What Bertelsmann Wants from Obama
Bertelsmann’s “Trans-Atlantic Briefing Book” is available here. Bertelsmann also refers to it as a “European Briefing Book for Barack Obama”. The document sets out a “roadmap” for transatlantic cooperation during Obama’s first six months in office. In typical Bertelsmann style, the authors do not hesitate to speak on behalf of all of Europe and all Europeans. The tone of the document more closely resembles that of a Diktat laid down by a victorious power to a defeated adversary than that of a policy papers published by a customary think-tank. Although providing what are merely styled “recommendations,” the authors’ preferred register is in fact bluntly imperative. Thus the very first sentence reads: “Engaging with Europe is not an option” (i.e., not merely an option). The “Briefing Book,” we are told shortly thereafter, will identify “items that must specifically be addressed” (my emphasis) in the “short window” following the inauguration (p. 5).
The incoming president is given remarkably detailed instructions to be carried out within precise time-frames. For example: “Prior to entering office, the next U.S. president should call for a suspension and review of the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA)” (p. 57) or “The new U.S. administration … should begin a climate initiative by the end of President Obama’s first six months in office. They need to get started before the summer.” (p. 60). Also on “climate change,” the incoming president is advised to use his inaugural address or the State of the Union address to provide “commitments to an international regime with binding emissions targets” (p. 62). It will be interesting to see if he does.
The Bertelsmann “Briefing Book” devotes separate sections to seven “key issues”: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Economic Challenges, Climate Change, and the Middle East Peace Process. Perhaps more notable than those issues that made the cut is one that did not: terrorism. Indeed, terrorism is almost only ever mentioned in passing in the “Briefing Book” and when it does come up, it typically does so as someone else’s concern: that of the UK or Russia or, of course, of the United States. In the section on Afghanistan, for example, combating terrorism is mentioned as just one possible motivation for the international military presence in the country and one, moreover, that the authors persistently insinuate is regarded as dubious by “real” Europeans (i.e., everyone but the British). “European public opinion was never enthusiastic about joining a US-led anti-terror combat mission,” we are told (p. 16) — as if the very origins of the war in Afghanistan had faded into obscurity or somehow did not matter.
Only in the very last substantive sub-section of the “Briefing Book” do the authors get around to telling us that “Europe has taken on the counter-terrorism agenda” (p. 76). This wooden — and, in light of all the foregoing, unconvincing — assurance appears in a seemingly tacked-on “Special Note on The Long-Term Agenda.” Terrorism is there included in a list of “long-term foreign policy challenges,” which, however, are not deemed to be as “urgent” as the “key issues.”
This is to say that for Bertelsmann the purely hypothetical and obviously long-term “threat” of sustained global temperature increase is more urgent than the threat posed by the Islamic terror networks whose attacks have taken tens of thousands of lives from 9/11 to Mumbai’s 11/26. (Marc Sheppard has noted at American Thinker that at a recent meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, Bill Clinton similarly downplayed the importance of terrorism as compared to global warming. That Bill Clinton would thus echo the Bertelsmann priorities is hardly surprising. After all, as documented in my “Bill Clinton’s German Paymasters”, the former president’s personal wealth is largely a product of his collaboration with Bertelsmann.) Revealingly, the first time the “Briefing Book” mentions “longer-term challenges” (p. 6), terrorism is not even included in the list. “Outreach to the Muslim world,” however, is. With Iran reported to be on the verge of obtaining enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon, nuclear proliferation is likewise relegated by the Bertelsmann Foundation to the ranks of the second-tier, “not-so-urgent” issues.
The Bertelsmann “Briefing Book” hardly makes for scintillating reading. Predictably, given the source, the background assumptions on the state of transatlantic relations are derived from the “grand narrative” of American misdeeds under the Bush administration that Bertelsmann’s own media have played a major role in propagating. (On Bertelsmann’s flagship German weekly Stern, for instance, see here.) In lieu of facts and documentation, the “Briefing Book” makes due with the mind-numbing repetition of clichés. Thus, for example, we are told that “America’s image in the world has plummeted over the last eight year. … Policies affiliated with the Bush administration have grown into a spreading anti-Americanism…” (p. 6). It is as if the Bertelsmann authors could not think of any evidence that anti-Americanism might perhaps have been a problem already before the Bush administration. For example: the 9/11 attacks, the planning for which is thought to have begun in 1999 — and, as so happens, to have begun precisely in Hamburg, a mere three hours drive from Bertelsmann’s corporate headquarters in Gütersloh. The virtually total absence of the 9/11 attacks from the authors’ considerations is indeed striking. It is as if they simply never occurred. There is only one allusion to 9/11 in the entire document and, revealingly, this one allusion is to be found in a reference to a disposition of 9/11 Commission follow-up legislation that the EU would like to see canceled (p. 57).
