s February 2010 National Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation—released two months before the conclusion of the New START Treaty in April—explicitly labels NATO expansion as a “national threat” to Russia’s existence and reaffirms Russia’s right to use nuclear weapons if the country’s existence is threatened. I am sure such statements—combined with Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia—send shivers down the spines of our brothers and sisters in Central and Eastern Europe, even if they do not say so publicly.

Full text of Sen, Voinovich’s remarks follows.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the challenges America faces in our relationship with Russia and their implications on the Senate’s consideration of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty – known as the START Treaty.

A number of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have spoken about the treaty’s impact on global nuclear nonproliferation. I would like to use my remarks today to highlight my concerns about the treaty in the broader context of: 1) the Obama Administration’s “Reset Policy” towards Russia; and 2) the New START treaty’s impact on our allies in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states. I believe these concerns must be addressed by the Administration before I can determine my support for the treaty.

Work with Captive Nations

Mr. President, over the last decade I have been an ardent champion of NATO and have worked diligently to increase membership in the alliance. I have also been active in improving our public diplomacy in Eastern Europe through expansion of the Visa Waiver Program at the request of our friends and allies in Central and Eastern Europe. In my remaining time in the Senate, I will continue to work to strengthen the Visa Waiver Program which has improved our image in the world and strengthened our borders through shared best-practices and enhanced intelligence sharing with our partners and allies abroad.

My passion for foreign relations stems in large part from my upbringing as the grandson of Southeast European immigrants. As an undergraduate at Ohio University, my first research paper examined how the United States sold out Central and Eastern Europe and the former Yugoslavia to the Soviets at the Yalta and Tehran conferences in 1943 and 1945. These states would become the “Captive Nations” suffering under the specter of Soviet domination, brutality, and oppression for nearly 50 years.

As a public official in Ohio, I remained a strong supporter of the Captive Nations. During my tenure as Mayor of Cleveland, I joined my brothers and sisters in the Eastern European Diaspora to celebrate the independence days of the Captive Nations at City Hall. We flew their flags, sang their songs, and prayed that one day the people in those countries would know freedom.

NATO Expansion

We saw the Berlin Wall fall and the Iron Curtain torn in half thanks large in part to the leadership of Pope John Paul II, President Reagan, and President George H.W. Bush. But even with the end of the Cold War, I remain deeply concerned that darker forces in Russia are reemerging as a threat to democracy, human rights, and religious freedom – not just for the Russian people but for the citizens of the newly freed Captive Nations. This concern in 1998 during my tenure as Governor of Ohio and Chair of the National Governor’s Association prompted me to pursue an all-50 state resolution supporting NATO membership for the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland.

When I think about the importance of NATO and our commitment to the Captive Nations, I am inspired by President George W. Bush’s speech on NATO expansion in Warsaw on June 15, 2001. President Bush stated: “We should not calculate how little we can get away with, but how much we can do to advance the cause of freedom.”

I worked diligently from my first day as a member of the Senate in 1999 to extend NATO membership to my brothers and sisters in the former Captive Nations. I knew NATO membership would provide these fledgling democracies safe harbor from the possible threat of new Russian expansionism. But I also knew the process of NATO expansion would enhance much more than security in Europe. As I noted in a speech on the Senate floor on May 21, 2002, “While NATO is a collective security organization, formed to defend freedom and democracy in Europe, we cannot forget that common values form the foundation of the alliance.” Democracy, the rule of law, minority rights—these are among the values that form the hallmark of the NATO alliance.

Mr. President, one of my proudest moments as a Senator was when I joined President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers at the NATO Summit in Prague on November 21, 2002, when NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson officially announced the decision to invite Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia to become part of the Alliance. This was truly one of the most thrilling days of my tenure as a Senator.

Later that day, my wife Janet and I were happy to attend a dinner in honor of Czech President Vaclav Havel at the Prague Castle. Following dinner, at 1:30 a.m. Prague time, I placed a call to Cleveland to talk with my brothers and sisters at home with ties to these NATO aspirant countries. They had gathered in the Lithuanian Hall at Our Lady of Perpetual Help to celebrate that day’s historic events, and this was truly a capstone to years of effort.

An Uncertain Relationship with Russia

Mr. President, it is because of my long history and work with the Captive Nations that I continue to worry about the uncertainties of our future relationship with Russia. I have traveled to 19 countries during my 21 trips to the region as a Senator. Presidents, prime ministers, and foreign ministers in Eastern Europe have told me time and time again it is comforting for them to know their relationship with NATO and the United States serves as a vital hedge against the threat of a future potentially expansionist Russia.

Yet now there is much talk from this Administration about resetting the U.S. bilateral relationship with Russia. Moscow seeks to regain its global stature and be respected as a peer in the international community. President Obama’s May 2010 National Security Strategy states: “We seek to build a stable, substantive, multidimensional relationship with Russia, based on mutual interests. The United States has an interest in a strong, peaceful, and prosperous Russia that respects international norms.” I agree with the Administration. There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach.

