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RR RUEHAG RUEHDF RUEHLZ
DE RUEHRL #1591/01 3501211
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 161211Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY BERLIN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6072
INFO RHEHAAA/WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON DC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC
RUCNFRG/FRG COLLECTIVE
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RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 0553
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 1071
RUEHRO/AMEMBASSY ROME 2576
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO 1598
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RHMFIUU/HQ USAFE RAMSTEIN AB GE
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE//J5 DIRECTORATE (MC)//
RHMFISS/CDRUSAREUR HEIDELBERG GE
RUKAAKC/UDITDUSAREUR HEIDELBERG GE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BERLIN 001591 
 
STATE FOR INR/R/MR, EUR/PAPD, EUR/PPA, EUR/CE, INR/EUC, INR/P, 
SECDEF FOR USDP/ISA/DSAA, DIA FOR DC-4A 
 
VIENNA FOR CSBM, CSCE, PAA 
 
"PERISHABLE INFORMATION -- DO NOT SERVICE" 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.0. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OPRC KMDR AF GM KGHG US CU UK IS
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: AFGHANISTAN, CLIMATE, GUANTANAMO, 
BRITAIN-ISRAEL;BERLIN 
 
¶1.   Lead Stories Summary 
¶2.   Climate Change 
¶3.   Guantanamo 
¶4.   Afghanistan/Sep 4 airstrikes 
¶5.   British arrest warrant against Livni 
 
¶1.    Lead Stories 
 
Primetime TV newscasts and Frankfurter Allgemeine led with the 
Constitutional CourtQs review of the law requiring telecommunication 
companies to keep track of cell phone and email records for six 
months.  Sueddeutsche led with a report on U.S. plans to transfer 
Guantanamo detainees to the U.S.  Other papers led with reports on 
social benefits and financial topics.  Editorials focused on data 
protection issues and the debate about the September 4 airstrikes in 
Afghanistan. 
 
¶2.    Climate Change 
 
German media expressed new skepticism about the chance to reach a 
binding agreement in Copenhagen.  In particular German Environment 
Minister Roettgen is quoted with critical remarks on the U.S. 
Frankfurter Allgemeine headlined: QBerlin: China and America 
threaten the summitQ and Tagesspiegel fronted: QU.S. vs. China: 
Power struggle at climate summit. 
 
Frankfurter Allgemeine opined: QGiven the complexity of the project, 
the concerns of the Chancellor are justified.  The interests of 193 
countries must be taken into consideration.  Not all of them are 
interested in limiting greenhouse gas emissions.  Some want to 
preserve prosperity, others want to achieve it.  Both will work only 
if everybody makes concessions.  The Europeans, and above all the 
German government, have made far-reaching promises.  However, the 
two largest emitters, China and America, are hesitating.   They want 
to get more out of it and do less for the world than they would be 
obliged to due to their historic and economic responsibility.  The 
EU must not allow them to jump on the bandwagon.  The EU has put its 
cards on the table in order to do more against climate change. 
This must be it.  The Chancellor must keep her nerves and her wallet 
closed on Friday. 
 
Hessische/Niedersaechsische Allgemeine remarked: QState and 
government leaders will fly into Copenhagen today.  The Europeans 
may increase their efforts to cut carbon dioxide by 2020 to drag 
others along, for instance, the U.S. and China.  To reach a success 
at the summit and to save the world, there are other important 
things apart from the question of how quickly the worldQs biggest 
climate sinners leave the fatal path of Qmore growth by more carbon 
dioxide.Q  However, without tough and verifiable reduction 
guarantees by China and the U.S., everything else will be 
worthless. 
 
¶3.    Guantanamo 
 
Frankfurter Allgemeine editorialized:  QThe detention camp of 
Guantanamo will not be closed yet, despite ObamaQs announcement to 
transfer detainees to a prison in Illinois soon: the federal state 
does not yet own the prison, it is not big enough for all of them, 
and the Congress must approve the transfer of the detainees  In 
addition, the government only wants to transfer some of the 
detainees to American soil.  It still hopes that allied countries 
will accept others.  The difficulties Guantanamo has are not 
insurmountable, but considerable.  Would Obama have announced to 
close Guantanamo if he had known them during his inauguration? 
Maybe, maybe not, because Obama was interested in a symbolic gesture 
and the world had longed for it. 
 
