What has the Kremlin drawn from the recently concluded NATO Summit in Bucharest? Among other things, Dmitry Kosyrev writes for Russia’s Novosti News Service:

“The Bucharest summit has shown that NATO - or Europe and the West in general, is in more difficulty that it at first appeared. … The well-concealed disagreements about the participation of NATO members in operations in Afghanistan demonstrate the failure of the military Alliance, and its ambiguous position as an accessory to the American war machine.”

And what, according to the Russians, is at the root of the problem? Kosyrev writes,
Read the rest of this entry »

What’s Europe’s perception of President Bush, now that he’s appearing at his last NATO Summit? From Le Figaro, France’s largest and most pro-American newspaper, comes this editorial. Written by Pierre Rousselin, the judgment of Bush’s legacy is a harsh one. Rousselin writes, “If the American president would take a sincere accounting of his actions, he would observe that he leaves a weakened Atlantic Alliance in military difficulty in Afghanistan, politically divided in the face of a more aggressive Russia, and ever-hesitant about its missions, its scope of activity and its raison d’être in the 21st century.”

Rousselin goes on to say, “Beyond the press releases glorifying painstaking compromise, the summit, which is to be followed on Friday by an unprecedented dialog with Vladimir Putin, highlights the lack of American “leadership” in the world at the end of a period marked by the Iraq War and the transatlantic crisis that it has unleashed. It is a sad result for a presidency that at its inception placed itself under the rubric of putting the use of force at the service of a conquering ideology.”

Editorial By Pierre Rousselin

Translated By Sandrine Ageorges

April 3, 2008

France - Le Figaro - Original Article (France)

The NATO summit in Bucharest is the final farewell of the allies to George W. Bush. If the American president would take a sincere accounting of his actions, he would observe that he leaves a weakened Atlantic Alliance in military difficulty in Afghanistan, politically divided in the face of a more aggressive Russia, and ever-hesitant about its missions, its scope of activity and its raison d’être in the 21st century.
Read the rest of this entry »

With Russia angry about America’s proposed missile shield and NATO in need of the Kremlin’s help in Afghanistan, will the NATO Alliance agree to admit the Ukraine and Georgia at the annual NATO Summit this week? According to Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza, NATO membership for these former Russian satellites depends on how hard President Bush wants to push the reluctant nations of old Europe, who question the wisdom of angering President Putin at this moment of global high-tension.

Jacek Pawlicki writes for Gazeta, “Diplomatic sources told Gazeta yesterday that U.S. pressure had been so strong that Germany had begun to hesitate. It’s possible Berlin will make its final position conditional on France’s stance. If Paris doesn’t say no, neither will Berlin.”

By Jacek Pawlicki

Translated By Marcin Wawrzy?czak

April 1, 2008

Poland - Gazeta Wyborcza - Original Article (Polish)

The chance that NATO will open its door to Ukraine and Georgia remains, although the door is unlikely to be opened as wide as Poland would like. At least not just yet.

What NATO offers Ukraine and Georgia at its Bucharest summit, which begins tomorrow, will be decided by the Alliance’s leaders at the last moment. As Gazeta has learned, in the communiqué now being prepared, the section concerning NATO’s future relationship with Kiev and Tbilisi has been left blank. Read the rest of this entry »

Polish perspectives are under-reported in the US mass media, but they are important because Poland is one of Europe’s bigger countries, is considered very Pro-American and was seen as the primary “New Europe” country, a term that is less frequently used these days, but is still controversial. Over at the Atlantic Community, an online platform for transatlantic dialog, we have published quite a few interesting articles on US-Polish issues.

Marek Swierczynski, a journalist at the Polish TV channel TVP, reflects on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war:

Poland’s decision to join the “coalition of the willing” has left the military stretched beyond capacity, the society in serious mistrust of their leaders and perception of a joint effort for a good cause seriously damaged. It took 25 lives 5 years and 3 governments to rethink and withdraw.

Ryan R. Miller of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington, DC. writes about Poland’s Iran Option:

Possible Polish-Iranian energy cooperation puts U.S. policy makers between a rock and a hard place, as America finds itself committed both to isolating the Islamic Republic and supporting Polish efforts to outflank Russia’s Gazprom.

