[Kabar-indonesia] WP: Bush's Unpopularity in Europe Hangs Over Summit [+IHT; LATimes]

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

4 reports: 

- WP: Bush's Unpopularity in Europe Hangs Over Summit

- LATimes: Bush's Goals in Austria May Be Overshadowed
  [His agenda for the EU meeting is democracy, security and 
  prosperity, but public opposition to his Iraq policies and war 
  on terrorism is broad.]

- IHT: Human Rights: Where Is the U.S.?

- Accusations fly at new UN human rights forum

The Washington Post
Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Bush's Unpopularity in Europe Hangs Over Summit

By Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writer

VIENNA, June 20 -- President Bush arrived here Tuesday for his 15th visit to 
Europe since taking office, at a time when the populace remains generally wary 
of him despite concerted efforts by political leaders on both sides of the 
Atlantic to patch up their differences.

In meetings here Wednesday, Bush and European Union officials are to confer 
on issues including trade, energy security and their mutual efforts to persuade 
Iran to halt activities that could lead to the development of nuclear weapons.

Officials have dampened expectations of any major announcements, because Iran 
has yet to respond to a package of inducements and penalties -- including the 
offer of talks with the United States for the first time since the 1979 
Islamic revolution -- aimed at ending its enrichment of uranium.

Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One, Bush's national security 
adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, said Americans and Europeans were strongly committed to 
having Iran completely shut down its enrichment program. "The framework is 
clear," he said. "What is missing is a positive Iranian response. And that's, of 
course, what we are looking for."

On Thursday, Bush is scheduled to visit Budapest, the Hungarian capital, 
where he will mark the 50th anniversary of the 1956 uprising against communist 
rule.

Since his reelection in 2004, Bush and his advisers have tried to rebuild 
relations with Europe -- deferring to Britain, France and Germany, for example, 
in handling the diplomatic initiative toward Iran. The White House has been 
aided by the defeat of Gerhard Schroeder in his bid to remain German chancellor 
and the weakening influence of French President Jacques Chirac; both had made 
opposition to the U.S. war effort in Iraq a centerpiece of their 
administrations.

But if relations at the political level have improved, public opinion has 
lagged far behind. Bush remains unpopular with the public in many European 
countries over the war in Iraq and alleged abuse of detainees by U.S. forces at 
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other facilities, according to opinion polls and experts 
on transatlantic relations. A survey released last week by the Pew Research 
Center found that the United States' image has slipped over the past year in 
France, Germany and Spain and is down considerably since 2000.

Diplomats and experts on Europe say public opinion is a significant drag on 
Bush's ability to expect much from political leaders here -- for instance, for 
his renewed effort to secure international assistance for the new Iraqi 
government. While countries such as Poland and Britain have contributed 
substantially to security in Iraq, the European Union as a bloc has done relatively 
little, officials say, pledging the equivalent of about $250 million in assistance 
in 2006.

"The scars of Iraq are still very real and run real deep," said Ronald D. 
Asmus, executive director of the German Marshall Fund's Brussels office. While 
political leaders may agree that success in Iraq is important, he said, the 
European public believes "that Americans screwed it up and need to clean up the 
mess."

Gary J. Schmitt, who specializes in defense and foreign policy issues at the 
American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said the Bush administration has 
done a much better job handling Europe in the second term, but questioned 
whether Europe's leaders will sign on to tough sanctions if Iran rebuffs the 
recent overtures.

"To their credit," he said, speaking of Bush administration officials, "they 
have learned that it's better to have the Europeans on board than not. The 
real question is when it comes to the hard issues, like Iran, whether it will pay 
off."

Adding to the public relations problem is continuing anger over allegations 
of abuse by U.S. forces at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq, and disclosures about 
secret CIA prisons in Europe. Bush has been confronted with questions about 
these matters almost every time he has met a European leader, and a spokeswoman 
for Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, whose country holds the revolving 
presidency of the E.U., said he would raise the issue again on Wednesday.

