German
government approves biggest military intervention since Second World War
By
Peter Schwarz
14 November 2001
The
decision to deploy 3,900 soldiers for the military campaign “against
international terrorism” means the Social Democratic-Green Party
coalition government is leading Germany
into a war whose scope, duration and consequences are immeasurable.
The
cabinet decision, which the Bundestag
(parliament) is set to approve this week, authorizes the government, for the
period of one year, to carry out military interventions without specifically
fixing their timing, the opponents, the operational area, the number of
soldiers assigned in each case and the operations in which they should
participate. The government is being given full discretionary powers, while
parliament disempowers itself.
The
decision is without parallel in post-war German history. Before unification in
1990, the constitution prohibited all military interventions that did not serve
the territorial defence of Germany
or the NATO alliance against a foreign aggressor. In a sensational decision in
1994, the Federal Constitutional Court
smoothed the way for military operations outside the NATO area. But even this
decision insisted that every operation required the agreement of the Bundestag —a legal prerequisite that
is now being annulled, just like the previous limitation restricting military
interventions to the areas directly impinging on NATO, such as in the Balkans.
The area
of operations cited in the government’s decision includes half the globe.
As well as the territory of all NATO members including the USA
and Turkey, it
especially names “the Arab peninsula, Central Asia
and northeast Africa, as well as the adjacent sea
areas”.
According
to Chancellor Gerhard Schr�der, the biggest contingent—approximately
1,800 naval forces, including sea-air forces—would be used in the Horn of
Africa, off the coast of Somalia,
which has been named most recently as the next target for attack in the
“war against terrorism”. German troops could thus be involved in
active fighting far quicker than expected.
In
addition, an 800-strong ABC (Atomic, Biological, Chemical) defence force is
being placed on standby, about which there is no further information as yet, as
well as a 250-strong medical corps, 500 air transport troops, 450 from other
support units and 100 special forces. The latter is thought to involve members
of the elite KSK special commando unit, and might be the first troops engaged
in active combat missions.
False reasoning
This
unparalleled military operation is being justified by the government as a
contribution to the “war against terrorism” and in
“solidarity with America”.
Both reasons do not stand up to closer examination.
If it
really were a matter of fighting terrorism, then the US
government would not be reducing one of the poorest countries in the world to
rubble, driving millions of civilians to take flight. It would not form an
alliance with the very powers who have been terrorising their own population
for years—like general Musharraf, who led the Pakistani military putsch;
the feudal dictatorship in Saudi Arabia
or the Likud-led government of Ariel Sharon in Israel,
which has made the targeted murder of the Palestinian leadership official
policy. Both can only serve to strengthen the widespread feeling of
humiliation, powerlessness and uncontrollable rage against the West, on which
the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks rest.
For the
American government, the attacks in New
York and Washington
offered a welcome pretext to strike against governments that it had regarded as
a thorn in the side for a long time, with the aim of “ending states”, as Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz explained. It is about the new division of the world after the
end of the Cold War with its rigid fronts, it is about political influence,
strategic positions, trade routes, pipeline routes, raw materials and oil. In
short, it is about a return to the classic policy of colonialism. Political
thinktanks and geostrategists had discussed the strategic importance of Central
Asia for a long time, before anyone had heard about the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden.
German
participation in the war does not arise out of solidarity with the USA
and certainly not at all with the American people. On the contrary, it is an
expression of the rivalry between the two strongest economic powers on either
side of the Atlantic. Things should be called by their
name: German participation in the war—despite the declarations to the
contrary by the chancellor—is exclusively because of Germany’s
own interests.
This was
already made clear by the fact that the chancellor lied publicly when he said
the deployment of 3,900 German soldiers was a response to American requests.
Shortly afterwards at a press conference, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
said there had been no specific request by the US government. There had merely
been a completely general inquiry, whether German support was possible in five
specialist areas. Schr�der promptly transformed his own offer into an American
demand.
Schr�der
is pressing forward against his own party and his Green coalition partners.
Resistance is growing within both parties the longer the war continues.
“The principle of party loyalty is slowly being replaced by a critical
discussion about what is the correct course of action,” the SPD’s
foreign policy spokesman Gernot Erler recently stated. Schr�der wants to call a
halt to this discussion, by forcing the SPD parliamentary faction to decide
about entering the war. The chancellor has “seized the initiative”
because he wants “peace on the ship” of state, can be heard
emanating from government circles.