Die Welt carried a front-page editorial: QObama has now decided to 
 
BERLIN 00001591  002 OF 003 
 
 
go for a small and symbolic act.  A number of the 210 Guantanamo 
detainees will be transferred to a prison in Illinois.  This will 
not be today or tomorrow.  However, it signals that the President 
takes action and continues to pursue his goal. 
 
Sueddeutsche Zeitung remarked: QNobody knows when President Obama 
will fulfill his promise to close Guantanamo.  It is certain that 
the decision of the White House to acquire an old prison west of 
Chicago and to transfer some of the terror suspects from Cuba to 
that place is only a small step towards its closure.  Nothing much 
will change after the planned renaming of the Thomson Correctional 
Center into a new counterterrorism center for most of the 200 men 
who are still in Guantanamo.  The problem of Guantanamo, which Obama 
inherited from his predecessor and which is so difficult to resolve, 
has only little to do with its location.   This applies particularly 
to those 60 detainees the U.S. government believes to be dangerous 
terrorists, but who cannot be charged in front of an orderly court 
because the evidence is not sufficient or they were tortured.  They 
willQand thatQs where Obama is not much different from BushQremain 
in an American prison for an undefined period of time and without 
being charged.   This prison will just be in the cold of Illinois 
and not on the warm island of Cuba.  The situation of 100 Guantanamo 
detainees, who the Pentagon would like to release rather today than 
tomorrow because they are believed to be innocent, is similarly 
gloomy because no country wants to take them.  They will also remain 
in prison for the time being.  As long as Obama has not found a 
solution for those two groups, the problem of Guantanamo will still 
exist.  Changing locations does not change anything. 
 
¶4.    Afghanistan/Sep 4 airstrikes 
 
In a front-page editorial, Tagesspiegel remarked: QChancellor Merkel 
has seriously contributed to the current malaise.  For reasons of 
proportion and stability, she allowed the obviously incapable former 
Defense Minister Jung to serve an entire parliamentary period. 
Fearing the sentiment of the people, she avoided the topic of 
Afghanistan   This reflects her personal style of governmentQand it 
is now coming back like a boomerang and Merkel is now paying dearly 
for her own system.  This is, however, the greatest challenge of her 
chancellery.  From the other side of the Atlantic, Nobel Peace Prize 
winner Obama is urgently calling for new troops in this possibly 
decisive stage of the mission.  It would be bitter if Merkel now 
rejects this because of the nervous sentiment in Germany. 
 
Sueddeutsche Zeitung editorialized:  QOnly if the German government 
stops its secrecy will there be true transparency.  The German 
government cannot change the fact that NATO wants the ISAF report to 
remain classified.  However, nobody would stop the government from 
issuing its own comprehensive report. 
 
Under the headline Qmission impossible,Q Frankfurter Allgemeine 
noted in a front-page editorial: QEnough of the contradictions and 
little pieces of information.  The investigation committee must not 
just shed light on the events that night in the Kunduz riverbed and 
the affair that followed, it must also draw its own conclusions. 
The Bundestag has the duty to check whether the mandate, the 
equipment and the moral support, with which it has already sent 
73,000 German soldiers to Afghanistan, sufficiently match the 
situation.  We can have our doubts about it.  The nature of the 
mission in the north has fundamentally changed, almost unnoticed by 
the disinterested German public.   The stabilization mission has 
turned into a war mission. 
 
¶5.    British arrest warrant against Livni 
 
Many German papers report on the British arrest warrant against 
former Israeli Foreign Minister Livni.  Under the headline QBritish 
arrogance,Q Die Welt editorialized: QThe scandalous thing about 
 
BERLIN 00001591  003 OF 003 
 
 
LondonQs decision is that no British judge would even think of 
arresting German, American or even former British ministers, 
although the number of civilians killed in Afghanistan is higher 
than those who died in Gaza.  This is about de-legitimizing Israel. 
A British tragedy. 
 
MURPHY