And that it should be stopped immediately. And the rest of us need to know that they think war is bad and that we, the less-cultured, should think it is bad too. War ain’t got no culture, in other words.
I know!, the cultured say after brainstorming. We’ll hold a “Concert for Peace.” That’s never been tried before. We will also make paintings of doves holding olive branches. That ought to have the desired effect. Anti-war books are also in the process of being written. Once they are published and airlifted to those making war, and read by them, this will definitely stop the war, provided it hasn’t been stopped already by, I dunno, all the cultured people of the world holding hands together and singing “Imagine” while waving Ukrainian flags with “No war!” on them to “express solidarity” or “make a statement” or “set a sign” and bring an end to this awful, culture-less conflict.*
But be warned, you war mongers out there: If none of this works, the culture may escalate. And you don’t want that.
*Yes, it’s true. Cultured people can hold hands together and wave a flag at the same time.
The Israeli Ministry of Defense has announced the completion of the first round of Leopard 2 tank-installed TROPHY active protection system live tests.
Looks like Sig Sauer might get fined twelve million euros for illegally selling 36,000 handguns to Columbia.
Nach vier Jahren Ermittlungen gibt es eine Anklage gegen Sig Sauer. Eine Strafe von zwölf Millionen Euro droht: Der Waffenhersteller in Eckernförde soll über die USA illegal mehr als 36 000 Pistolen nach Kolumbien verkauft haben. Sig Sauer sieht sich «rechtskonform».
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday Turkey’s military offensive in Syria’s northern town of Afrin was unacceptable and she criticized Russia for “just watching” the continuing attacks by Syrian forces on eastern Ghouta.
Obwohl die Bundesregierung die türkische Offensive in Afrin als “inakzeptabel” bezeichnet, genehmigte sie seit deren Beginn Rüstungsexporte in Millionenhöhe an die Türkei.
Exporting tanks? No problem. But don’t try importing them without official authorization.
Not even if they are kind of sort of “demilitarized” and all you want to do is paint them for peace or whatever. Now the guy who imported them for artist Harald Glööckler is going to have to go to jail or something. Or maybe not. Glööckler is the work of art on the right, by the way.
Zwei Panzer und Harald Glööckler – Was eigentlich ein Kunstobjekt in einem Garten werden sollte, kommt nun vor Gericht. Angeklagt: Ein 49-Jähriger.
You know, the place where after getting the mayor to hightail it out of town and burning down a planned asylum seekers‘ home on Easter Sunday, right-wing nut jobs are now threatening to behead the local district administrator if asylum seekers start arriving in May as originally planned?
German peace activists will be protesting against the real forces of evil like NATO, instead. The same procedure as every year, James.
The Easter marches reached their peak in support between 1968 and 1983, when events throughout West Germany brought hundreds of thousands out onto the streets annually to demonstrate against issues such as Washington’s military involvement in Vietnam and the nuclear arms race.
Nearly a million peaceniks used to get together in Germany back in the 80s (against American Pershing missiles) but these days it’s hard just getting a couple hundred peace activists together over Easter.
Would the Germany of today help liberate the Germany of 1944? You don’t need to tap Angela Merkel’s phone to find the answer: It’s no.
Defense-minded politicians in Berlin rail against this picture, arguing that postwar Germany has participated in major military operations. Take Kosovo! Take Afghanistan! Big missions! Don’t be fooled. It is perfectly clear by now that these interventions hardly represent the rule; rather, they are two exceptions from a convenient and holier-than-thou foreign policy attitude, one the Germans have cultivated over the past 70 years.
Jochen Bittner is a political editor for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit.
And they’ll be leaving behind some 1,700 Afghan employees in the process. Employees that the Taliban has threatened to kill as collaborators.
Germany benefited from its Afghan helpers for years, and now the Afghans are waiting for Germany to help them.
Other ISAF countries, like the United States, Canada and New Zealand, have set up generous programs for local personnel and their families. France decided to accept about 170 of its Afghan employees into the country. But the German government refuses to implement a collective solution.
“We sold off our lives for a few thousand dollars. If only I had worked for the Americans.”
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 NEVEREVER 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.
Observing Hermann 