To the degree that the authors make the pretense of offering any actual analysis, this mostly consists of pseudo-wonkish gibberish, with the tedious drone of meaningless phrases occasionally being broken up by some fantastically mixed metaphors. Thus, for example, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is said to have “found his footing in Washington” during the financial crisis and to have the opportunity in 2009 “to use this footing and cement his international reputation while it shines” (p. 11). Parts of the text appear, moreover, to have been composed by the legendary “Captain Obvious”: countries engaged in Afghanistan are, for instance, advised “to bolster what is working on the ground and fix what is not working” (p. 20).
But the real interest of the “Briefing Book” lies in the demands — or seemingly indeed commands — that are addressed to the incoming president. Given the status of the Iraq War as the cardinal sin of the Bush administration in the grand narrative, the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq is, needless to say, a high priority: the authors dub it “Americans’ top national-security priority” (p. 35). At the same time, however, they call into question the sustainability of the security advances achieved in Iraq and warn that “violence remains only a step away” (p. 39). Just how, then, it could be a “top national-security priority” to leave — and risk Iraq descending into chaos – is anyone’s guess. One is left with the impression that the point of a rapid withdrawal from Iraq must not in fact be national security, after all. It is rather to punish America for the Bush administration’s hubris in having invaded Iraq in the first place: notably, against German objections. If Iraqis must suffer so that America can get its proper comeuppance — then so be it…
The section devoted to “Economic Challenges” is particularly illuminating. It is clear that Bertelsmann wants the EU states to exploit the current crisis to impose a new regime of international financial regulation upon the United States. The U.S. is clearly designated as the culprit for the problems in international financial markets. These are said to have been “contaminated” by the U.S., which ought then to adopt European “best practices” in order to “guarantee that it does not re-occur” (p. 54). The vehicle chosen for achieving a new regulatory regime is the recently created Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC). “Leaders on both sides of the Atlantic must use the TEC as a forum to begin aligning economic regulatory practices quickly,” the authors declare (p. 55). “The next president should remember that the TEC was designed and developed under the leadership of the German chancellor during the country’s EU-Presidency in 2007,” they add in a not-so-subtle hint, “By giving the TEC a central coordinating role in trans-Atlantic economic cooperation, the next president will establish a reservoir of German goodwill.”
Bertelsmann-controlled media have, incidentally, been dutifully stoking the anti-market hysteria that has enveloped Germany in recent months. See, for instance, the Stern cover discussed here, which bears the headline “Greed and Megalomania: How the Wall Street Bosses Squandered Billions and led our Financial System to the Edge of the Abyss.” Bertelsmann itself, as so happens, is privately owned. Given that the owners, the Mohn family, have jealously avoided exposing their business to the kind of public scrutiny and oversight that comes with a stock market listing, one may wonder if Bertelsmann’s crusade against financial markets is entirely disinterested. In 2006, the Mohn family bought back 25% of Bertelsmann shares from the holding company Groupe Bruxelles Lambert, in order to prevent the shares from going public. The move cost the family some €4.5 billion.
Americans would be well-advised to read Bertelsmann’s “Trans-Atlantic Briefing Book” carefully and then to consider how closely the actions of the incoming president follow the Bertelsmann playbook. In the end, one can be thankful that Bertelsmann saw fit to publish its demands.
Bertelsmann has provided Obama with the perfect opportunity to show Americans that he is his own man and that American interests are more important to him than the wishes of his German corporate sponsor.
So, what’s bad for the U.S. is good for Germany. It sounds like what the French have been trying to push on us for decades and, with the ‘card check’ legislation, what the UAW wants to do to the competitive U.S. auto industry (i.e., Toyota, Honda, BMW, etc.)
Beggar thy neighbor is never attractive, so must be disguised with high toned pseudo-moral platitudes. Let’s hope that the new president lied about his intentions during the campaign.
I wish that Mr. Rosenthal would look into the financial and political relationship between Bertelsmann and George Soros’s various financial proxies, especially as they relate to Obama. For example, how did an unknown like Obama land such a lucrative publishing contract with a publishing house as desirable as Random House in the first place?
Obama’s relationship to Bertelsmann is reminiscent of the Chicago-style relationships that have come to full light with the Illinois Governor. Skirting Senate Ethics Rules to advance his own profit… I wonder what else we don’t know about from our future President, and how much of his agenda is already pre-sold to foreigners and “We the people…” have no leverage at all in our own “democracy.”
The “connections” of so many Americans to an international order seeking to impose a Euro-Socialist agenda worldwide, should be frightening to any & all. Most despise socialism once they understand what all it entails. Lets face it, we have no example of a successful socialist system to go on. In Europe, most nations who have embraced the socialist concept, are deeply in debt & have recognized for decades their systems could not sustain the “benefits” mentality that socialism has as its basic foundational tenet.
Economic productivity, even activity, in Europe is waning. It has been for decades. And the only reason we get the “advise’ to join in is to slow down our productivity & growth because Europe cannot keep up. Ironically, if one looks at many of the now free eastern block nations, they have all embraced a free market system & many are doing very well financially. Just this past week I once again read about the Czeck Republic and its President, Vaclav Klaus. This is a man who lived the nightmare of a socialist economy and government for nearly fifty years. he knows how oppressive and repressive such a system really is. This man published a book on the subject, which the New York Times promptly ignored &/or put down as drivel. In fact the book was a warning to the free world that what this man lived is what awaits all if they fail to remain vigilant & stand up for their free market economies & democracies, that have made nations great & helped their average peoples live decent lives.
