Time to talk about the Germans....

[Whitehall]

The German magazine Der Spiegel had a recent article where Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister and a leader in the Green party, has come out proposing a re-armament of Germany AND the abolition of the draft. Yet I understand that the big problem the government faces is unemployment while 100,000 Germans are drafted every year. They claim that they could afford to pay for 30,000 professional soldiers with the same money.

Somehow, I just can\'t jive all these positions together with any sort of coherence. The Greens are supposed to be a bunch of enviro-peaceniks yet call for a more powerful military. To do so they will have to release 70,000 people into the workforce when unemployment is a critical issue.

I suspect that Bush is not taking the German government too seriously these days since they are shooting themselves in the foot right and left. They can\'t be long in power and they\'ll lose it from their own political blundering.

Perhaps some of our European observers could explain this to us Americans.

Here\'s the article:
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/english/0,1518,242828,00.html

[franki]

The Greens (and the other german parties) want to use the army for peacekeeping missions. Currently there are missions like these going on (with german involvement) in Afghanistan, Macedonia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Besides that there is the need for something like \"quick intervention forces\" within NATO and within the EU. The current \"Bundeswehr\" is ill-equipped for these missions and a more professional army could handle tasks like these a lot better.

Apart from that the whole draft thing is too expensive I guess.

To place the possible re-armament in a perspective: The german government has been asked by NATO, by the USA and by its other NATO allies to spend more on its military. Currently it has the lowest military budget of all NATO states in relation to its Gross National Product (with the exception of Luxemburg). This is one of the reasons that there is some sort of consensus to spend more on the military. Add to this the recent events around Iraq and the UN and the germans realise (even the greens!) that they have to build up a serious army if they want to be taken seriously in the world.

Franki [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[MadDoctor]

Looks like Franki typed faster than I did! Thanks, Franki [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

(Original, too-slow post):
<I think we can expect a lot of countries to be greatly increasing their defense spending in the near future, so that doesn\'t surprise me, even from the Greens. I\'m not sure what Fischer\'s thinking about the draft, that does seem strangely timed. Puzzling...

Do any of you readers in Germany understand what\'s up with that?>

[franki]

</font><blockquote><font class=\"small\">Quote:</font><hr />
Looks like Franki typed faster than I did! Thanks, Franki [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]



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LOL, yeah, that was pretty good from me. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[Whitehall]

Here\'s something from the net:

- 11 h 39 : Pillage de l\'ambassade allemande
L\'ambassade d\'Allemagne et le centre culturel français à Bagdad ont été mis à sac par
des pillards, selon un journaliste de l\'AFP. Les pillards sont rentrés dans la cour
intérieure de l\'ambassade d\'Allemagne en voiture et même à cheval. Ils ont démonté
tout ce qu\'ils ont trouvé, le mobilier, les néons, les réfrigérateurs, les appareils vidéo.
La scène est la même dans le centre culturel français. Un groupe de sept Français
employés par la chancellerie était resté à Bagdad pour assurer la protection des locaux,
le personnel diplomatique ayant évacué la capitale irakienne.

(The German embassy and the French cultural center in Baghdad have been sacked by
looters, according to a journalist with Agence France Presse. The looters entered into
the interior court of the German embassy in vehicles and even on horses. They
dismantled everything they found, the furniture, the neon lights, the refrigerators, and
the video apparatus. The scene was the same at the French cultural center. A group of
seven French chancellor employees had stayed in Baghdad to protect these localities,
the diplomatic personnel having been evacuated from the Iraqi capital.)

So the looters seem to put the French and the Germans in the same category as the Ba\'ath Party - lootable at least.

[Andy]

I have no idea how this could happen, because german embassies are usually protected by the GSG9. Looters aren\'t that picky you know, they loot everything that\'s lootable. They wouldn\'t stop at the gates of the us-embassy as well in case wouldn\'t be properly guarded.

[franki]

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I have no idea how this could happen,

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The embassy was deserted I guess.

[MadDoctor]

It does seem that the buildings concerned were deserted. They\'ve also been looting every sort of business, a number of homes, even hospitals, along with a mob attacking and killing a very prominent anti-Hussein clergyman and his aide in the most sacred of Shia mosques. The place is in a state of total chaos, and the troops are apparently only guarding buildings which contain large caches of weapons, so most anywhere with removable assets and a lack of armed guards is likely to be hit.