President Obama announced his decision to scrap the U.S. missile defense system in Central Europe on September 17, 2009, the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. He then signed an arms control agreement with Russia in Prague, the prime site of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. On the day of the Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s funeral, he…
Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): The Obama administration’s new approach to foreign policy has been more successful overseas than at home, Spencer Ackerman contends. Dignity promotion, initially derided as an attempt to dilute the Bush administration’s commitment to promoting democracy, has helped shift ownership of democracy struggles from the U.S. See original here: Promoting dignity –…
TedLipien.com, SAN FRANCISCO — One group of U.S. Government employees that has not received much media scrutiny in the aftermath of the failed terrorist attack are U.S. diplomats who had issued and failed to cancel Mr. Abdulmutallab’s U.S. visa. U.S. Consular Officers at the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Robin R. Sanders, and Foreign Service…
TedLipien.com, SAN FRANCISCO — Bill Clinton might have asked what the “enhanced” definition of “to enhance” IS? The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw is busy blaming a Polish translator for mistranslating U.S. Ambassador Lee Feinstein’s TV interview answer about Polish troops in Afghanistan, which caused a diplomatic uproar in Poland. In an interview broadcast last Saturday, Ambassador Feinstein thanked Polish prime minister and…
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…
Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — It is not a good time for Poland in Washington and in U.S. media. The New York Times covered Vice President Biden’s visit to Warsaw from Berlin. It could have been worse; the report could have been filed from Moscow or the paper could have used a short AP story, as did The Washington Post, The…
SAN FRANCISCO — Sometimes really bad decisions produce some unintended good results. Two recent public diplomacy disasters caused by President Obama’s questionable judgement — where was Judith McHale and the State Department diplomats? — had some unexpected good consequences, as did the winning of the Nobel Peace Prize despite his lack of any concrete foreign policy accomplishments. Some of his recent…
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.”
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner would not receive at the White House the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who was on a visit this week to Washington. President Obama apparently wanted to avoid upsetting Chinese communist leaders before his official trip to China. Unwelcome at the White House at this time, (White…
The White House has added yet another to a series of recent public diplomacy disasters: not sending a high-level delegation to Poland for the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of WWII, announcing withdrawal of US missiles from Central Europe on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion, going to Copenhagen to address the IOC .
Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — Bloggers and Russian experts in the US have been trying to find out whether the Obama White House coordinated with the Kremlin the timing of the missile shield decision that deeply offended people in Poland and produced biting commentaries in the US. Speculations abound that Russian diplomats, working on instructions from propaganda experts within the Kremlin,…
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…
History is a harsh mistress when her lessons are neglected; and the world’s free peoples invite and incur her wrath each day this adolescent administration’s ideological fantasy of a ‘grand bargain’ with liberty’s enemies amounts to the fire sale of American security. Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) was one of many American commentators and politicians…
The interview with the outgoing US Ambassador to Poland Victor H. Ashe was conducted by a US Embassy Warsaw press attache on September 17, 2009, the day of President Obama’s announcement about discarding the American missile defense system in Poland and Czech Republic. The Polish government saw the missile shield as a major US security guarantee and protection against any…
“It wasn’t that the shield was that important, but it’s about the way, the way of treating us.” –Lech Wałęsa, the former Polish president and Solidarity leader, regarding the US decision to drop the missile defense shield in Poland; John Brown’s Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review, Version 2.0 Dear Poland, Happy Soviet Invasion Day, Love Uncle Sam…