Wess Mitchell, who is the Director of Research at CEPA, outlines recent developments between the United States and Poland regarding the US missile defense program. He concludes that relations between Poland and Russia are likely to deteriorate and Tusk may have compromised himself by acting so decisively this early in his term: Missile Defense: Poland Has Less Room to Maneuver.

Anna Nadgrodkiewicz sums up contentious issues in Polish-American relations: Polish troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the necessity of easing visa requirements, and the proposed missile defense shield. See her article Managing Image and Expectations.

Marek Swierczynski sees NATO at a Crossroad in a second article:

Just before the NATO summit in Bucharest, the differences on what and how the Alliance should do in the future seem all but rising on both sides of the Atlantic. The Warsaw conference on NATO’s Transformation made fundamental divides clearly visible. (…) The new NATO members seem to live in a Neverland. Professor Kuzniar assessed that the Alliance is the only force of global reach and capabilities. Wrong. There is no such thing as NATO global capability. There is the US global capability and to be more precise it is one of the US Navy.

As has already been well-established, the level of global interest in America’s 2008 presidential race is unprecedented. In this analysis from Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza, Tomasz Lis sums up the revolutionary nature of this year’s candidates this way, “Obama has undoubtedly already revolutionalized American politics, and if he wins in November it may presage revolution on a global scale. … Even if Hillary doesn’t win, it won’t be because of her sex. So here again we are facing a revolution in the once testosterone-driven world of American politics. … A John McCain victory would also be a breakthrough: A politician who speaks his mind openly and, seemingly naively, supports an absolutely unpopular war, could become a President!”

By Tomasz Lis

Translated By Halszka Czarnocka

February 7, 2008

Poland - Gazeta Wyborcza - Original Article (Polish)

After seven years of the George Bush administration, the United States has lost quite a bit of its sex appeal. But thanks to American politics and a fascinating presidential campaign, it is quickly regaining it. However it ends, the campaign has already shown that this time around, rules that have been in force for upwards of 230 years will soon be broken. It’s still a long way to the finish line, but one can already say that this campaign is eliminating the most obstinate barriers: those of skin color, sex and party doctrine. America wants a change, but a great change has already occurred.

Here we are dealing with a great horse race during which candidates have plenty of difficult obstacles to overcome. But the most treacherous have already been crossed. This campaign is like a beacon of hope for non-whites, women, and for those who took entering into one’s seventies as a signal to retire into an often unwanted withdrawal from active life.

In his Super Tuesday speech, Senator Barack Obama suggested with great conviction that “our time has come.” That remains to be seen, but Obama has undoubtedly already revolutionalized American politics, and if he wins in November it may presage revolution on a global scale.

America has had young presidents before (such as Theodore Roosevelt or John Kennedy) and inexperienced presidents (like Kennedy and Jimmy Carter), but it has never has a Black candidate, and a young, relatively inexperienced one to boot, who lacks the support of his own party establishment and had such a good chance of winning. It seems that someone who can embody CHANGE can actually bring change just by just trying.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign may give hope to many women, even those who consider Mrs. Clinton an embodiment of aggressive feminism.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Night of The Shattering Glass, otherwise known as Kristallnacht, took place November 9, 1938, marking to that date, the most widespread attack against Jews in peacetime Germany and Austria.

In France, two days prior, a 17 year old Jew had shot a German embassy staffer in retaliation for the egregious treatment of his father and family at the hands of Nazis in Germany.

Hitler seized on that event as opportunity to enact his long planned desire to destroy Jewish houses of worship and the Jews…. parnasah, their ability to make a living.

Thus, on that night, Hitler unleashed his most psychopathic and hate-gorged minions to loot and burn any and every Jewish community in Nazi territory. 267 synagogues were plundered of sacred Torah scrolls, the hand-built temples torched.

100 Jews were murdered whilst trying to defend family and property. 7500 Jewish shops were looted of valuables, left with every window shattered and all remaining fixtures despoiled and set afire.

The Nazi government said the Jews had brought this down upon their own heads, and ordered them to pay one billion marks for the murder of the Embassy staffer in Paris.

The Jews were also charged six million marks to pay for the Nazi’s destruction of their own shops.

