The President of the Federal Republic of Germany Horst Köhler (mostly representative head of state) has resigned because of the strong reactions to an interview he gave just a few days ago (transcript).
The interview has been interpreted as championing the aggressive use of military force to further national interests (= in my opinion a possible interpretation of his words).
The reactions pointed out that this would be way beyond the constitutional limits and that the Federal Republic of Germany has military forces for self defence, not for Banana Wars.
Federal presidents tend to have more integrity than common top politiians and it's to be respected that he resigned that quickly because he felt that he hadn't enough respect and support anymore.
I interpret his speech as the latest step of an multi-party salami tactic that was employed since about 1993 in order to increasingly get used the Germans to distant and even offensive use of military power. A normal politician would have proposed a stupid mission, got resistance and have postponed the accustomization till a later date.
I wrote in 2009/11:
(...) Then came the end of the Cold War.German politicians proceeded with a salami slice tactic for so-called "out of area" missions of German troops, one step at a time. It began with a field hospital in Cambodia, then logistical support troops in a safe place in Northern Somalia and so on. Peacekeepers here, peacekeepers there, finally some purely anti-radar missions of Tornados in the 1999 Kosovo Air War and then more peacekeeping in Afghanistan coupled with up to 100 commando soldiers on AQ hunt.Well, now we're in the stupid business of small wars - with a strong popular majority rejecting this policy and at the same time re-electing the conservatives for domestic policy reasons.
photo: Roosewelt Pinheiro/Agência Brasil
.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment