Russia Feels Germany’s Puzzlement

Speaking at an event in Berlin’s Hotel Adlon, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov could not agree more with German concern for the growing anti-Russian sentiment in Europe and around the world, explaining to understanding listeners that it is all just another anti-Russian conspiracy orchestrated by Washington, the UN, the EU, NATO,  the International Association of Youth Hypnotists, the Society for the Prevention of Plate Tectonics, the Animal Voting Rights Defense League and many, many, many others.

Russia

“Russia bashing these days is just as much a mystery to me as it is to you Germans,” Lavrov said. “Our annexation of the Crimea has long been forgotten, as have our countless bloody covert operations in Ukraine and the open bullying of our Baltic neighbors that is still going on. Our ongoing atrocities in Syria are second page news. And who cares anymore about our relentless and highly sophisticated hacker attacks all over the world, the ones we never committed, I mean? Nor is Germany’s dependence upon Russian gas of any concern to anyone, much less you here in Germany. It’s not like it would ever be used to exert political influence or anything. Then there is this recurring myth about our treatment of the political opposition in Russia. Ridiculous. There is no political opposition in Russia. I could go on and on forever but what’s the point? Like I said, this Russia phobia wackiness sure the hell beats me.”

Lawrow beklagt Russophobie in EU und Nato.

Russia Scared?

Of 17 German officers and 30 Belgian troops who have just arrived in Lithuania?

Troops

I’m scared, too. Or at least I was. That I hadn’t read that right, I mean. But now I’m scared again because I checked once more and I did read that right: German troops land in Lithuania amid Russia fears.

Though political parties within Germany – whose national history makes it a hesitant military leader – clashed over the deployment of German troops, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite greeted Germany’s decision to lead the NATO forces as a “breakthrough” for the future of European defense.

Moscow, on the other hand, has criticized the move as an example of NATO aggression against Russia.

Germans Worried American Tanks Could Be Dangerous

The “risky roadshow” now rolling across Germany toward Poland could be, I dunno, an “embodiment of the United States’ commitment to deterring aggression and defending our European Allies and partners” or something.

Tanks

And who could possibly want that?

Some 3,500 troops from the 4th Infantry Division in Fort Carson, Colorado, will join up with the equipment, which includes 87 tanks and 144 Bradley fighting vehicles, over the next two weeks… The new forces will gather first in Poland, then fan out across seven countries from Estonia to Bulgaria. A headquarters unit will be stationed in Germany.

Bedrohliche Musik, Bilder bewaffneter Milizionäre in der Ukraine, Karten eines sich nach Westen ausbreitenden Russlands: Die US-Armee in Europa hat auf ihrer Website ein Video über ihre Operation “Atlantic Resolve” (“Atlantische Entschlossenheit”) veröffentlicht: Die Botschaft: Nach der Besetzung der Krim und der Destabilisierung der Ostukraine könnte Russlands nächstes Opfer ein EU-Land sein, weshalb die US-Armee Europa zur Hilfe eilt.

The Land Of Wishful Thinking

Das Land der frommen Wünsche, that’s what Reinhard Veser from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung calls it. And he means by this the place were what remains of Germany’s Social Democratic Party is now living when it comes to Putin’s Russia.

Putin

That the SPD would want to go back to the old days of SPD Ostpolitik (“change through rapprochement”), a time when twice as many voters voted for them as do today, is quite understandable. There is just one slight but fundamental difference here: During that cold war (they called it The Cold War back then), the Soviet Union wanted to keep the status quo and the Federal Republic of Germany’s recognition of East Germany contributed to this, benefiting the West, as well. Putin’s Russia wants territory, however, not the status quo.

By bending over backwards with the most absurd compilation of contortions to “understand” a Russia they clearly do not understand (see Germany’s current SPD foreign minister), the SPD shows us that it already has plans to move from the Land of Wishful Thinking to the Pays of Appeasement. Or is it living there already? How unimaginative political policy can be. And how delusional.

Die sozialdemokratischen Ostpolitiker haben es schon einmal nicht bemerkt, als die Voraussetzungen für ihren Ansatz im Osten Europas weggefallen sind – das war, als Solidarność in den achtziger Jahren die kommunistische Diktatur ins Wanken brachte. Damals hat das nur ihrem Ruf in Ostmitteleuropa geschadet. Wenn ihre alten Illusionen heute wieder in die Russland-Politik einfließen, droht ein weit größerer Schaden.

Germany Planning To Unveil Secret Hell-Freezing-Over Device

They must be. Otherwise they wouldn’t be so delusional about thinking that they could ever have the bittiest little chance of getting a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

UN

I don’t know what German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) has been smoking these past few days but he has certainly been on a roll. This is the same guy, mind you, who just accused the NATO of warmongering by staging military exercises in support of its eastern NATO members (they appear to be concerned about some other types of exercises being carried out by another way big non-NATO country just a bit further down the road).

