And they won’t stink, either.
The Bundeswehr Association and the commander of German troops in Afghanistan have expressed their support for the acquisition of battle drones to protect their soldiers.
Let the long, agonizing and hypocritical debate begin!
“Wenn Soldatinnen und Soldaten in den Einsatz geschickt werden, dann muss ihnen auch das Optimum an Ausrüstung zur Verfügung gestellt werden.”
Beautiful German weapon sale of the week (this time with extra added bribery).
Because somebody has to admire them.
Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.
Because somebody has to admire them.
Saudi-Arabien ist Hauptabnehmer deutscher Waffen.
Unable to compete in the global market without the subsidy drug, state-ordained “energy turnaround” or not, Germany’s solar energy industry is getting eaten alive by cheap Chinese imports as we speak, so-to-speak.
“Ah, screw it,” German industrialists elsewhere in the country say to that. “We’ll just keep making a killing producing what we’ve always produced best: War technology. Tanks, Saudi Arabia!”
“But it’s not like we don’t continue to support the Arab Spring or anything,” another tankful German industrialist added ruefully.
German paper says Saudis want 600-800 tanks.
Germans are always lecturing the Greeks. “Except when it comes to buying our ridiculously expensive weapons systems,” they maybe ought to add.
Over much of the past decade, Greece – which has a population of 11 million – has been one of the top five arms importers in the world.
Most of the vastly expensive weapons, including submarines, tanks and combat aircraft, were made in Germany, France and the United States.
The arms purchases were beyond Greece’s capacity to absorb, even before the financial crisis struck in 2009. Several hundred Leopard battle tanks were bought from Germany, but there was no money to pay for ammunition for their guns. Even in 2010, when the extent of the financial disaster was apparent, Greece bought 223 howitzers and a submarine from Germany at a cost of €403 million.
It appears that Germany took a more active part in the Libyan uprising than believed.
Tons and tons of high-powered German assault rifles have been rescued by Libyan rebels from Muammar Gaddafi’s arsenals, weapons that “weren’t supposed to be there” (funny how German weapons always turn up where they are not supposed to be).
“The German government does not know how weapons of this type could have possibly ended up in Libya.” So they are not really there, in other words. The German government has the German weapons industry (shhh, not so loud) completely under control, you see. Right? Ja oder nein? Good. No abstentions here.
Geez. Haven’t them there crazy Libyans ever heard of gun control or nothin’?
No contradiction here.
“Its failure to support intervention in Libya but willingness to arm Saudi Arabia shows the contradiction in German foreign policy.”
Cool weapons, don’t you think?
Too bad we (as in we Germans) can’t use them, or won’t. We’ll sell the hell out of them, though, despite our well-known pacifist sensibilities. Our sales have gone up some 70 percent over the past five years, as a matter of fact. But nobody talks about that here because, well, nobody talks about that here.
Germans only get enraged about their dead militaristic past. That’s easy. The clear and present (and present) militaristic one is taboo. That’s easy, too, see? Sure, you get the obligatory newspaper report like this one from time to time, but any of you living here long enough (more than three or four weeks) must have noticed by now that an “issue” like this probably won’t even make it to the Tagesschau (the nightly state-run news). And even if it does, it’ll only be one of those one night stand, low priority billig (el cheapo) stories, because, well, it is.
Nope, no outrage and Entrüstung (outcry) about the Aufrüstung (arms build-up) here. Not a single political party here will pursue it and make it an issue, not even the Left party. If these were American parties it would be because they’ve been bought. Nope, nobody here wants to address the sad fact that the only reason you (as in you Germans) have a Bundeswehr is so it can serve as an alibi to allow you to sell your incredibly lucrative weapons – third largest exporter in the world, by the way. That would be an inconvenient truth, you see. So I understand, sort of.
Hello? Bitte kommen (do you read me)? I know you’re out there Germany, I can hear you breathing. Whatever. See you around the next time the next report comes out, for a minute or two.
„Deutsche Rüstungsexporte legen um 70 Prozent zu“
Observing Hermann 