Tag: Poland

Poland, Public Diplomacy, Russia

Leaked State Department Cables Show Obama and Gates Naive on Russia

by Ted Lipien

Opinia.USOpinia.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.

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Cold War, Poland, Russia

Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Speech (in Polish) at Funeral Mass for Zofia Korbonska

TedLipien.com, Truckee, CA — A funeral Mass for Zofia Korbonska, a heroine of the Polish underground resistance against Nazi occupation, participant in the Warsaw Rising of 1944, political activist against Communist rule after World War II, and former Voice of America (VOA) Polish Service broadcaster, was held at the Our Lady Queen of Poland Catholic Church in Silver Spring, MD on Friday, September 10, 2010. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Polish-American statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, spoke in Polish about Zofia Korbonska’s deep patriotism, extreme sacrifice, and political wisdom in her long struggle alongside her husband Stefan Korbonski to restore freedom and independence to their beloved Poland.

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Cold War, International Broadcasting, Poland, Russia

Zofia Korbonska’s Funeral

A funeral Mass for Zofia Korbonska, a heroine of the Polish underground resistance against Nazi occupation, participant in the Warsaw Rising of 1944, political activist against Communist rule after World War II, and former Voice of America (VOA) Polish Service broadcaster, was held at the Our Lady Queen of Poland Catholic Church in Silver Spring, MD on Friday, September 10, 2010. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Polish-American statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, spoke in Polish about Zofia Korbonska’s deep patriotism, extreme sacrifice, and political wisdom in her long struggle alongside her husband Stefan Korbonski to restore freedom and independence to their beloved Poland. View the text of Dr. Brzezinski’s speech in Polish

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History, Poland

Solidarnosc’s 30th Anniversary

Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): It was thirty years’ ago, on 31 August 1980, that strikers from Gdansk’s Lenin Shipyard forced the communist regime to recognize Solidarnosc as an independent trade union, release political prisoners, end media censorship and accept the right to strike. The regime later imposed martial law and Solidarity was forced underground before being…

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Poland, Russia

“The Katyn Problem in Contemporary Russia”

Professor Aleksandr Guryanov’s presentation [translated from Russian] from the Katyn observances at the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress, May 5, 2010. This is sent with permission of Professor Mark Kramer [translator] and the Harvard University Cold War Archives. It can be reprinted or reposted with acknowledgment. “The Katyn Problem in Contemporary Russia” Aleksandr Guryanov, “Memorial” Society Esteemed Mr. Chairman and Ladies and…

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Poland, Public Diplomacy, Russia

Obama Failed to Notice the Hitler-Stalin Pact but Remembers The Elbe Anniversary 

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…

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Poland, Russia

Obama Plays Golf After Skipping Polish President’s Funeral

Obama’s Public Diplomacy Katabasis in Poland 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…

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