At a briefing for reporters last week, Hadley noted Bush's repeated statement 
of interest in closing the Guantanamo facility and said people would "be held 
accountable" by the Pentagon if allegations of wrongdoing in Iraq were 
confirmed. "That's been explained to the Europeans in various forms at various 
times," he said. "They can raise it -- there's not a lot new to be said on that 
issue."

Denis MacShane, a British member of Parliament from the ruling Labor Party 
and a former minister of state for Europe, said that Americans "just have to 
live" with a reflexive anti-Americanism and that Europeans are coming to share 
American concern over the threat from radical Islam. But the Bush 
administration, he added, "has not really thought about managing European public opinion -- 
they have not had a kind of program of public diplomacy that has been 
convincing."

John Bruton, a former Irish prime minister who now leads the E.U. mission in 
Washington, said that U.S. and European politicians both need to do a better 
job. "Our task really is one of trying to reestablish a sense among Europeans 
that Americans are their cousins," he said.

-----------------------------------------

The Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, June 21, 2006 

Bush's Goals in Austria May Be Overshadowed

His agenda for the EU meeting is democracy, security and prosperity, 
but public opposition to his Iraq policies and war on terrorism is broad.

By James Gerstenzang and Alissa J. Rubin, Times Staff Writers

VIENNA -- President Bush stepped off Air Force One on a warm night Tuesday in 
the heart of Central Europe, and into the steamy debate over the U.S. war in 
Iraq and his administration's tactics in countering terrorism.

He began a 21-hour visit to Austria, built around a meeting with the leaders 
of the European Union, as the United States and its allies await Iran's 
response to their latest anti-nuclear proposals. Bush also plans a similar quick 
stop in Hungary tonight and Thursday.

The president arrived with what his national security advisor, Stephen 
Hadley, said last week were three goals: "Promoting freedom and democracy, enhancing 
security and pursuing greater global prosperity." The goals draw little 
debate, but the means for achieving them are tearing at the European political and 
social fabric. 

Though the U.S. agenda with Europe covers global trade negotiations, European 
farm subsidies and Iran, Austrians want their leaders to confront Bush's 
policies in Iraq, the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the "rendition" of 
suspected terrorists to countries that permit torture. Newspapers and TV talk 
shows have discussed little else in recent days, with people at both ends of 
the political spectrum denouncing the treatment of terrorism suspects who have 
not been charged with crimes.

The visit to this officially neutral country is the first by a U.S. president 
since Jimmy Carter met Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev here in 1979 to sign 
an arms control treaty. Bush is meeting with Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, EU 
president. 

Peter Pilz, a spokesman on security issues for the leftist Green Party, said 
of Bush's visit: "It is problematic to welcome as guest a politician who wages 
unconstitutional wars, uses falsified secret … reports as an excuse to do so, 
is willing to preemptively deploy nuclear weapons, who tolerates kidnappings, 
torture and illegal detention camps as a means of security policy." 

Joerg Haider, former leader of the far-right Freedom Party, said in an 
interview with the moderately conservative newspaper Die Presse that Bush was 
turning the Middle East "into a witches' caldron."

"The summit will not change anything," said Haider, who is best-known for 
anti-Semitic comments and opposition to immigrants when his party was part of the 
government.

Austria's widely read news magazine Profil featured Bush on its cover this 
week, under the headline "The Mad World of George Bush." 

"What makes the leader of the last superpower tick? Just how fanatical is 
he?" the magazine asked. In the city of Freud, it drew a deeply unflattering 
psychological profile of the president, under the headline "Bush on the Couch." 

The visit to Budapest, the Hungarian capital, will give Bush an opportunity 
to commemorate the unsuccessful partisan uprising against Soviet domination in 
1956. The revolution foreshadowed the disintegration more than three decades 
later of communist rule across Central and Eastern Europe, and provides the 
U.S. leader a metaphor for the broader democracy that he has promoted as the 
foundation of his Middle East policies.