Shortly afterward, 25,000 Jewish fathers, rabbis, brothers, sons, students, poets, farmers, sweethearts, and bridegrooms, were dragged from their families, farms, and off the streets.

They were forced to Nazi slave camps, never to be seen again. It was the commencement of an ancient evil, but on a new, relentless scale.

The Nazi plan: To extinguish entire cultural groups, but first to coerce them to become a wage-less workforce for the state’s purposes, until these innocents, unable to work any longer because of starvation and torture, were murdered where they lay.

Near Oswiecim Poland, the Nazis ordered more heatless barracks and factory halls built. Less than eighteen months after Kristallnacht, this death camp, called Auschwitz, was fully packed with blameless souls who were rendered into a river of blood. This flood of humanity was bled out day and night without cease for the next four years.

Kristallnacht stands as one of the central flashpoints… one so large that for those who had the eyes or heart to see it, it could be registered around the world. It was Kristallnacht that catalyzed the Nazi’s spreading stain across Europe and Russia.

The sick psychological ideas underlying the arsons of Kristallnacht leapt from dry mind to dry mind until the malicious ideas caught on that mental tinderwood in each man’s darkest mind, and there, broke into flame, fueling ever more death.

By 1938, Dachau had already been rendering human bones and blood for six years. Now were added six more houses of slaughter in Poland alone, including Auschwitz.

In the years prior, Hitler had ordered Germany’s doctors to euthanize tens of thousands of German children, Jews and non-Jews alike, who were in some way lame or halt, and that ‘operation’ was carried out in full, emptying sanitoriums and orphanages even as many German physicians protested vociferously.

But, death and disposal of ‘inconvenient humans’ had become not only the pattern of the collective unconscious of a nation, but an insatiable hunger. The legends of the vampire do not spring up from a soul being lost.

The oldest vampire legends spring up around those who have murdered, and thereby a ’switch has been thrown’ in them; they developed a blood lust to Read the rest of this entry »

(This is my first ‘pointer post’, at least I think that’s what it is. Going into my 7th month of blogging, I haven’t yet got all the tools and details down pat and under control yet…but here goes…)

…It’s a beautiful starry night tonight, no gusty winds, the magic carpet newly cleaned and brushed. We’ll just criss-cross the world for a little bit, just go wherever we see a shower of sparks below. Here, take the good seat. That’s right. Just hold on. Visibility is pretty good tonight. We’ll just taxi up to the carpet que. Oh!, we just got clearance. Hold on, hold on… we’re rolling, hold on, we’re up… up… and awaaaaaay….

Dont mind the birds, just duck if they fly too close. Look! Look down, we’re over Southeast Asia. They still have pirates. Yes! for reallies. And they also have the usual criminals and terrorists, everyone else has worldwide. But in all gravitas now, like the 2000 mile border between Canada and the US, and between the US and Mexico, there are thousands of miles of ocean without walls and without oversight there in the Asian Pacific… this allows the nefarious to go about their bad deeds… This from SouthEast Asia news:

When it comes to post-September 11 Asia-Pacific maritime security, the Strait of Malacca gets the lion’s share of attention. Lesser known, but teeming with transnational criminals, including terrorists, is the woefully porous “triborder sea” area between the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. Maritime security cooperation between the three is limited, and only Malaysia has anything resembling an effective naval force. Unless outside funds can bring them all up to speed, the scenario for disaster can only get worse.

Read more here by Ian Storey at Asia Times:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IJ18Ae01.html

On to Burma now. Observers there have an interesting take. You know, in the US, we sometimes think of Canada as the shoulders of the North American continent, and we tend to think of traveling cross country as a several weeks long journey. But in other parts of the world where relatively small nations have huge frontages on oceans and seas, they think not so much about traveling across terrain, but rather, negotiating across big water. While some ‘across the sea’ are calling George Bush’s interest in Burma by the code name, The Saffron Robe Revolution, …and regardless whether President Bush knows saffron yellow from sunflower yellow… apparently some in Asia think his only interest in Burma comes from wanting to have access to and control over the shipping lanes from the Persian Gulf to the China Sea. This article has an interesting plaint about the US ‘cooking up new democracies by color notation,” and puts President Bush and George Soros in the same bed together, which… no doubt would startle both men to find they are being scorned for much the same reasons.

