nastyleg
02-28-2010, 08:37 AM
Afghan mission and broader role for military divide Germany
By Marcus Klöckner, Stars and Stripes
Online Edition, Friday, February 26, 2010
KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — When Germany first agreed to send soldiers to Afghanistan in 2002, politicians called it a “stabilization mission.”
After the first German soldiers died in the fighting, they started calling it a “robust stabilization mission.”
And after German officers ordered a U.S. airstrike in northern Afghanistan last September that killed at least 140 people, including civilians, the defense minister offered yet another description of the conflict: a “warlike situation.”
For Germany, Afghanistan is a war by any other name. And the nation’s participation in the conflict is prompting soul-searching by a people who are perpetually repenting for having launched two world wars.
“We are dealing with a society that lost two big wars,” said Hans-Georg Ehrhart, an analyst with the Institute for Peace and Security Studies, a think tank in Hamburg. “We are dealing with a society that in the aftermath of World War II was re-educated, a society that was told over and over again how bad a war is, and now this society [is being told it] should greatly approve if their soldiers get involved in combat situations,”
Germany has the third-largest foreign presence in Afghanistan. A total of 34 German soldiers have died in combat.
On Friday, the German parliament approved Chancellor Angela Merkel’s request for 850 more soldiers, raising the maximum number allowed to serve in Afghanistan from 4,500 to 5,350.
But the proceedings were not without drama; the Left party protested, holding up placards with the names of people killed in the Kunduz bombing.
Party members were initially sent out of the debate before being allowed to return and cast their votes.
There’s a disconnect between the German public and their elected representatives in parliament, who mostly approve of the mission, according to Ehrhart.
“It is no wonder under such circumstances the people have a critical eye on their government and its decisions regarding Afghanistan,” he said.
Seventy-one percent of Germans favor a withdrawal of their troops from Afghanistan, according to a January poll commissioned by Germany’s public TV station ARD.
And 79 percent opposed adding more troops to the 4,500 there, according to a Forsa Institute poll conducted Jan. 20-21, The Associated Press reported.
Apart from the Germans’ own casualties, analysts say that the killing of civilians in the ill-fated airstrike in Kunduz is eroding support for the war.
The bombing of two stolen fuel trucks in Kunduz province has prompted six separate investigations, including one by the German parliament. It has also led to the resignations of Germany’s minister of defense, his assistant minister of defense and the nation’s highest-ranking soldier amid accusations they withheld information about the civilian deaths from lawmakers.
Insurgents stole two Afghan fuel trucks several miles from a German base in Kunduz on Sept. 3, killing one of the drivers. The German commander, Col. Georg Klein, ordered the airstrike, reportedly after receiving warnings that the trucks would be used to attack his facility. Two 500-pound bombs were dropped, killing civilians and Taliban members. The bombing happened just two months after the top commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, issued a directive making it a priority to minimize “the risk to the civilian population as a result of the use of force.”
It could take a year for the special committee set up by Parliament to investigate the Kunduz incident and the government’s handling of it, according to Green Party parliament member Omni Nouripour.
“I have so many questions, the others in the commission also have many questions, I do not think that the investigation can be done quickly,” he said.
The panel is expected to ask McChrystal and the U.S. pilots to testify, although the general isn’t open to the idea.
“I would not want to enter the German intelligence and political debate,” McChrystal told Stars and Stripes in a recent interview. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to do that.”
If nothing else, the Kunduz incident has driven home to Germans the potential for horrid, unexpected things to happen in a war — something the public seems genuinely distressed by.
Ehrhart said that before the Kunduz incident, the Germans were very quick to criticize Americans over collateral damage.
“Now we have to realize that the German military have caused the deaths of civilians,” he said. “We are involved in a martial conflict with all its effects.”
But there’s a positive, he said. “The Kunduz incident has finally triggered a debate in Germany on the Afghanistan mission that actually should have taken place years ago.”
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=68326
By Marcus Klöckner, Stars and Stripes
Online Edition, Friday, February 26, 2010
KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — When Germany first agreed to send soldiers to Afghanistan in 2002, politicians called it a “stabilization mission.”
After the first German soldiers died in the fighting, they started calling it a “robust stabilization mission.”
And after German officers ordered a U.S. airstrike in northern Afghanistan last September that killed at least 140 people, including civilians, the defense minister offered yet another description of the conflict: a “warlike situation.”
For Germany, Afghanistan is a war by any other name. And the nation’s participation in the conflict is prompting soul-searching by a people who are perpetually repenting for having launched two world wars.
“We are dealing with a society that lost two big wars,” said Hans-Georg Ehrhart, an analyst with the Institute for Peace and Security Studies, a think tank in Hamburg. “We are dealing with a society that in the aftermath of World War II was re-educated, a society that was told over and over again how bad a war is, and now this society [is being told it] should greatly approve if their soldiers get involved in combat situations,”
Germany has the third-largest foreign presence in Afghanistan. A total of 34 German soldiers have died in combat.
On Friday, the German parliament approved Chancellor Angela Merkel’s request for 850 more soldiers, raising the maximum number allowed to serve in Afghanistan from 4,500 to 5,350.
But the proceedings were not without drama; the Left party protested, holding up placards with the names of people killed in the Kunduz bombing.
Party members were initially sent out of the debate before being allowed to return and cast their votes.
There’s a disconnect between the German public and their elected representatives in parliament, who mostly approve of the mission, according to Ehrhart.
“It is no wonder under such circumstances the people have a critical eye on their government and its decisions regarding Afghanistan,” he said.
Seventy-one percent of Germans favor a withdrawal of their troops from Afghanistan, according to a January poll commissioned by Germany’s public TV station ARD.
And 79 percent opposed adding more troops to the 4,500 there, according to a Forsa Institute poll conducted Jan. 20-21, The Associated Press reported.
Apart from the Germans’ own casualties, analysts say that the killing of civilians in the ill-fated airstrike in Kunduz is eroding support for the war.
The bombing of two stolen fuel trucks in Kunduz province has prompted six separate investigations, including one by the German parliament. It has also led to the resignations of Germany’s minister of defense, his assistant minister of defense and the nation’s highest-ranking soldier amid accusations they withheld information about the civilian deaths from lawmakers.
Insurgents stole two Afghan fuel trucks several miles from a German base in Kunduz on Sept. 3, killing one of the drivers. The German commander, Col. Georg Klein, ordered the airstrike, reportedly after receiving warnings that the trucks would be used to attack his facility. Two 500-pound bombs were dropped, killing civilians and Taliban members. The bombing happened just two months after the top commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, issued a directive making it a priority to minimize “the risk to the civilian population as a result of the use of force.”
It could take a year for the special committee set up by Parliament to investigate the Kunduz incident and the government’s handling of it, according to Green Party parliament member Omni Nouripour.
“I have so many questions, the others in the commission also have many questions, I do not think that the investigation can be done quickly,” he said.
The panel is expected to ask McChrystal and the U.S. pilots to testify, although the general isn’t open to the idea.
“I would not want to enter the German intelligence and political debate,” McChrystal told Stars and Stripes in a recent interview. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to do that.”
If nothing else, the Kunduz incident has driven home to Germans the potential for horrid, unexpected things to happen in a war — something the public seems genuinely distressed by.
Ehrhart said that before the Kunduz incident, the Germans were very quick to criticize Americans over collateral damage.
“Now we have to realize that the German military have caused the deaths of civilians,” he said. “We are involved in a martial conflict with all its effects.”
But there’s a positive, he said. “The Kunduz incident has finally triggered a debate in Germany on the Afghanistan mission that actually should have taken place years ago.”
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=68326