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…
Poland, Public Diplomacy, Russia
Obama’s bad foreign policy decisions may have good unintended consequences for public discourse in the U.S.
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…
Cold War, History, Poland, Russia
Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane’s warning about naive idealism in foreign policy
SAN FRANCISCO — Arthur Bliss Lane (16 June 1894–12 August 1956) was the United States Ambassador to Poland (1944–1947). He served earlier as the U.S. Ambassador to the wartime Polish government-in-exile in London and was with the U.S. diplomatic mission in Poland in 1919. During the interwar period, he had a number of other diplomatic assignments in Western Europe and…
Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — Without naming Russia, Dr. Brzezinski said that an outside power is trying to undermine the electoral process in Ukraine before next year’s presidential elections. He concluded that a pro-Western Ukraine would be good for Russia. The interview was conducted by Myroslava Gongadze for the Voice of America Ukrainian Service. Koniec wiadomości/analizy Opinia.US. Można…
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.”
Ambassador Feinstein was nominated by President Obama on July 20, 2009 and was confirmed by unanimous consent by the U.S. Senate on September 22, 2009. As it came just two days before President Obama’s controversial announcement on removing the American missile shield from Poland, his confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 15, 2009 did not…
Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — Lee A. Feinstein, the new U.S. Ambassador to Poland, arrived in Warsaw on October 13, 2009. He faces a serious crisis in U.S.-Polish relations, precipitated by President Obama’s decision to remove the American missile shield from Poland. Warsaw’s fears and suspicions have been made far worse by the clumsy handling of the decision’s announcement on September 17, which coincided with the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland.
China, Cold War, Cuba, Digital Journal, Featured, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, Poland, Russia
Op-Ed: Obama should listen to fellow Nobel winners Dalai Lama and Walesa | Ted Lipien in Digital Journal
By Ted Lipien Published October 10, 2009 by Digital Journal Barred from the White House, the Dalai Lama, the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner sends Obama a letter with congratulations and some good advice, but his message may be ignored just like an earlier message from Lech Walesa, also a Nobel Prize laureate. This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner would…
Public Diplomacy
Barred from the White House, the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner sends Obama a letter with congratulations
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…
FreeMediaOnline.org, 
Free Media Online Blog, 
GovoritAmerika.us, October 9, 2009, San Francisco — Media in the Czech Republic, which have been critical of President Obama’s handling of the recent missile shield decision, have also been reporting on apparent discrepancies between words and actions of the new US administration when it comes to the treatment of foreign employees by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, BBG, a federal agency which manages the Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, RFE/RL. The US taxpayer-funded radio station and the BBG, its parent agency, deny foreign journalists working at RFE/RL in the Czech Republic the same labor law protections available to the station’s American and, to some degree, also its Czech employees.
Obama won’t meet Dalai Lama – another public diplomacy disaster 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…
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,…