And now he thinks that a toothless, nay-saying nation like Germany somehow has the right to determine policy in the body that is at least nominally charged with the maintenance of international peace and security? Like I said. It must be some really good stuff.

Steinmeier, an honor graduate from the Neville Chamberlain Institute of Applied Appeasement, now specializes in mistaking cause and effect and is also branching out into the popular field of abandoning worried NATO neighbor countries in the East.

NATO Picking On Russia Again

And warmongering. Just ask German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD).

NATO

“What we should not do now is inflame the situation with sabre-rattling and warmongering,” he said. The “situation” being Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its continued military intervention in Ukraine, which is apparently something other than sabre-rattling and warmongering when viewed from Berlin.

Steinmeier, an honor graduate from the Neville Chamberlain Institute of Applied Appeasement, now specializes in mistaking cause and effect and is also branching out into the popular field of abandoning worried NATO neighbor countries in the East. But despite all the rhetoric, the German foreign ministry assures the world that Germany’s mighty army, a formidable threat to Russia, will be there for its allies whenever it should be needed.

Was wir jetzt nicht tun sollten, ist durch lautes Säbelrasseln und Kriegsgeheul die Lage weiter anzuheizen.

Little Oskar Banging His Tin Drum Again

And still refusing to grow up. This is, after all, the failed SPD chancellor candidate who then somehow managed to go even further left and join the Left Party to fail big time there, too.

Fuck

He has these fits every now and then, folks. Ain’t no big deal. This time it looks like somebody opened a Facebook account for him (I bet it was his current wife, Rosa Luxemburg) and now that US-Amerika‘s latest defense minister Ashton Kutcher, I mean Carter, has come to the American sector itself he’s going hog wild in a big way (Oskar not Ashton). And speaking of which, how many freakin’ defense ministers have we had these past six or seven years anyways?

Carter having been sent to Germany by Warlord President of Naked Aggression George W. Bush himself, Oskar is mad as hell and isn’t going to take it anymore and has lambasted this affront by calling to “fuck the US imperialism,” although it isn’t at all clear who he wants to have do this for him. And speaking of which, I meant the World President of Peace Obama HIMSELF himself, of course.

“The US war minister calls Europeans to stand up against Russian ‘aggression’ whereas the Europeans have all the more reason to stand up against US aggression.”

Attention for those of you who wear glasses: That loud drum-pounding of his can certainly be annoying and all but what you really have to watch out for are his glass-breaking screams.

Der US-Kriegsminister ruft die Europäer dazu auf, sich der russischen ‘Aggression’ entgegenzustellen. Dabei hätten die Europäer allen Grund, sich der Aggression der USA entgegenzustellen.”

Forget The Ploughshares

We’re going to turn our old Cold War military bases into wildlife preserves.

Peace

The German government has announced plans to convert 62 disused military bases just west of the Iron Curtain into nature reserves for eagles, woodpeckers, bats, and beetles (personally, I wouldn’t trust a woodpecker as far as I could throw one).

Jeepers. It’s not like Germany has a need for a military presence anymore or anything.

We are fortunate that we can now give these places back to nature,” says German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks. Whatever that is. Nature, I mean.

Know Your Friends

You know, like you know your enemies? But with friends like this…

NATO

According to a Pew Research Center study, only 38 percent of Germans would want to help a NATO country if it were to be attacked by Russia. Far more than half of those asked would be against it. So much for NATO’s Article 5.

Das ist im Vergleich mit anderen Nato-Ländern die größte Ablehnung militärischer Hilfe nach Artikel 5 des Nato-Vertrags, der im Angriffsfall die gemeinsame Verteidigung vorsieht. In Italien (51 Prozent), Frankreich (53) und Spanien (47) sind die Werte der Umfrage zufolge etwas niedriger, während in Polen und Großbritannien fast die Hälfte der Befragten für eine militärische Unterstützung wäre.

German Of The Day: Männerfreundschaft

That means male bonding or man-to-man friendship.

Gerd

But, like, not all of these German Putin understanders are men, are they?

He (Putin) also spoke how he and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (some call him Gazprom Gerd) were in a sauna when a fire broke out. Both escaped, but Schroeder insisted on finishing his beer first, Mr Putin said.

Auf die Frage der Moderatorin, ob Putin viel mit seinen politischen Freunden in die Sauna gehe und das Dampfbad den klassischen Konferenztischen vorziehe, erzählte Putin folgende Geschichte mit Alt-Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schröder:

„Ich saß mit meinem Freund in der Sauna in meiner Residenz, plötzlich fing es an zu brennen. Ich sagte: ‚Gerhard, es brennt, wir müssen hier raus.‘ Er sagte: ‚Es tut mir leid, aber vorher trinke ich mein Bier noch zu Ende.‘ Ich sagte: ‚Bist du verrückt? Es brennt, wir müssen hier raus.‘ Er ist ein eiserner Mann. Er hat tatsächlich sein Bier ausgetrunken und wir sind dann erst raus. Die Sauna brannte bis auf die Mauern nieder. Aber eigentlich gehe ich gern in die Sauna.“