Noting the division in Europe over the war, Bush said Monday at the U.S. 
Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y., "Some of the most important support 
for Iraqis is coming from European democracies with recent memories of 
tyranny." He cited Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, 
Georgia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia as examples.

But he acknowledged that "others in Europe have had disagreements with our 
decisions on Iraq." 

Bush is making a renewed push to get those who have promised to help rebuild 
Iraq to begin paying up. Of the $13.5 billion in assistance that has been 
pledged, he said Monday, only $3.5 billion has been paid.

Large amounts are due from Iraq's wealthier Persian Gulf neighbors, but 
Europe also owes money, Hadley said last week.

The meeting with the EU leadership has been long-scheduled, but its timing 
allows the president to promote a united front in the effort to pressure Iran to 
suspend enrichment of nuclear fuel, which the Bush administration sees as an 
immediate and pressing problem. 

The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — the U.S., 
Russia, China, France and Britain — and Germany offered a package of 
incentives early this month to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear program. Since then, 
Iran has been lobbying hard to soften the terms so it can continue some 
uranium enrichment as "research and development."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Friday that the offer was under 
serious consideration.

In the view of some analysts in Washington, the diplomatic strategy on Iran 
may allow the U.S. to present a less bellicose image than it has regarding 
Iraq, potentially softening the impression Bush creates.

Having recently agreed to join other nations in direct negotiations with 
Iran, "President Bush has improved his standing and support among European 
leaders," Jon B. Wolfsthal and Jennifer Hamilton wrote in a paper for the Center for 
Strategic and International Studies, a Washington policy research organization.

And, they said, with the EU's top officials at his side, Bush "can in one 
step make clear that the offer on the table is the best Iran can hope to 
receive." 

Austria is the 54th country Bush has visited as president; Hungary will be 
the 55th.

Die Presse, reflecting none of the potentially tempered view of him that 
Wolfsthal and Hamilton raised, featured a cartoon that suggested Bush might have 
become confused.

The cartoon showed the president in a pub talking to students, with a thought 
bubble over his head. It had him thinking, "funny kangaroos" — a jeering 
suggestion that Bush would mistake Austria for Australia. 

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International Herald Tribune
June 20, 2006

Op-Ed Contributor

Human Rights: Where Is the U.S.?  

by Nancy Rubin 

WASHINGTON The United States was once seen as the gold standard in protecting 
and promoting human rights. This is the time to chart our return to that 
standard. It will require reinvigorating freedom at home, being a leader abroad 
and acting like one by engaging with the nations of the world to end atrocities 
and repression.
 
The new United Nations Human Rights Council is meeting in Geneva without the 
United States as a member. Senior officials from more than 100 nations are 
scheduled to address the opening session. The United States has not even signed 
up.
 
According to the Bush administration, the new Council is flawed. That may be 
true, but in today's globalized world, advancing human rights, like national 
security, requires dealing with countries and institutions that may not be 
perfect.
 
The United Nations reflects the world at large. We can agree that it is messy 
and politicized and that it needs to change, but can we afford policies that 
leave us going it alone? Are we no longer capable of advancing our national 
interests by working with other nations and global institutions?
 
U.S. leadership at the UN is critical to changing that dynamic. To be a 
leader, the United States has to engage with those it would lead.
 
Leadership in human rights also depends on credibility. The United States 
must end double standards that have diminished our ability to press other nations 
to end abuses. The war in Iraq does not excuse us from adherence to our 
long-treasured principles.
 
Our secret detentions, our extraordinary renditions, our torture memos that 
redefine how broken a body has to be to be labeled "tortured," our indefinite 
holding of prisoners without due process or even charges at Guantánamo and our 
special trial system for terrorist detainees have drawn almost universal 
condemnation.
 
We can respond effectively by closing Guantánamo, by demonstrating our 
respect for and adherence to the principles of humanity that are spelled out in the 
Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture, and by providing 
judicial guarantees which are fundamental to modern societies.
 
America has had an unrivaled reputation demonstrating the robustness of 
democratic governance in our constitutional republic. Yet now we are witnessing an 
historic shift of power from the Congress to the president.
 