Mr. President, there are indeed key areas where the United States and Russia share common cause and concern:

1) Russia is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and will continue to be essential towards any effective multilateral pressure on Iran to give up its nuclear program;

2) Russia continues to have leverage on the North Korean regime and has stated a nuclear-free Korean peninsula is in the interest of both our nations;

3) We are partners on the International Space Station; and

4) Until the August 2008 invasion of Georgia, our government and U.S. industry were working hard on a nuclear cooperation agreement with Russia similar the one we entered into with India.

With the world economy as it is today, the worst thing we could do is break off communication and revert back to our Cold War positions. President Obama’s trip to Moscow last year and President Medvedev’s reciprocal trip to Washington in June were opportunities to further engage Russia and determine where we have a symbiotic relationship and what we can accomplish together for the good of the international community.

However Mr. President, I believe our reset policy with Russia should not establish a relationship with Moscow at the expense of our Captive Nation allies. We simply do not know how our relationship with Russia will transpire during the years to come. Will Russia fully embrace democratic government, free markets, and the rule of law? Or will Russia seek to reestablish its influence over the former Soviet Union, whose collapse then president and now Prime Minister Vladmir Putin described in 2005 as the “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century?

This brings us to the topic of the New START treaty, which the Senate may consider in the coming weeks.

The New START Treaty

Mr. President, America’s grand strategy approach towards Russia must be realistic, it must be agile, and as I have said it must take into account the interests of our NATO allies. I am deeply concerned the New START Treaty may once again undermine the confidence of our friends and allies in Central and Eastern Europe.

Let me be absolutely clear: I am not ideologically opposed to the Administration’s nonproliferation agenda. The President’s stated goal of a world without nuclear weapons is noble. But I believe the Senate’s consideration of the New START treaty must be considered through a wider lens that includes the Treaty’s implications for our friends and allies in the Captive Nations.

1) Spheres of Influence

First, I am concerned about the uncertainties surrounding a Russia that could revert back to a country seeking to expand its influence on the Baltic States and Eastern Europe. President Medvedev’s February 2010 National Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation—released two months before the conclusion of the New START Treaty in April—explicitly labels NATO expansion as a “national threat” to Russia’s existence and reaffirms Russia’s right to use nuclear weapons if the country’s existence is threatened. I am sure such statements—combined with Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia—send shivers down the spines of our brothers and sisters in Central and Eastern Europe, even if they do not say so publicly.

Mr. President, the concerns of our Captive Nation brothers and sisters regarding Russia are not abstract. They are rooted in blood and tears, and they are rooted in a history of abandonment. My hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, was once the city with the world’s second-largest population of Hungarians after Budapest. I remember vividly the stories my Hungarian brothers and sisters would tell about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Encouraged by the implicit promise of intervention from the United States and the United Nations, hundreds of thousands of Hungarians protested against the People’s Republic of Hungary in support of economic reform and an end to political oppression. These protests spread throughout Hungary, and the government was overthrown. But Moscow sought to maintain its control over the Captive Nations, took advantage of America’s inaction on the rebellion, invaded Hungary, crushed the revolution, and established a new authoritarian government. Over 2,500 Hungarians were killed in the conflict, and 200,000 Hungarians fled as refugees to the West. Hungary would suffer under the oppression of the Soviet Union for nearly another half century. And of course there was a similar episode in Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring of 1968.

Mr. President, the former Captive Nations have accomplished so much as free-market democracies and members of the NATO Alliance. Our friends and allies must have absolute confidence negotiations towards the New START treaty did not include side agreements or informal understandings regarding any Russian sphere of influence in the Captive Nations. Moreover, I remain deeply concerned — even in the absence of such agreements or understandings — that the former Captive Nations may once again wonder, will the West abandon us yet again? Will agreement with Russia once again be placed above the interests and concerns of our allies? Will we forget what happened after Yalta and Tehran? We cannot let this happen again.

2) Conventional Forces

Second, the former Captive Nations are also closely watching Russia’s military activities. Last September Russia undertook “Operation West”, a military exercise involving 13,000 troops simulating an air, sea, and nuclear attack on Poland. These war games, which took place during the 70th Anniversary of Polish independence, were the largest Russian military exercises since the end of the Cold War. If you look at the Russian military’s recent activity one cannot help but understand our allies concern Moscow could be reverting to the past. I hope that President Obama will meet with leaders from the former Captive Nations this weekend during the NATO Summit in Lisbon. The President should provide these leaders public reassurance that the United States remains committed to Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty which states that an attack on any member of NATO shall be considered to be an attack on all.

