Zitat:Obama the Gambler
Betting That Machismo Is Not Foreign Policy

At his United Nations debut, Barack Obama urged global cooperation to combat nuclear proliferation, climate change and other problems that go beyond the borders of any one country. The speech was well received around the world, except in one place -- America's right-wing netherworld, which quickly began whipping people into a frenzy. For Michelle Malkin, the speech was evidence that Obama was "the great appeaser," though she went on to say, "From the sound of it, you'd think you were listening to Thomas Jefferson." (That's bad?) For Rush Limbaugh, Obama's speech was "basically a coup against America." At the National Review's Web site, a debate -- an entirely serious debate among serious people -- broke out as to whether the speech proved that Obama actually wanted the world's tyrants to win, in the tradition of past intellectuals who admired Mussolini and Hitler. This is the discourse of American conservatism today: Obama is bad because he loves "death panels" and Hitler.

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But while much of that is true, the United Nations is the only organization in the world to which all countries belong. As such it does have considerable legitimacy. And that means power. As David Bosco points out in Foreign Policy magazine, over the past two decades the Security Council has authorized "more than a dozen peacekeeping missions, imposed sanctions or arms embargoes on 10 states, and created several war crimes tribunals to prosecute those responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity, including sitting heads of state." It's worth putting in the effort to shape its decisions.

Obama's speech was part of a calculated strategy. In sentiment it recalls Richard Nixon's line after losing the California governor's race in 1962: "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore." Obama was telling the world: The United States is willing to be cooperative, to rejoin international institutions, to adhere to treaties. But in return, other countries will have to help solve some of the world's common problems. You can't just kick us around anymore.
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Zitat:The Age of Nice, or Politics as Psychiatry

Will Obama's administration end up as a remake of Jimmy Carter’s? Carter started out with his own take on the “audacity of hope”: let’s lose our “inordinate fear of communism.” Toward the end of his term—the Soviets had just invaded Afghanistan—he recanted. “That action had made a more dramatic change” in his view of their true goals “than anything they have done in the previous time I have been in office.”

Two hundred and fifty days into his first term, it is now reasonably clear that Mr. Obama is heading in the same direction—if he continues to walk the road paved with good intentions. The man who knows better than most how to calculate and corral power at home, who beat the mighty Hillary machine and snipped away John McCain, does not seem to appreciate the game nations play. In that game, nice guys don’t win.

Take the most recent no-no. We could see it coming since the spring. Last week, Obama finally gave away the anti-Iran missile shield, to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic, for nothing. No wonder the Russians are cheering, as any rival of the United States would. A freebie is the loveliest gift in international politics.

The threat from Iran, Obama said, is still far, far away. And so is our capacity to counter it. So you wonder why the U.S. installed a missile shield in Fort Greely, Alaska, years ago to offset Russia’s offensive potential that is far more deadly than Iran’s will ever be. To scare away the bears, perhaps? And you then wonder why Obama wants to put such a porous shield out to sea, into the Mediterranean, for the missiles and radars are pretty much the same ones the Poles and the Czechs were supposed to host.

The answer is simple: The Russians don’t like it. Mind you, not because the U.S. missiles would have targeted their nuclear hardware. Nor were the Russians truly frightened, as their generals have been freely conceding over the years. The real reason comes straight out of International Politics 101. Eastern Europe is their turf and off-limits for the U.S. Add to this the oldest game in Russian-Soviet policy, which is to gain a veto over Western strategic choices. The United States denied them that veto for 40 years.

The U.S. deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Europe in the early 1950s, brought a rearmed West Germany into NATO in 1955, fielded Pershing and cruise missiles in Western Europe in the early 1980s, and brought former Soviet satrapies into the alliance during the 1990s, all against the fierce opposition of the Soviets and Russians. Every American president since Truman has defied Moscow’s attempt to dictate Western security choices. Obama just granted the Russians that veto power. Let’s hear a loud spasiba from Moscow, for we won’t hear much else.

Of course, the expectation is that the Russians will finally come around and play ball on Iran, that is, agree to severe sanctions, including the denial of a sophisticated air defense. “We don’t do (real) sanctions” has been Moscow’s mantra. Last week, President Medvedev did a bit of tantalizing when he said: “Sanctions rarely lead to productive results, but in some cases sanctions are inevitable” Nice but noncommittal. Why would the Russians reciprocate? First, they just got something for free. Second, Putin’s game is not cricket but rugby. In that contest, you collect allies against No. 1; you don’t play Friday to Obama’s Robinson Crusoe. Hence, Moscow has diluted every proposal for sanctions that the U.S. has ever tabled. Count on some motion but not on movement.......

Zitat:Poles indignant that U.S. altered missile-shield plans

Reporting from Warsaw - It hardly seems to matter anymore that Poles had long been leery of playing host to U.S. missile interceptors aimed at defending against long-range threats from Iran. Washington's decision to back out of the missile shield agreement forged by the Bush administration -- and opposed by Russia -- has evoked memories among Poles of Cold War helplessness, of being brushed aside as casualties of great power politics.

In Poland and among other members of the old Soviet bloc, the U.S. announcement played into a historical sense of uncertainty. Warsaw's political elite spoke of a visceral fear that the Obama administration is willing to sacrifice Central Europe in its eagerness to repair badly damaged relations with a resurgent Russia.

The indignation is partly fueled by bruised feelings over what many here describe as bungled American diplomacy in breaking the news to Warsaw. But there is also concern over the perception that the United States overhauled its defense strategy in part to appease Moscow. The Kremlin loudly opposed the Bush-era shield plan, viewing the presence of ground-based interceptors in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic as a strategic threat.

"It is time now for a mature look, stripped of illusions, at our possibilities and our future," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told Rzeczpospolita newspaper last week. "I think today we all know that if we are to look to somebody, we have to look to ourselves."

Washington says it is changing plans in response to new intelligence assessments about Iran's capabilities. But the Obama administration has undeniably been courting the Kremlin in hopes that Russia will ramp up pressure on Iran and North Korea, and cooperate with efforts to pacify Afghanistan. Days after the U.S. scrapped its plans for interceptors in Poland, Moscow signaled a willingness to take a slightly tougher line with Tehran.

The question of Russia's role in helping drive U.S. policy is a touchy one in this part of the world. It didn't help that the news broke on a date laden with symbolism for Poles -- the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland.

Nor was it reassuring that Polish officials seemed to be the last to hear about the change in plans.

"We heard first from the media," said Witold Waszczykowski, deputy head of Poland's national security bureau. Speculation that the missile shield plan would be dropped had been in the air since the U.S. presidential campaign. And yet, Waszczykowski said, Polish leaders were repeatedly reassured -- even days before a team of U.S. officials arrived to brief officials -- that no decision had been reached.

By the time U.S. officials were ready to discuss their decision, Prime Minister Donald Tusk was so furious he refused to take a midnight call from President Obama.

"Is it appeasement toward Russia? Is it pragmatism? Is it transactional?" Waszczykowski said. In a way, he said, it doesn't matter. The perception that Russia has shifted U.S. policy toward former bloc countries has dealt a blow to Poland's sense of security and pride.

U.S. officials say they are bewildered at the Polish reaction, and argue that a missile shield hasn't been abandoned, but will be altered to defend first against short- and medium-range missiles that require sea-based interceptors. Negotiations continue over possible deployment of Standard Missile-3 interceptors and a Patriot missile battery to Poland.

"It's not appropriate for me, as American ambassador, to say the people I work for didn't do something appropriately. And I'm not going to say that," said Victor Ashe, outgoing U.S. ambassador to Poland. "What happened happened."

Beneath the angry headlines and crackling talk shows lurks the question of how Poland should position itself at a time when the U.S. is reaching out to "reset" relations with Moscow.

Poles tend to regard Russia as a dormant geopolitical volcano, a source of past hardship and likely harbinger of another, eventual blow.

"People don't understand. They say it's a phobia, and it is a phobia, but it's a phobia based on experience," said Zbigniew Lewicki, head of American Studies at Warsaw University. "Nobody is worried that Russian soldiers will come marching now, but in 10 years, in 20 years? Russia wants to dominate the world as much as possible, and they have not given up on this part of the world. They still think it belongs to them."

That brand of sentiment found a more sympathetic ear in Washington during the Bush years. It was at that time that then-President Vladimir Putin began to systematically shut down Russia's fledgling democracy and speak nostalgically of the Soviet Union. The U.S. in turn enraged Moscow by encouraging pro-Western leaders in former Soviet states.

As neo-Cold War tensions flared, countries such as Poland and the Baltic states relished the realization that they'd crossed to the other side of a fault line. They were members of the EU and NATO. Fear and loathing of Moscow found common cause with hawkish members of the Bush administration, who advocated a kind of quieter containment of resurgent Russian power.

