TedLipien.com, Truckee, CA, December 17, 2010 — The START treaty must be very good for Russia if Prime Minister Putin felt it necessary to disavow a reported statement given earlier to the media by an unitentified Kremlin official who suggested that an assassin or assassins may have been dispatched to the U.S. to kill a former Russian spy suspected of betraying a group of sleeper Russian agents. The earlier story, although not reported widely by mainstream U.S.media, was not good public relations and public diplomacy since it implied the Kremlin’s intention to violate U.S. laws on American soil. He may have been advised to issue a denial to help win the approval for the START treaty in the U.S. Senate.
[quote_right]Poland! Poland! The very name carries with it sighings and groanings, nation-murder; brilliance, beauty, patriotism, splendors, self-sacrifice through generations of gallant men and exquisite women; indomitable endurance of bands of noble people carrying through world-wide exile the sacred fire of wrath against the oppressor, and uttering in every clime a cry of appeal to Humanity to rescue Poland.[/quote_right] [quote_left]But Holy…
Poland, Public Diplomacy, Russia
Leaked U.S. Embassy Warsaw Cables – Obama to the Poles: Have some Patriot missiles that don’t work to protect you from Russia
Obama to the Poles: Have some Patriot missiles that don’t work to protect you from Russia
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 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
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.
International Broadcasting, Public Diplomacy
Czech Court Rules RFE/RL Cannot Discriminate Against Its Own Foreign Journalists
FreeMediaOnline.org Truckee, CA, USA, December 02, 2010 — A court in the Czech Republic has ruled that a former Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Armenian broadcaster Anna Karapetian should not have been fired using RFE/RL’s personnel procedures which deprive non-American and non-Czech employees of some of the protections of Czech labor laws. [quote_right]Czech senator Jaromir Stetina, deputy Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, called discrimination of RFE/RL foreign employees “patently indecent, unfair, cynical and hypocritical.”[/quote_right] RFE/RL is a semi-private entity funded and managed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a U.S. government agency.
Russia
Window on Eurasia: Russia’s Future Could Easily Be like China’s Past, Modernization Expert Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, December 1 – The Russian Federation is unlikely to be dismembered or partially absorbed by other countries, an expert on modernization says, but it could lose its economic sovereignty in much the same way that 19th century China did, a country that was not colonized but rather subject to unequal treaties in which foreigners had extraterritorial rights.
While U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates claims Russian Prime Minister Putin had told him Iran was Russia’s greater threat, in a meeting with American security experts, Evgeny Zudin of the Russian Ministry of Defense gave detailed presentations on the Russian assessment of the Iranian and North Korean missile programs, and the degree to which Russia believes these programs constitute threats requiring missile defense responses. Evgeny Zudin said that for Russia, the bottom line is that, in essence, neither program constitutes a threat at the moment or in the near future.
The leaked State Department cables reveal the Kremlin’s pressure on various countries not to support international resolutions condemning the Soviet-engineered famine in Ukraine. See the U.S. Embassy Moscow cable on the visit to Russia of Israeli FM Lieberman and the visit to Bishkek of UK’s Prince Andrew.
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.
Poland, Public Diplomacy, Russia
Announcement about sending Russian killers to the U.S. is a sign of the Kremlin’s contempt for Obama
Update: President Obama has so much invested in the “reset” of relations with Russia (read: Medvedev and Putin) that he can’t bring himself to condemn this public rebuke from the Kremlin and a flagrant challenge to him, U.S. laws and sovereignty.
Update: The results of the mid-term elections have shown that American voters have had a chance to evaluate President Obama and have strongly rejected his leadership. While economic and other domestic issues played a major role, it was also a vote of no confidence in his foreign policy.
Audio, Cold War, Glos Ameryki, International Broadcasting, Photos, Poland, Public Diplomacy, Radio, Religion, VOA
“Hunger for God and Love” – Interview with Cardinal Karol Wojtyła
The radio interview, recorded and first broadcast by the Voice of America (VOA) in 1976, was rebroadcast by VOA’s Polish Service on October 16, 1978, after the news of Cardinal Karol Wojtyła’s election as the new pope had been announced at the Vatican. Today is the 32 anniversary of the election of Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II.
Short Version
Full Version
Poland, Public Diplomacy, Russia
Reposting from Sept. 16, 2009: September 17 could be a new date in US-Polish relations
On the 71 anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland, we are republishing our Sept. 16, 2009 blog post, in which we asked the Obama Administration to consider the significance of the 1939 division of Poland by Hitler and Stalin before making the White House announcement on the cancelation of the ballistic missile defense (BMD) system in Poland: “September 17 could be a new date in US-Polish relations”