One of the best ways to alleviate the anxiety about the Russian military amongst our Captive Nation allies is for the Administration to pursue negotiations with Russia towards its compliance with the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. Mr. President, the Senate’s potential consideration of the New START treaty cannot be disconnected from Russia’s prior track record on treaty compliance. Russia decided in 2007 to suspend its compliance with the CFE Treaty—a treaty signed by 22 countries that placed balanced limits on the deployment of troops and conventional weapons in Europe. This unilateral decision by Moscow should serve as a reminder to my Senate colleagues about Moscow’s commitment to its international obligations. Russia’s compliance with the CFE Treaty is essential to sustained security and stability in Central and Eastern Europe.

3) Weaponization of Oil and Natural Gas

Third Mr. President, our friends in Central and Eastern Europe are worried about the uncertainties surrounding a Russia that appears at times to be reverting back to an authoritarian state seeking to weaponize its oil and natural gas resources as a means to expand its influence on Europe and the West. Russia has the world’s largest reserves of natural gas and has the eighth-largest oil reserves. Moscow turned off the tap to Europe in the recent past. They could do it again. We should also be concerned about Moscow using its control of oil and natural gas to pit members of NATO against each other.

4) Commitment to Human Rights

Finally Mr. President, I am deeply troubled that the Obama Administration has decoupled Russia’s human rights record from America’s bilateral relationship with Russia. The United States and Russia are both signatories of the 1975 Helsinki Declaration, which clearly states that “Participating States will respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.”

Yet in recent years we have seen anything but a respect for human rights in Russia. Prime Minister Putin stated during a recent interview with the Kommersant newspaper that pro-democracy demonstrators in Russia assembling without prior permission “will be hit on the head with batons. That’s all there is to it.” The actions of the Russian government speak louder than words. We have seen protests cancelled, newspapers closed, activists detained and abused. Yet we have seen little effort by the Administration to engage in a sustained dialogue with Moscow on its human rights record and commitments under the Helsinki Declaration. As David Kramer of the German Marshall Fund of the United States notes in a Washington Post op-ed on September 20:

“The human rights situation in Russia is bad and likely to get more worse as [Russia’s] March 2012 presidential election nears. Those in power will do anything to stay in power… Enough already with U.S. expressions of “regret” about the deteriorating situation inside Russia—it’s time to call it like it is: Condemn what’s happening there and consider consequences for continued human rights abuses.”

I believe the Obama Administration’s inaction and reluctance to confront Russia on its human rights record sends a dangerous signal to Moscow that there are little or no consequences for bad behavior. At a minimum, such coddling of bad behavior by the West only serves to embolden Moscow as to our resolve to hold Russia to account on its international obligations—a distressing thought as we consider the New START Treaty here in the Senate.

Conclusion

Mr. President, I have fought all my life to secure freedom for my brothers and sisters in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Yugoslavia. Once they received their freedom I championed — and continue to champion — their membership in NATO and the European Union. I’ll be damned at this stage in my life to do anything that could jeopardize their security and economic prosperity. I’ve seen too many opportunities for the region slip away during my lifetime. I will not let it happen again.

Political expediency should never be an excuse to rush to judgment on public policy let alone our national security. Treaties supersede all laws and acts of Congress. The Senate’s advice and consent duties on treaties are among our most solemn Constitutional duties. I cannot in good conscience determine my support for the Treaty until the Administration assures me our “Reset Policy” with Russia is a policy that enhances rather than diminishes the national security of our friends and allies throughout Europe.

Moreover Mr. President, I must receive the strongest assurances this policy does not, once again, amount to the United States leaving our brothers and sisters in the Captive Nations alone against undue pressures from Russia.

I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. Chapman, who had served as Deputy Assistant to President Ronald Reagan from 1983 to 1985, has asked why we have not heard any loud protests from the Obama Administration about this incredible public announcement attributed to an unnamed Kremlin insider. The Russian government plans to break American laws by killing a person on U.S. soil and yet there has been no condemnation from the White House.

Not even in Soviet times would the Kremlin show such open contempt for the U.S. Chief Executive. Those who understand Russian and Soviet history know that leaders like Putin would hold President Obama in very low esteem precisely because he has bent over backwards to please the former KGB mafia which runs and owns Russia.

They must still have highly effective agents of influence in the U.S. to decide that an open warning for anyone thinking about defecting or exposing them was worth risking a diplomatic crisis. But they also assumed correctly that the Obama Administration will not react strongly to a public insult.

Rather than being impressed by Mr. Obama’s unilateral concessions, which included stopping the deployment of the U.S. missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic and weakening ties with loyal U.S. allies in Central and Eastern Europe, Putin and Medvedev see Obama as inexperienced, weak, naive, and easily manipulated.

They must have laughed and rejoiced when Mr. Obama made the announcement about the removal of the U.S. missile shield from Central Europe on the 70thanniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. With the exception of President Obama’s Russia advisor, most experts familiar with the way former Soviet and KGB officials think would have warned him that even before giving them a major strategic gift without getting anything in return, he was being perceived in the Kremlin as someone who is confused about America’s interests, and certainly not their intellectual equal. Anyone who has studied Soviet history with a critical mind could have told him that.

The reported announcement, attributed to a Russian government source, about sending Russian killers to the U.S. is a sign of the Kremlin’s open contempt for President Obama, which may explain why we have not heard any loud protests from the White House or the State Department. To react strongly to the Russian media report about the killers dispatched to the U.S. by the Kremlin would expose the foolishness of President Obama’s ideas about “resetting” relations with Mr. Putin’s Russia.

Mr. Obama has undermined U.S. security and the security of America’s allies, whose soldiers have fought and died alongside American soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan, only to be told that when the leaders in the Kremlin want to have someone killed in the U.S. they are not grateful enough to him to refrain from making an extraordinarily humiliating public announcement. They many have decided that the more arrogant they are, the extra pressure will result in even greater unilateral concessions from President Obama on the assumption that he will take their declared security concerns more seriously in response to loud shouts and insults. This had been a well-tested Soviet public diplomacy tactic, which is again being employed, albeit with much greater sophistication.

After all, President Obama became convinced that Poland with a few U.S. defensive missiles represented a real threat to Russia. Perhaps he also thinks that the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 in alliance with Hitler was a defensive move, as suggested subsequently by Stalin (only after Hitler attacked the Soviet Union), other Soviet leaders, and Mr. Putin himself. Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev make like President Obama’s confused thinking, but they are not impressed by him as a leader. If they were, a Kremlin source would not be telling Russian journalists about sending killers to the U.S. Under President Reagan, or for that matter any other U.S. president until Barack Obama, there would have been a quick official American response to such an open and audacious Russian promise to send a hit squad to commit murder and violate U.S. laws. Ted Lipien

Does Kremlin Plan to Break US Laws Inside US? | Russia Blog, Discovery Institute

by Bruce Chapman

If President Obama implied–and unnamed CIA operatives stated explicitly–that an American intelligence officer who defected to Russia would be hunted down inside Russia by the CIA and killed, how would Mr. Putin react? Would he like to welcome the CIA killers to Moscow?

…Are Americans supposed to accept the necessity of the Kremlin’s coming over here to break our laws and indulge itself in killing people? If so, the State Department should be asking for a “clarification”. At the least.

Sorry, but the Kremlin is not allowed to have people in the US killed. That would change this whole spy farce into something much more consequential.

Read more: Does Kremlin Plan to Break US Laws Inside US? | Bruce Chapman, Russia Blog, Discovery Institute

TedLipien.com, Truckee, CA, November 1, 2010 — Secret deals with Russia followed by skillful attempts to prevent Polish American voters from discovering the truth about placating aggressive Russian leaders by naive U.S. presidents at Poland’s expense eventually become known to the American public and the presidential party is punished at the polls.

Just before the 1944 U.S. presidential elections, the Polish-American Congress (PAC) president Charles Rozmarek declared his intention to vote for Franklin D. Roosevelt. “Because I am convinced of his [FDR's] sincerity,” Mr. Rozmarek remarked, “I shall vote for him on November 7 for President of the United States of America.” By then, FDR had already secretly promised Stalin at their meeting in Tehran Poland’s eastern territories and effectively assigned Poland and other nations in Central and Eastern Europe to become part of the Soviet empire.

In his scholarly study of the impact of the Yalta Conference on American politics, Robert E. Ubriaco, Jr. wrote: “Ever the artful dodger, Roosevelt placated the Polish American community and skirted the issue through his masterful manipulation of symbolic politics. By addressing Polonia’s representatives before a map of prewar Poland [in the White House] and meeting with Rozmarek during a campaign stop in Chicago, Roosevelt managed to secure an endorsement from PAC. Consequently, over 90 percent of all Polish Americans voted for him in 1944.”

In contrast, Obama and his foreign policy advisers showed a remarkable lack of public relations skills when the President chose the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland to announce his decision to remove American missiles from Polish soil. He later played golf on the day of President Lech Kaczynski’s funeral.

Arthur Bliss Lane, who as the U.S. Ambassador in Warsaw from 1945 to 1947 documented the Soviet and communist takeover of the country, also observed in his book “I Saw Poland Betrayed” Roosevelt’s clever manipulation of the Polish American public opinion. He wrote in 1947 that an interesting feature of the Polish American Congress leaders’ meeting with President Roosevelt at the White House on October 11, 1944 was the placement of a large map of Poland in the room in which the President received his visitors. The map showed the pre-war boundaries of Poland. The photos of the meeting, widely reproduced by Polish American media, were interpreted as FDR’s endorsement of Poland’s independence and territorial integrity. In fact, as Ambassador Bliss Lane wrote after he had resigned from the State Department in protest against the appeasement of Stalin, President Roosevelt “had already agreed at Tehran to the sacrifice of a great area east of the Curzon Line to the Soviet Union.”