The Myanmar military junta is on the hit list of the Bush administration for its repressive ways, we are told. Or does Washington have a more opaque agenda? Some not-so-publicized facts indicate that behind the latest US-orchestrated, color-coordinated effort at regime change (this one is called the “Saffron Revolution”, after the marching monks’ robes), a battle of major geopolitical consequence is under way.

See the article by F William Engdahl here:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IJ17Ae01.html


Flying over the countryside now that once used to be called Arabia, down there is a Christian woman telling about how something surely is wrong when the unholiest of aggressions and vigilante redresses of grievances occurs during the holiest month. She is speaking about a stepping up of persecution and murder of Christians in Gaza, and she is filled with passion: See that little box there on the corner of our magic carpet? Just open it and empty it over the side; it’s filled with strongest prayer for those who suffer so.

[I was] Shocked to see what is coming off the printing press is the photo of the recent tragic death announcement of 30-year-old Rami Ayyad in Gaza, a son, a husband, a father of two preschool sons and minority Christian worker in Gaza for the Bible Society. Kidnapped at 4 pm on Saturday, October 6, 2007 at his Bible Society office called “The Teacher Book Shop” he was returned dead early Sunday morning with a bullet to his head and shoulder, four knife wounds, and a deep slash to his forehead with what might have been a heavy duty wooden object which apparently tortured Rami prior to his death.

You can read what Mary Khoury wrote about this, here, in the Arabic Media Network:
http://www.amin.org/look/amin/en.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=7&NrArticle=42724&NrIssue=1&NrSection=3

We’re going to bank and head toward South America now. It is generally good to know that all across the world, others are dealing with core values and not monkeying around with mere intellectual frou-frou, as in Chile. Look down and you’ll see that there is a serious investigation going on about substandard fertilizer. And all this time we’ve been thinking ‘S happens’… exactly the same everywhere. But, oh no. No no no. Apparently not. It must have something to do with chronically malnourished cows or something. I wonder if there’s a market for Wheaties For Bovines. There’s got to be a cartoon in here somewhere: cows sitting around in their rockers discussing the quality of that day’s, um, waste materials…

“This is not an excuse either. We must improve the quality of our fertilizers, period,” the executive said.

You can read about what is actually a serious Ag issue, here at Business News from Santiago Chile:

http://www.bnamericas.com/story.jsp?sector=12&noticia=410445&idioma=I

And now, on to the Bay of Plenty, which as elsewhere, you can’t get any peace it seems, for there’s a terrorist under every set of bedsprings apparently, even in the most remote corners of Earth. The Maori, the aboriginal tribal group of New Zealand whose elders often still have acres of body tattoos in the ancient styles… are protesting being thought terrorists themselves. Their homes and camps have been raided by the military elite, and poignantly, one of the plaints which perhaps only tribal and deeply ethnic people would understand as a point of huge intrusion and shame to the soul of the community… is this: “He said heavily armed officers had searched school buses and arrested men in front of their children.” You can see a stark contrast too as we fly over, that the Maori are often poor and raggedly clothed people in contrast to the helmeted, sharply suited, armored and Kevlar vested military men who arrest them.

Police said yesterday that they had neutralised a militant group running secret military-style, weapons-training camps in rugged North Island bush. Media reports said that two hunters had alerted police to the presence of armed men in camouflage in the Ureweras after stumbling into their camp.More than 300 police stormed several camps and homes, making at least 15 arrests, including prominent campaigners from Maori sovereignty and environmental groups. The operation was continuing last night.

You can read more about their story here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4238903a8153.html

Ah, now, we fly over a land that takes a long time to fly over, for so huge is its terrain. And in one tiny corner of that land, well, look down, see? The Tawainese are saying that their president has boldly rejected China’s “conditional peace proposal,” rather baldly calling it ‘China’s idea not of peace, but of Taiwan’s surrender.’ Pretty stand up idea for such a tiny used-to-be sovereignty. China has pushed ‘the one China’ idea, whether it be Taiwan or Tibet. One of the best quotes by a Taiwanese about the Chinese negotiator: “”Hu is like a smiling tiger, hiding a dagger in a smile, with honey in his mouth but a sword at his stomach….”