The administration is seeking unchecked power to demand library and telephone 
records, to engage in unapproved wiretapping and to disregard or reinterpret 
the meaning of many of our laws. The administration is diminishing our system 
of checks and balances.
 
Now is the time for intellectual honesty in government. We need less fear 
mongering, we need less irrational emotion, less scapegoating, less pandering and 
discrimination.
 
Each of us has a role to play in the solution: We each have the 
responsibility to protect one another's rights and to restore participatory democracy so 
that it guarantees everyone's human rights.
 
Though the United States is not a member of the Human Rights Council, it is 
critical for America to send a high-level envoy to engage in influencing and 
establishing procedures as the new Council takes form.
 
We should not turn the new Council into a pariah before it has begun to work, 
and we ought not to turn our back on any opportunity to advance human rights 
throughout the world.
 
In spite of wars and clashing beliefs, people throughout the world are 
pressing for rights. We cannot abandon them or cede our role to others. We need to 
reclaim our reputation as a land of liberty, an indispensable partner and a 
beacon of freedom and human rights for all. 
 
Nancy Rubin served as U.S. representative to the UN Commission 
for Human Rights from 1997 to 2001.
 
-------------------------------------------

Accusations fly at new UN human rights forum

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA, June 20 (Reuters) - Cuba and the United States accused each other of 
violations on Tuesday as the gloves came off on the second day of a new U.N. 
human rights forum intended to rise above finger-pointing.

Cuba's Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque accused the United States of 
running a "concentration camp" at its Guantanamo naval base on Cuba, where some 460 
terror suspects are being held.

Perez said in a speech that his country would "speak out for the rights of 
American people" as the United States does not have a seat on the 47-member U.N. 
Human Rights Council.

But his remarks drew a sharp rebuke from the U.S. observer delegation for 
what it called Cuba's "gratuitous and unfounded attacks" against the United 
States.

"The American people need no one else to speak for them, particularly 
officials of an autocratic government," U.S. political counselor Velia De Pirro said 
in a right of reply to the remarks from the communist country's representative.

The U.S. delegate noted that Cuba, like other states to win election to the 
new human rights body, had pledged to promote human rights both in its 
territory and elsewhere.

"Cuba, rather than explain how it intends to comply with its pledge, chose 
instead to engage in gratuitous and unfounded attacks against the United 
States," De Pirro said.

The new Geneva forum, which replaces the widely discredited U.N. Human Rights 
Commission, opened its first session on Monday amid calls by U.N. 
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and others to avoid the finger-pointing and political 
point-scoring of old.

The United States chose not to stand for election to the U.N. watchdog, 
saying that not enough had been done to keep out states known to abuse human rights.

Much of the initial two-week session will be spent planning future work. 
Unlike the commission, which met annually, the council will meet at least three 
times a year.

POLITICAL CONFRONTATION

China's Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi told the council to 
avoid the "political confrontation that led to the credibility crisis of the 
Commission on Human Rights."

It also needed to give more weight to economic, social and cultural rights 
because for many people in the developing world their rights were "curtailed by 
poverty, disease and environmental degradation," he said.

Akiko Yamanaka, Japan's vice minister for foreign affairs, said that the 
Council's credibility would hinge on whether it could pave the way for resolving 
grave human rights violations.

Serious violations include North Korea, which has admitted that it abducted 
Japanese citizens, she said.

"This abduction issue not only remains unresolved for Japan, but also has an 
international dimension which extends to multiple countries," Yamanaka said.

North Korea's human rights delegate Choe Myong Nam took the floor to say that 
the abduction issue had been fully resolved, but Japan continued to raise it 
as part of a "cunning plot".

Japan's main duty was to settle its own "crimes against humanity" during 
World War Two which were never settled -- including the abduction of 8.4 million 
people, the "genocidal killing" of one million people, and sexual slavery of 
200,000 women and girls by the army -- according to Pyongyang's envoy.

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