Mr. Rozmarek said later that had the Yalta Conference been held before the presidential elections of 1944, Mr. Roosevelt would not have been reelected, because of the votes of Americans linked by blood to those nations which had been “sold down the river.”

Roosevelt’s deception of Polish American leaders was indeed short-lived. It depended entirely on keeping secret from American voters his dealings with Stalin regarding Poland and other nations of Central and Eastern Europe. Robert E. Ubriaco Jr. noted in his article that “The Yalta Conference in early February of 1945 unleashed profound frustrations within Chicago’s Polish American community. At a conference on February 18, 1945, the United Polish Language Press in America, with a circulation of 1,200,000, declared that ‘the Yalta decisions are in reality a fifth partition of Poland.’” Ubriaco described the legacy of FDR’s treatment of Poland as “a political albatross for the Democratic party,” and concluded that “Polish American speakers and writers were increasingly associating the Democratic party with the appeasement of the Soviet Union.”

President Obama’s attempts to buy Russia’s support in Iran at the cost of weakening ties with America’s staunch allies in Central and Eastern Europe will influence the Polish American vote in November 2010. Polish Americans are also likely to vote according to their economic interests. This relatively affluent, hard-working and socially conservative electorate may conclude that they and their children are more likely to be paying in taxes for President Obama’s social initiatives than benefiting from them.

The Polish American Congress reports that “Polish Americans, who numbered 9,887,799 in 2008, are slightly older, better educated, wealthier, more likely to hold professional and management positions and own homes than the general American population. Median age of Polish Americans is 38.7 years as compared to 36.9 years of the general American population. Bachelor and higher degrees are held by 36.1% of PolAms as compared to 27.7% of the general population. 41.3% of PolAms hold professional and managerial positions as compared to 34.9%. Median family income of PolAms is $79,494 versus $63,360. Only 7.1% of PolAms fall under the poverty line, compared to13.2% of Americans. 74.4% of Polish Americans own their own homes versus 66.4% of the general population.” These Polonia survey findings were presented last year by Dr. Thaddeus Radziłowski, President of the Piast Institute, at the first National Conference of the Polish American Community in the 21st Century.

The Polish American electorate, as well as voters with links to other nations in Central and Eastern Europe, will have a chance next Tuesday to express their view of President Obama’s economic policies and his “reset” of relations with Russia.

Zofia Korbońska

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI

10 IX 2010 r.

“Miłość żąda ofiary” – te trzy słowa są dla mnie streszczeniem esencji życia Zofii Korbońskiej.

Pochodzą z drugiej wojny światowej – z Polski walczącej.

Ale miłości czego? I jakiej ofiary?

Milość czegoś większego od siebie, czegoś nadrzędnego, czemu się oddać należy całkowicie bez wahania…i nawet czasem bez wzajemności.

A ofiara bezgraniczna – bo własnego nawet życia.

Zofia Korbońska, urodzona trzy lata przed odzyskaniem niepodległości, pochodzi z pokolenia które dosłownie żyło Polską, upajało się Polską, przeżywało jako osobisty sukces każde osiągnięcie odrodzonego państwa.

Ktokolwiek żył jako dziecko w niepodleglej Polsce, to również przeżywał – upojenie zwycięską armią, budowa Gdyni – najbardziej nowoczesnego portu nad Baltykiem, COP – to namacalne poczucie osobistej dumy – sam to pamiętam.

I nagle ta upojna rzeczywistość Polski wolnej padła w ruiny, w poniżeniu i w przemocy.

Zofia Korbonska miała wtedy 24 lata – świt dojrzałości, na progu kariery, pełności życia osobistego we własnym kraju, poznania miłości – ale zamiast tego następne 6 lat to lata wojny i całkowitego poświęcenia się sprawie odzyskania niepodległości – to konspiracja, to służba w podziemnym radio Polski Walczącej – to wspólna praca z mężem Stefanem, kierownikiem Walki Cywilnej Polski Walczącej.

Miłość ządająca ofiary – to dzień po dniu, godzina po godzinie, narażanie własnego życia w służbie dla Polski – to straty sobie bliskich – to niepokój o swoich najbliższych, i o siebie samego, mając jednocześnie świadomość, że areszt to nie tylko śmierć, ale wpierw okrutne tortury by wymusić zdradę tajemnic Polski Walczącej.

Ale również i chwile uniesienia i nawet euforii – wielki zryw Powstania Warszawskiego.

Chorągwie biało-czerwone znów nad Warszawą – zbrojne wystapienie AK – młodzież z bronią tylko ręczną szturmuje bunkry okupanta.