But that order is gone now. Obama appears to take a less ideological and more pragmatic approach to international affairs than his predecessor -- and needs all the help he can get with strategic woes from Iran to Afghanistan.

As Obama visited Moscow during the summer and spoke warmly to Russians of rebuilding damaged relations, Poles waited to hear where they stood. In Warsaw, they pressed State Department officials for answers. "We were pushing: 'It looks like you made a deal,' " Waszczykowski said. "They said, 'No, it's not the case.' The message was, we have to wait."...........

Zitat:USA: Israel muss Kriegsverbrechen-Vorwürfe prüfen

Genf (Reuters) - Die USA haben Israel aufgefordert, Ermittlungen zu mutmaßlichen Kriegsverbrechen im jüngsten Gaza-Konflikt aufzunehmen.

Derartige Untersuchungen könnten eine wichtige vertrauensbildende Maßnahme im Friedensprozess sein, sagte der Staatssekretär im US-Außenministerium, Michael Posner, am Dienstag in Genf. Von der radikal-islamischen Hamas verlangte er ebenfalls Untersuchungen zu mutmaßlichen Verbrechen während des Konflikts zum Jahreswechsel. Zudem müssten die Islamisten aufhören, israelische Zivilisten ins Visier zu nehmen und Palästinenser als menschliche Schutzschilde zu missbrauchen. sagte Posner.

Zitat: Von der radikal-islamischen Hamas verlangte er ebenfalls Untersuchungen zu mutmaßlichen Verbrechen während des Konflikts zum Jahreswechsel.

Zitat:Neue Zeitrechnung für die Internetverwaltung

Neue Zeitrechnung für die Internetverwaltung Die US-Regierung lockert ihre Kontrolle über die Netzverwaltungsorganisation ICANN. Eine neues Abkommen regelt die Koordination der Internetverwaltung durch verschiedene Interessengruppen.
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Zitat:Je weniger Leute am Internet rumpfuschen, desto besser. Abgesehen davon würden meiner Einschätzung nach einige größere Staaten sich einfach sich aus dem heutigen Raum zurückziehen und ihre eigenen Adressräume aufmachen, wenn die US-Regierung weiter den Daumen auf den wichtigsten Teilen drauf hat. Die meisten Staaten sähen es lieber, wenn die Top-Level-Domain- und IP-Adressen-Verwaltung nicht von einer Regierung kontrolliert würde.

Siehe auch wiki: (deutsche ist aktueller)

Zitat:Chicago und Tokio scheitern mit Olympia-Bewerbung

Peinliche Schlappe für Barack Obama: Seine Heimatstadt Chicago ist bei der Wahl des Olympia-Standortes 2016 schon im ersten Durchgang ausgeschieden - obwohl sich der US-Präsident persönlich für sie stark machte. Auch Tokio ist gescheitert. Im Rennen sind nun noch Madrid und Rio de Janeiro.

revan schrieb:Ich sag es mal so, ich war biss her mit der ICANN zufrieden, wie weniger der US Staat auf sie Einfluss hat desto stärker wird der Einfluss von Antidemokratischen Gruppen oder von Privaten interessensgruppen. Also wenn die Rot Kommunisten oder die Russischen Autokraten plötzlich Einfluss bekommen würden würde mir ein Klater Schauer den Rücken runter laufen wenn du verstehst.

Zitat:Geht mir ähnlich, aber die von dir genannten Gruppen sind momentan soweit davon entfernt, dass die Gefahr eines regionalisieren Internets um einiges größer ist, als dass es in falsche Hände fällt.

Zitat:http://www.spiegel.de/sport/sonst/0,1518,652913,00.html
Zu dieser hochnotpeinlichen Aktion bleibt dann wohl nur noch zu sagen:
FAIL

Zitat:Entscheidung zu Insassen von Guantánamo

US-Repräsenantenhaus durchkreuzt Obamas Pläne

Das US-Repräsentantenhaus hat eine Überstellung von Gefangenen aus dem Lager Guantánamo auf Kuba in Haftanstalten in den Vereinigten Staaten mit großer Mehrheit abgelehnt. Für die Vorlage des republikanischen Abgeordneten Harold Rogers stimmten 258 Abgeordnete. Die entsprechende Passage in einem Gesetzentwurf für den Haushalt des Heimatschutzministeriums wurde von 88 Demokraten sowie von fast allen Republikanern unterstützt.

Zitat:....Einer Umfrage vom Juni zufolge lehnt eine Mehrheit der Amerikaner die Schließung von Guantánamo ab.