Or if you combat ’em, join ’em?
The U.S. Army’s 69-year history of basing main battle tanks on German soil quietly ended last month when 22 Abrams tanks, a main feature of armored combat units throughout the Cold War, embarked for the U.S.
“There is no [U.S.] tank on German soil.”
Literally hundreds of German peace activists spent several hours this weekend in numerous German cities protesting against one or two (or even three) important peace-related issues like…
1) German “killer drones” that don’t exist,
2) Bundeswehr recruitment at German schools and
3) Countries like Mali and Syria that should stop being so warlike already (although everybody knows that Germany will NEVER EVER be involved there militarily in any meaningful way EVER) and just go away and leave us, as in them, alone.
Es ist an der Zeit: Sagt Nein!
Die westdeutsche Friedensbewegung hat ihre Wurzeln im Protest gegen das atomare Wettrüsten während des Kalten Krieges. 1983 erlebte sie ihren Höhepunkt mit Hunderttausenden Demonstranten in Bonn, die gegen die Stationierung von amerikanischen Atomraketen protestierten.
United States military forces have once again dramatically and unnecessarily raised tensions all over the place (but in North Korea mostly) by clearly demonstrating that they intend to react to any preemptive nuclear strikes conducted by North Korea against the United States with what will most likely be a more than sufficient show of overwhelming force.
Concerned European peace researchers are alarmed, of course, and stress that this type of bravado only sends signals that could result in confrontation and should cease immediately already. Or else.
Nordkorea hatte den Amerikanern jüngst mit einem atomaren Erstschlag und dem Angriff von amerikanischen Militärstützpunkten im Pazifik gedroht.
And the German communities they will soon be leaving don’t like it one little bit. It has to do with Kaufkraft (spending power) or something.
Strange, isn’t it? Germans are always the first to demand the quickest possible withdrawal timetable for “foreign” troops (NATO, ISAF, etc.) taking part in peacekeeping operations elsewhere in the world, but then start whining once the foreign peacekeepers in Germany finally have enough already and decide to leave themselves – after nearly seventy years.
Peace is hell.
“Da sind die Auswirkungen nur schwer abzuschätzen.”
Germany’s military is planning to acquire armed drones which they will never use in a zillion years its Defense Minister said on Friday, reigniting a heated debate in Germany over the ethics of not using such aircraft.
The drones would protect German soldiers in dangerous situations, if we would ever use them that is, which of course we wouldn’t, as German soldiers are never put in dangerous situations in the first place, Thomas de Maiziere told the German government’s YouTube channel in an interview.
Critics of such German drone non-strikes argue that they would end up failing to kill high numbers of innocent civilians and that they would frequently not be launched across sovereign states’ borders – far more frequently than conventional attacks by piloted German aircraft that are never ever launched from anywhere to anyplace, either.
Prior to the official announcement, German opposition lawmakers had already condemned the pointless purchase of the useless, lame-ass, purposeless armed drones, with the head of the Greens parliamentary group Juergen Trittin saying that they could lower the threshold for German military non-engagement even lower than it already is.
“We have a gap in our capabilities which we want to close.”
Since when has any of this been a secret?
That Germany is the world’s third largest weapons exporter, I mean (preferably to the Middle East these days, by the way). So what’s the problem here? Germany is simultaneously the world’s number one pacifist nation too, you know.
But to make matters even, uh, better, some here are unabashedly calling this enlightened policy “the Merkel Doctrine” now: It’s better to maintain peace by selling weapons, rather than have to fight for it. They have to be German weapons, of course. But still. You know, help those who help themselves while you’re helping yourself at the same time?
Wait a minute. Hasn’t that always been the doctrine here?
Waffen verkaufen, statt selber zu kämpfen.
BAE Systems has warned it will walk away from its proposed €35bn tie-up with EADS if the deal waters down its special relationship with the Pentagon.
This SSA, specifies that BAE’s senior leadership in the US is made up of Americans, among other things, and has allowed the UK’s biggest defence company to work on many lucrative US national security projects.
“The [US] military would rather have a BAE than a combined BAE-EADS. BAE has been very successful in managing its US relationship. EADS is not in the same bucket, and a combined EADS-BAE is going to be treated a lot more like EADS than BAE.”
What a perfect title for a graphic novel about the Bundeswehr‘s mission in Afghanistan.
German illustrator Arne Jysch has completed his first graphic novel. Congratulations. I’m sure it’s fantasy comic material at it’s finest (in some scenes German soldiers are actually seen doing some fighting, for instance).
“The advantage of fiction is that you can combine real experiences that different people have had (in other armies?) and mix them all up,” he explains.
Jysch has never been to Afghanistan.
PS: I read recently that German soldiers in Afghanistan, being frustrated about having to be German soldiers in Afghanistan, have their own definition for ISAF: I saw Americans fighting.
On land, even. No, not these pirates. These pirates down here.
Well, they won’t actually be shooting at the pirates per se (that would be bad), but more like at their equipment and stuff. You know, at the loot and the booty on the beaches? This will make the pirates run away and never come back again or at least become good or something.
It is all part of the EU’s anti-pirate Operation Atalanta off the Somali coast so it’s OK for Germans to do this, really.
The German opposition continues to criticise the operation as risky overreach for the forces and has vowed to vote against it.
In a sharp response to the pure unadulterated fear caused them by the deadly protests now taking place in Afghanistan after the inadvertent burning of copies of the Koran by a US soldier…
The German military has decided to join in the protests itself by rapidly deploying the closure of one of their bases in the north of the country and having their soldiers hightail it in the opposite direction really schnell like where they can run around in sheer panic and large concentric circles not knowing what to do next while screaming oh my God we are all going to die or something to that effect. The few, the proud, the Bundeswehr.
The base would have been shuttered in March, but officials worried its security could not be maintained in the face of the demonstrations.
Observing Hermann 