Ale po dwóch krwawych miesiącach znowu klęska – Powstanie samotne, opuszczone, i zdradzone – wygasa.

I nowa okupacja ze Wschodu. I znów poniżenie i przemoc – sąd w Moskwie porwanych dowodców Polski Walczącej.

A potem – walka prawie że samotna, nawet kompromisowa, o uratowanie choćby częsci niepodległości w zniszczonej Polsce – i wkrótce by uniknąć śmierci w kazamatach UB, jeszcze większa ofiara miłości – przymusowa emigracja Zofii i Stefana Korbońskich – zdala od kraju, ale zawsze duchem w kraju.

Zagranicą – praca trwała i ciężka, o niepodleglość i o wolność dla Polski – przez kilkadziesiąt lat – walka wymagająca poświęcenia i cierpliwosci oraz i głębokiej wiary – ale poświęcenie, cierpliwość, i wiara – to są cechy prawdziwie trwałej miłości.

Każdy kto znał Zofię Korbońską wie z jakim oddaniem, a jednoczesnie z osobistą skromnością i wybitną mądrością polityczną, ona tej wielkiej sprawie niezłomnie służyła – aż do samego końca.

I – dzięki Bogu – dożyła chwili wielkiego zwycięstwa, odzyskania wolności i niepodległości przez naród, który przetrwal bo był przesiągnięty tradycją i duchem AK – Polski Walczacej – Polski Podziemnej, i na emigracji, Polski suwerennej – Polski pokolenia Zofii Korbońskiej.

Naród zwyciężył bo był wierny zasadzie, że milość żąda ofiary.
Ale jednocześnie Solidarność wygrała bo była świadoma, że miłość również wymaga rozwagi.

Odwaga historyczna i rozwaga strategiczna – to była myśl przewodnia narodu zjednoczonego w solidarności – że zwycięstwo bezkrwawe może być jeszcze większym triumfem niż zwycięstwo krwawo wywalczone.

Zofia Korbońska – bohatersko odważna w walce, rozważna na politycznej emigracji – była przykładem na czym polega oddana i udana służba w wielkiej sprawie.

I dlatego też mamy prawo oczekiwać szczególnie od rodaków w kraju –w znów wolnej Polsce dziś żyjących, w Polsce która jest sojusznikiem Stanow Zjednoczonych i integralną częścią jednoczącej się Europy – że swą kulturą polityczną i umiarem w demokratycznym rządzeniu udowodnią, że są godnymi następcami pokolenia Zofii Korbonskiej.

Pokolenia, które pokazało, w najtrudniejszych latach w historii Polski, że bezgraniczna miłość dla kraju może być jednocześnie mądra i zwycięska.

View Dr. Brzezinski’s speech as Word document

View Dr. Brzezinski’s speech as PDF document

Photo of Zofia Korbonska’s interment at the Cemetery at the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, on Saturday Sept. 11, 2010 was provided by Marek Walicki. Zofia Korbonska was burried next to her husband, Stefan Korbonski, who was the Polish Government-in-Exile’s delegate and director of the Directorate of Civil Resistance, which coordinated non-military resistance efforts by the Polish populace against the German occupying forces.

LIPIEN: Remembering a Polish-American patriot

Zofia Korbonska was underground resister, VOA journalist

To those who knew her personally, Zofia Korbonska was a loyal and generous friend. But Mrs. Korbonska, who passed away last week [August 16, 2010] in Washington at the age of 95, was also a heroic figure of the anti-Nazi and anti-Communist resistance movement in Poland between 1939 and 1947. In later years, driven from her native country by the socialist regime, she worked tirelessly in the United States as a Voice of America (VOA) journalist to bring uncensored news to her native country. Read more

In lieu of flowers, tax-deductible donations may be sent to the Stefan Korbonski Foundation, promoter of publications about the recent history of Poland.

Stefan Korbonski Foundation

c/o Ted Mirecki
4041 41st St. N.
McLean, VA 22101

###

From Ted Lipien’s book Wojtyla’s Women:

I also want to pay tribute to [...] Ms. Zofia Korbońska, a remarkable woman who was my colleague at VOA and [...] a great admirer of John Paul II and his message in defense of human rights and families. During WWII she risked her life on a daily basis broadcasting news and information from an underground radio station in Nazi-occupied Poland. Her late husband, Stefan Korboński, was the last civilian head of the underground wartime government in Poland. After the war, both of them had to flee their country to avoid arrest by the communist secret police. — Ted Lipien

Office of the Spokesman
Krakow, Poland
July 3, 2010

The following is a Joint Statement by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski following their bilateral meeting in Krakow, Poland on July 3, 2010.