You can read more here: http://www.taiwanheadlines.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=91894&ctNode=45

Well, it took some time to get to hovering over Ghana, but look… God bless Mrs. Anna. In Ghana, Mrs. Anna (Nyamekye) who is Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture has said everyone must go back to the era of “Operation Feed Yourself”… meaning a time when most every householder kept a backyard garden to grow nourishment for the famly. I love this quote: “Mrs Nyamekye was addressing community members of Kpone Bawaleshie in the Greater Accra Region.” And we thought it was hard to say AF of L & CIO, without stumbling. Looking at the world from an aerial view, we see that Western junk food is not the only concern in Ghana: “…we are moving away from our local diets that provided adequate nutrition to foreign ones that are posing as health threats …such as the sugary foods, fried rice and the like.” And then there’s Mr. Theophilus Osei Owusu, Municipal Director of Agriculture. What mellifluous names. You can read more about the warrioress, Mrs. Anna, here:

https://nii.com.gh/gh/index.html

And onward to Europe now. Maybe a “Dutch Only” amendment to the constitution, or perhaps bilingual education has come to call in Holland nowadays. Interestingly, The Netherlands and Ireland too, have experienced many Polish and other eastern European immigrants in the past many years. Sometimes you wonder if the entire world isn’t playing a horrible game of musical chairs; when the music stops, one country disappears… and an entire hoard of new refugees is turned loose… Immigrants might be refugees, but many migrating across Europe are presently fleeing social conditions rather than wars.

“Employers should teach Polish Staff Dutch: Integration minister Ella Vogelaar is to talk to employers about how they can help Polish and other eastern European staff learn Dutch. The increasing number of eastern European children at Dutch schools are performing badly because they have not learned Dutch, Vogelaar said. But she told MPs it was impossible to force eastern Europeans to take compulsory language lessons or parental guidance classes because they are EU citizens.”

As we travel the world, from our aerial port we can see that most everyone struggles with their own variations of the same challenges. Down there, in Papua New Guinea, they are establishing a school especially for drop outs. The report says; many have proposed this before but they have rarely been brought to fruition. There is an op ed that takes issue with the idea that government ought subsidize this process, saying bluntly: “…many governments have proved to be signally incompetent at running businesses. It’s equally true that business should not attempt to take over the role of government. …We don’t think it is simplistic to suggest that governments should govern while businesses do business.” The writer obviously could be an able commenter at TMV and fit right in.

You can read the entire opinion piece here: http://www.thenational.com.pg/101907/Editorial.htm

And now, as we fly on, Dateline: Turkey. And infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure, what did I tell you? As here in the US, also in Turkey, one disposes of the old ways at one’s own peril, for the new is often not as well built. “While modern suspension bridges built with state-of-the-art technology are not holding up as well as expected, many stone bridges built centuries ago have endured, challenging both nature and time… The earliest bridges consisted mainly of logs, cable ropes and stones. Bridges made of timber usually were built in forests and rope bridges in tropical regions. ” Except there’s a difference between Turkey’s bridges old and new, and those in the US. We cant quite attribute such august comments to our potholes and cracking pediments: “The collapse of Roman Empire caused stagnation in bridge construction.”

Ah, I see that our air time is up and we are nearing home once again. Hold on tight now, you’re safe with me, no foreseen turbulence ahead…it will be a gentle landing I believe. It was good to have you aboard; you flew like an angel, and I hope we will fly over the world together another time… because

Well, you don’t know what we can find
Why don’t you come with me little girl
On a magic carpet ride
You don’t know what we can see
Why don’t you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free
Close your eyes girl
Look inside girl
Let the sound take you away…

Steppenwolf

As some of you may know already, controversy is raging over a rather provocative image of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s breasts on the cover of a rather provocative Polish magazine, Wprost. Well, not just her breasts. Poland’s two leaders, the Kaczynski twins, are, well, feeding.

Whatever the controversy, the image, like other cover images at Wprost, amounts in my view to rather effective political satire. For more, and for the images (which I hesitate to post here at TMV), see my post at The Reaction.