Bertelsmann’s intentions sound suspiciously like the charismatic babble a past “leader” (sic) championed prior to plunging just about all on the planet into dark times of worldwide war & misery. The idea the entire planet should embrace a worldwide economy, looks like these folks want everyone to be as miserable as they are. Unemployment in Europe was already considerably higher than in America. In fact, among ethnic groups, many have suffered unemployment for many years. Why would we want to be “just like them?” Molding America’s systems to match Europe’s looks like a ploy to create a one world order. Just what we need is another group of megalomaniac condescending elitists who wallow in “their” opinions of “their” superiority, to create a world system, that of course “they” should control. No thanks.
One can only hope Americans will wake up from their stupor and decide we should be the independent free market giant we were & can be again, if we stop kowtowing to special interests who promote their issues while ignoring the damages they do to all others in the process!
Another interest group Obama is beholden to…so what else is new?
Obama has managed to hide and cover up yet another mystery of his life. But not until he provides the true and original copy of his birth certificate will anyone who respects the United States Constitution afford him due honor or respect — anyone, of course, except his fanatical supporters, the liberal media, Hollyweird and blacks who get upset at the mere mention of such an issue.
Obama is a phoney, a charlatan, a deceiver of the highest order. He said and did everything he could to get elected, and now he’s even pissing off the libs because he’s going against the ultra-liberalism that he campaigned for. Again, the guy is a phoney.
For Amy (2)
Soros connection:
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-22644454_ITM
As far as Germany and Bertelsmann goes, they shouldn’t be taken seriously, either. They need America more than America would ever need them. If Obama ends up appeasing Bertelsmann and allowing the company to push him around, then he isn’t as keen and shrewd as the world was led to believe.
Again, Obama is a phoney and, I’ll add, another Chicago thug in the vein of Blogo.
Europe’s arrogance is indefatigable. You’d think a shabby track record these last hundred years on matters of global order maintenance would give Euro-scolds pause or, at the very least, leave Americans who’ve paid enourmous prices for Europe’s blunders skeptical. But no.
Unfortunately — and almost paradoxically, after 100 years of taking Europe’s garbage out for them — a large portion of America’s so-called leadership class is as committed as Europe’s would-be global viceroys to diminishing the influence, authority and sovereignty of the United States.
Thanks, #8. I love Europe, but everytime I visit an American national cemetary or memorial there (whether it’s in France, England, Belgium or Italy), it saddens me that the Europeans who live in the big European cities don’t give any credit or gratitude to the hundreds of thousands of American lives lost or forever disfigured so that Europeans would have the freedom to criticize us the way they love to do.
#9 I am a european, a german from Berlin – and unfortunately You are right. I am embarrased beyond words for the stupid anti-Americanism in Germany and Western-Europe. I remember the Wall next to my parents house in West-Berlin and each time I saw the watchtowers, and the soldiers with their german shepards watching the “death strip”, I asked myself when this will finally disapear. I am so glad it did 19 years ago.
My parents always told me that the Americans (along with their allies) freed us from fascism and saved us from communism. It’s such a simple truth. “The Americans are our friends” they told me. I basically never did what my parents asked me to do – but they surely where absolutely right with this. So many Americans fought and died for our freedom. I am thankful and I won’t forget that.
They are people in Germany who still think like me of the USA, but I have to say that the mainstream goes right with that unbelievable arrogant and completely ridicoulus Bertelsmann “Trans-Atlantic Briefing Book”. I wish I could laugh about it, but I can’t. I hope President Obama can.
I read the Pentagon paper on global warming which warns that it is more dangerous than terrorist activities! Crazy terrorists blowing up hundreds of people cannot equate with a hundred thousand inhabitants having to move somewhere because their islands are being submerged or millions migrating because their countries are in perpetual drought or unstoppable flooding. While the U.S. does use more energy than most, Europe complains about it but then gives only lip service to solving the problem. I don’t expect the rich and powerful to do anything because they are only concerned with how much money they can make before things fall apart. The only silver lining to the global depression is that people have cut way back on energy use.
Well, Bertelsmann definitely has some influence and political power in Germany as well, but I don’t think that the company is in a position to make any demands or claims. In less than an hour 70 mils are peanuts for Obama. I only hope that he will resist more critical interest groups. A giant task that Bush wasn’t able to handle: Oil- and weapon-companies.
Hey Vinny, you realy think all European are arrogant???? Sorry, but isnt it a bit snotty to say this….
I hope Obama will change Things in US, but if it is the right way to say 70Mils are peantus – that remains to be seen….. In my opinion it is right, the Book is a shame, an I hope he will not take a hard line with Germany.
Arrogant?? Why??? I am not arrogant!!
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