Begin text:

Through our active participation in the Community of Democracies High-Level Event, the Governments of the United States and Poland recommit to strengthening civil society and promoting good governance and democracy around the globe. It is appropriate that we have returned to Poland to renew our pledge to the Community of Democracies’ principles. It is here where former Polish Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek and United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright championed the adoption of the 2000 Warsaw Declaration launching this organization. U.S. and Polish leadership on democracy promotion is a pillar of our relationship; a natural pairing of two countries that have made great sacrifices for their own freedom and that of others. We recognize that the world is a safer, more stable and more prosperous place when our international partners respect the will of their own people.
In the spirit of that goal, we are pleased the United States intends, subject to Congressional authorization and appropriation, to contribute $15 million to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation over a period of five years in order to safeguard that camp and educate future generations so that its atrocities may never be repeated.

Today our governments signed a Protocol amending the 2008 Ballistic Missile Defense Agreement. This agreement marks an important step in our countries’ efforts to protect our NATO allies from the threat posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. This is the first agreement that implements the U.S. European-based Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) for ballistic missile defense and enables the stationing of a U.S. land-based SM-3 missile defense interceptor system in the Republic of Poland.

Following our agreement last April for high-level discussions on energy security, today we agreed that the Republic of Poland would join with the United States in the Global Shale Gas Initiative (GSGI). Through the GSGI, Poland and the United States will expand our cooperation to promote environmentally-sound shale gas development in the context of a global forum of selected countries worldwide. We look forward to continuing high-level cooperation on energy, including through a high-level Civil Nuclear Policy Mission to Warsaw later this month.

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All of these decisions were public diplomacy disasters. So here is a short history lesson, which the White House could have used before issuing the joint statement on the Elbe River anniversary and may want to consult before making future decisions on relations with Poland and other Central European allies who have sent troops to fight and die alongside American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Hitler-Stalin pact and the Nazi and Soviet invasions of Poland in 1939 helped to start World War II. President Roosevelt rewarded the Soviet Union for fighting Moscow’s former ally Hitler by giving Russia control over Poland and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe for almost the next half a century.

Before Yalta and while Stalin was still Hitler’s ally, he gave orders to murder more than 20,000 Polish POWs, mostly military officers. Many of them were executed at Katyn, where President Kaczynski’s plane crashed. Starting with Roosevelt, the White House and the State Department have for decades tried to cover up the Kremlin’s responsibility for the murders of Polish POWs, as did successive Soviet governments.

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release April 25, 2010

Joint Statement by the Presidents of the United States of America and the Russian Federation Commemorating the 65th Anniversary of the Meeting of Soviet and American Troops at the Elbe River

April 25, 2010 marks the 65th anniversary of the legendary meeting of Soviet and American troops at the Elbe River, which became a striking symbol of the brotherhood-in-arms between our nations during World War II.

We pay tribute to the courage of those who fought together to liberate Europe from fascism. Their heroic feat will forever remain in the grateful memory of mankind.

The atmosphere of mutual trust and shared commitment to victory, which accompanied the historic handshake at the Elbe, is especially called for today when Russia and the United States are building a partnership for the sake of a stable and prosperous world. We are convinced that, acting in the “spirit of the Elbe” on an equitable and constructive basis, we can successfully tackle any tasks facing our nations and effectively deal with the challenges of the new millennium.

President Obama may very well kiss the Polish American vote good bye after committing yet another public diplomacy blunder which gave Vice President Biden, U.S. Ambassador to Poland Lee A. Feinstein and some Congressional Democrats plenty of reasons to be pulling their hair out in utter frustration over his insensitive behavior toward an important U.S. ally.

Biden and Feinstein, who have a much greater appreciation of history and diplomatic protocol than the President, had pushed hard to get him to agree to attend Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s state funeral in Krakow last Sunday. They briefly succeeded in their efforts but then the cloud of ash from the Icelandic volcano disrupted international air travel in Europe. Obama may have had a reasonable explanation for cancelling his plane trip due to the ash cloud in the atmosphere. But in a display of unheard of diplomatic insensitivity, he allowed himself to be photographed playing golf on the same day as the Polish President’s body was being buried at the Wawel Castle in Krakow.

By his actions last Sunday, Obama created a public diplomacy disaster for America in Poland and among the Polish American electorate. Meanwhile, Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev, who had flown by plane from Moscow to attend the funeral, showed that he and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin can be real masters in shaping public opinion in a situation that could have had very bad repercussions for Russia and Russian-Polish relations. If anything, the death of President Kaczynski and other Polish leaders in Russia in the plane crash near Katyn, the place where Stalin’s secret police murdered thousands of Polish military officers during World War II, led to the strengthening of Polish-Russian ties due to outstanding public relations moves by both Putin and Medvedev.

