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. Read more…
The White House announced that President Obama will meet with Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski in Washington on Wednesday, December 8. Opinia.US reported that President Komorowski’s controversial decision to invite former communist military dictator General Jaruzelski Read more…
Opinia.US Truckee, CA, December 5, 2010 — A newly disclosed secret cable to the State Department in Washington shows that American diplomats in Moscow sometimes fall for Russian media disinformation and pass it on without questioning while adding their own pro-Kremlin commentary. Most diplomatic cables from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, which have been released so far by WikiLeaks, seem, however, far more sceptical and critical of the Kremlin.
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by Ted Lipien
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. Read more…
Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — An article in the U.S. semi-official military newspaper Stars and Stripes suggests that the Obama administration’s plan for placing a limited number of Patriot missiles in Poland has no military significance and is being implemented largely for diplomatic reasons to appease Warsaw after President Obama scrapped President Bush’s far more ambitious anti-ballistic missile defense system.
Stars and Stripes is published by the Pentagon but maintains editorial independence. The Obama administration, eager to get Russia’s cooperation in dealing with Iran, is putting out several conflicting public relations messages. After cancelling the Bush anti-ballistic missile defense plan in an effort to appease Russia, it wants to appease Poland and other Central European nations by promoting a militarily insignificant Patriot missile placement. At the same time, the U.S. administration also wants to send a signal to Russia that the Patriot system to be placed in Poland has little military value and will not lead to a large number of U.S. soldiers being stationed in Poland.
Governments in Central Europe are concerned by President Obama’s concessions to Moscow at the expense of U.S. allies in the region and his unwillingness to criticize the Kremlin for its authoritarian policies at home and aggressive behavior toward Russia’s neighbors. There was no public protest from the Obama administration when Russia recently staged the largest military exercises near Poland’s eastern border in the last 20 years. Russian troops practiced simulated attacks on Poland. According to unconfirmed Polish media reports, use of nuclear weapons was part of the exercise.
The Poles believe that President Obama’s foreign policy goals in dealing with countries like Russia, Iran and Cuba are based on naive assumptions. They also realize that the proposed Patriot system is of little military value to them but want a larger number of U.S. soldiers to be stationed in Poland as an extra guarantee of U.S. commitment to protect its ally against Russia. That number is not expected to be large but will be greater than the contingent of six American soldiers who are currently stationed in Poland.
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Read the Stars and Stripes article by Nancy Montgomery:
Critics call Poland Patriot missile plan a symbolic gesture
Germany-based unit is likely to be sent as early as the spring
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, November 26, 2009
HEIDELBERG, Germany — Soldiers from U.S. Army Europe’s Patriot missile battalion could be deploying to Poland as soon as the spring for a six-month rotation as part of the Obama administration’s new missile defense plan in Eastern Europe.
But critics say the Patriot deployment — the first to put U.S. troops in Poland — is nothing more than a symbolic, diplomatic gesture. READ MORE
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Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — U.S. media has not yet picked up on the latest diplomatic controversy between Poland and the U.S. But the public disagreement between president Obama’s new ambassador in Warsaw Lee A. Feinstein and the Polish defense minister over plans to send additional Polish troops to Afghanistan is drawing media attention in Poland.
Ambassador Feinstein made a public statement, in which thanked the Polish government for planning to enlarge its military contingent in Afghanistan, but Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich has denied that a decision to increase Poland’s troop deployment in Afghanistan had been taken.
On Saturday, Ambassador Feinstein said on the TVN24 Polish television channel that Poland’s president and prime minister “declared that not only would they be keeping Polish soldiers in Afghanistan, but they would also enlarge the contingent. This is something for which we are very grateful.”
Speaking Monday morning at a press conference, Bogdan Klich denied such claims and suggested that Ambassador Feinstein may have been guilty of a diplomatic faux pas. Mr. Klich said “The ambassador committed a blunder, since neither the prime minister, nor the minister of foreign affairs, nor the minister of national defense made any declarations to the American side about an increase in the contingent. But, please remember that these are the ambassador’s first days at a new post.”
Picking up on the Polish defense minister’s comments, the English-language newspaper Krakow Post ran an online headline “U.S. Ambassador to Poland ‘Committed a Blunder’.” The Polish Radio’s International Service posted on its website a report under a more diplomatic headline “Confusion over Poland’s Afghan deployment deepens.”
Polish Radio quotes Mr. Klich as saying “There is no such decision, nor plans.” The Polish defense minister added that the contingent of 2,000 Polish soldiers in the Ghazni province in Afghanistan will not be enlarged unless it is absolutely necessary. He did confirm, however, that 200 soldiers would be going to Afghanistan to be held in strategic reserve in case of emergencies.
Responding to questions about Ambassador Feinstein’s comments, President Kaczynski’s office said that no detailed plans had been sent by the defense ministry on the issue of enlarging the Polish military contingent in Afghanistan, and that it was far too early to make such a decision.
Surprisingly, U.S. media, which has been lately reporting extensively on Afghanistan, has not yet picked up on this story. It was reported by the Chinese news agency Xinhua. A brief summary of the Xinhua report was placed on The USA Today website.
Whether other U.S. media outlets report on this story will become clearer on Tuesday. An earlier diplomatic blunder between Poland and the U.S. over President Obama’s announcement about the removal of the U.S. missile defense shield system from Poland and the Czech Republic, which he made on the day of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland at the beginning of WWII, received considerable U.S. media attention.
Media criticism may have forced President Obama to send Vice President Biden on a face-saving mission to Central Europe. During the visit, Mr. Biden made several strong comments in support of U.S. commitments to the defense of Poland and other Central European nations, which President Obama may now find difficult to ignore in his attempts to improve relations with Russia.
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Sourced from: Opinia.US
Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — Lee A. Feinstein, nowy ambasador Stanów Zjednoczonych w Polsce, przybył do Warszawy 13 października. Rozpoczyna on pracę w atmosferze poważnego kryzysu, wywołanego decyzją Prezydenta Obamy o wycofaniu z Polski antyrakietowej tarczy obronnej. Obawy i podejrzenia w Warszawie znacznie pogłębiło dyplomatyczne fiasko ogłoszenia decyzji 17 września, w 70-tą rocznicę inwazji ZSSR na Polskę.
Brak wystarczających konsultacji i wykonywane w środku nocy telefony Prezydenta Obamy do przywódców środkowoeuropejskich można uznać za dodatkowy dowód, że był to jednen z najbardziej niefortunnych błędów dyplomacji amerykańskiej w ostatnich latach.
Ambasador Feinstein ma przed sobą niełatwe zadanie naprawy stosunków polsko-amerykańskich. Jeszcze przed jego przyjazdem do Polski, w geście bezprecendensowej śmiałości jak na amerykańską placówkę dyplomatyczną, Ambasada Stanów Zjednoczonych w Warszawie przyznała w wiadomości opublikowanej po angielsku i po polsku na swej oficjalnej stronie internetowej, że zdaniem Polaków wybór “tak niezręcznej pory” — jak to określiła ambasada — na ogłoszenie decyzji Białego Domu o zmianie podjętego przez prezydenta Busha planu budowy tarczy antyrakietowej w Polsce świadczy o tym, że “Obama nie rozumie Polski.” Read more…
Opinia.US In a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday, Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) said he was disappointed in the manner in which President Obama’s decision to revise a missile-defense system in Eastern Europe was communicated to NATO allies, Poland and Czech Republic. Calling the handling of the missile decision a “major public relations and public diplomacy blunder,” Senator Voinovich said that announcing it on September 17, 2009, the day of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland, made it even worse.
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