Schr�der
and his Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer (Green Party) are insisting on
participation in the war because otherwise they fear Germany
may lose out in the new division of the world. Their strategic calculation is
simple: Only those who keep up militarily can also have a political voice
afterwards and remain economically in the game. Therefore they are pushing the USA
to accept a German military contribution.
Karsten
Voigt, responsible in the government for German-American relations, has frankly
admitted this in an interview with the Berliner
Zeitung. “In America,
the only ones to play a role are those partners seen as relevant,” he
said. “Because we have also participated militarily, our word has been
taken seriously in the peace solution in the Balkans... Naturally only those
who now prove themselves as militarily relevant partners can later influence
the political set up.”
This
course is disputed. First of all in the press, but also within the government
parties, voices are gathering which warn about “undying loyalty”
and “vassalage” towards the USA.
“If Chancellor Schr�der and his [Defence Minister] Scharping continue to
try and curry favour in Washington,
they should not be surprised if they are drawn into the maelstrom of world-wide
anger,” warned Rudolf Augstein, chief editor and co-publisher of Germany’s
influential newsweekly Der Spiegel.
These
differences of opinion are of a tactical nature. They turn on the question of
how Germany
can best assert its interests and anticipate future conflicts with the USA,
which will inevitably develop.
Attack on
democratic rights
War is
not compatible with democracy.
Germany’s
entry into the First World War coincided with the political disenfranchisement
of the population. The political parties, including the SPD, concluded a
political truce and pledged not to express their differences any more in
public, leading to Kaiser Wilhelm II’s famous words: “I no longer
recognise parties, only Germans.” The Reichstag
(imperial parliament) renounced its right to co-rule, passed an enabling act
and adjourned until the end of the war. The military commanders took over
responsibility for domestic security and press censorship.
The
current decision to enter the Afghanistan
war is also being accompanied by a massive assault on democratic rights.
This
starts with the practical disenfranchisement of the Bundestag, which in agreeing to the cabinet decision gives
up any influence concerning the escalation of the war for twelve months.
Agreement is considered certain, because both the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU)
and the Free Democrats (FDP) have signalled their consent. Chancellor Schr�der,
who won office in 1998 thanks to an unambiguous vote against the outgoing
Christian Democrat/Free Democrat coalition, now rests on these parties, in
order to silence dissenting voices in the ranks of the SPD. Critics are being
placed under massive pressure and intimidation.
In order
to push through German participation in the war, and supported by Vice
Chancellor Fisher, he is even prepared to conscience the end of the
“red-green” coalition, possibly during the next days or weeks, but
no later than the next federal election in a year’s time. “If we
vote against participating in the war, we fly out of the coalition, and the
party breaks apart. If we vote for it, nobody in the rank-and-file will
campaign for us in the elections and we will fly out of parliament,” is
how one Green Party member described the dilemma facing the party. Fischer
himself has threatened to resign if the Greens’ Bundestag faction votes against the war.
The
Greens have themselves to blame for their present predicament. Rarely before
has a party abandoned its campaign pledges and self-declared principles so
quickly and thoroughly as the Greens have done since joining the Schr�der
government. Beginning with the Kosovo war, the former pacifists have agreed to
every foreign intervention by the German armed forces and will most probably
repeat this in Afghanistan.
But under conditions where the initiative to change the government comes from
above, it strengthens the rightwing. Schr�der and Fischer are clearing the way
back to power for the FDP and CDU/CSU, without the voters being able to have
any influence on events. Although a widespread mood against the war prevails in
the general population, there is scarcely any serious public debate about it.
Moreover, both the domestic security packages proposed by Interior Minister
Otto Schily provide the police and secret services with extensive powers,
enabling them to monitor, intimidate and suppress all those expressing
divergent political views.
Taken
together, these attacks on democratic rights and the participation in the Afghanistan
war represent a much greater threat to the general population and its social
and political rights than the fight against terrorism they are supposed to
serve. The SPD and Greens have not only proved their complete incapacity to
oppose this threat, they have proved themselves essentially more effective in
carrying it out than the conservatives, who would have inevitably encountered
massive resistance.
The
defence of democratic rights and the fight against war require the construction
of a new party, which organises working people as an independent force on the
basis of an international, socialist programme.
Steve McAlexander
"Strength and Honor"
John Adams wrote in 1772: "There is danger from
all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living
with power to endanger the public liberty." Thomas Jefferson wrote in
1799, "Free government is founded in jealousy, not confidence.... Let no
more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the
chains of the Constitutions."