This was not the first U.S. public diplomacy blunder vis-a-vis Poland since the Obama administration took office. Last September, President Obama deprived Poland of the U.S. missile defense system which the Polish government saw as the only effective military guarantee of America’s commitment to defend their country’s sovereignty against threats from Russia’s autocratic leaders. Obama announced his decision on September 17, the anniversary of Poland’s invasion by the Soviet Union in 1939 under the terms of Stalin’s secret agreement with Hitler which led to the division of the country between the two dictators.

It’s likely that the timing of the White House missile shield announcement was influenced by clever diplomatic suggestions from the Russian Foreign Ministry. Obama’s goal was to get Moscow to help him in dealing with Iran — help which he has not received and is not likely to get — and to sign the new arms control agreement with the Kremlin.

The arms agreement was indeed signed recently by President Obama and President Medvedev in Prague, the Czech Republic. But from the public diplomacy perspective, it was a very curious choice of a location for the U.S.-Russian arms control summit. By bringing the two leaders to Prague, the Russians managed to send a subtle signal, and perhaps a warning, to East and Central Europeans that the United States does not have a very long historical memory about the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The subtle message from the Kremlin was that just as it happened at the end of World War II, Russia and the U.S. can always find common ground at the expense of the defense and security needs of Eastern and Central Europe.

Many Poles interpret Obama’s actions as a further proof that he knows little about Poland’s history and even less about public diplomacy. While French President Sarkozy and German Chancellor Merkel also cancelled their plane trips to Poland, they did not participate in any public entertainment or sports events on the day of President Kaczynski’s funeral.

Assuming there were good safety reason for not making a plane trip to Poland, there were other options available to President Obama. He could have attended a special memorial mass at a Polish American church or visited the Polish Embassy in Washington. He did not, and one wonders whether public diplomacy experts at the White House, the State Department or the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw have made any recommendations. Even if the President of the United States lacks the necessary knowledge of history and diplomacy because of the poor level of education in American schools, there should have been at least one highly paid U.S. government bureaucrat to issue a warning to the President or his White House staff. Perhaps someone did and was ignored. We simply don’t know at this point. President Bush, who like Obama had also received poor education in world history, at least knew — or perhaps someone on his staff had told him — that it would not be a good idea after 9/11 to play golf while American soldiers are being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The terrible political and diplomatic damage from Obama’s insensitivity toward Poland, Israel and other U.S. allies has been done and cannot be easily reversed. When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt betrayed Poland during World War II, just before the 1944 presidential elections he had himself photographed with Polish American leaders in front of the map of Poland showing the country’s eastern frontier lands which he had already secretly promised to Stalin in exchange for the Soviet dictator’s vague promise to help with the war with Japan — the help that Stalin could not and would not give if it did not serve his own interests and that was not needed.

It’s doubtful that the Polish Americans can be fooled again, especially since the Obama White House and President Obama himself lack FDR’s sophistication in manipulating public opinion, although they certainly share his naive trust in Russia’s autocratic leaders. In fact, Obama is being manipulated by Putin and Medvedev. They are far more clever and sophisticated than the U.S. President when it comes to the knowledge and political use of history, public diplomacy and public opinion. The late President Kaczynski understood President Obama’s weak grasp of history. Shortly after the White House announced its decision to pull the missile defense system from Poland, the Polish President sat next to President Barack Obama 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.”

As a result of the Kremlin’s brilliant public relations strategy and Obama’s failure to grasp the importance of historical symbolism, Poland and Russia may develop closer ties while U.S.-Polish relations will weaken. While there is nothing wrong with Poland and Russia getting along better, Poland should not be forced to make painful and unnecessary compromises with the Kremlin simply because the U.S. has a president with a naive worldview reminiscent of Franklin Roosevelt’s assessment of Stalin.

See the link below how the Polish media has reacted to President Obama’s faux pas.

Warsaw Business Journal – Online Portal – wbj.pl

Further comment from TedLipien.com:

Polish media was upset not so much by Obama’s decision not to fly to Poland for President Kaczynski’s funeral as by his choice of using free time Sunday, the day of the funeral, to play golf. This was yet another public diplomacy disaster for Obama in Poland. Russia’s President Medvedev flew by plane to Poland to attend the funeral. Last year President Obama announced his decision to remove the planned U.S. missile defense system in Poland on the anniversary of the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland.

The White House Blog

The President’s Statement on Poland

Posted by Jesse Lee on April 17, 2010 at 03:18 PM EDT
The President releases a statement on his regret that he cannot make it to Poland:

I spoke with acting President Komorowski and told him that I regret that I will not be able to make it to Poland due to the volcanic ash that is disrupting air travel over Europe. Michelle and I continue to have the Polish people in our thoughts and prayers, and will support them in any way I can as they recover from this terrible tragedy. President Kaczynski was a patriot and close friend and ally of the United States, as were those who died alongside him, and the American people will never forget the lives they led.

Mr. Obama’s press secretary says he will travel to Krakow to express the depth of U.S. condolences to an important and trusted ally. More from VOA