Hold the Line
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
The German Bundeswehr (Federal Armed Forces) currently has 4,300 soldiers in Afghanistan, which is the largest deployment of German combat troops since World War II. They also are the third largest number of allied troops there, behind the United States and Britain.
They may be leaving.
The war in Afghanistan is even less popular in Germany than it is in America and Britain, and this was compounded, according to a recent article by Time Magazine, due to a government cover-up by former Defence Minister* Franz Jung.
On Sept. 4, two tanker trucks were hijacked by Taliban forces near a German position. Colonel Georg Klein called in an airstrike, which was executed by two U.S. jets. The strike killed over 142 people. It has recently come out that over 40 of them were civilians, and that the German Defence Department was aware of this and concealed it from not only the public, but Prime Minister Angela Merkel and the current defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. Jung and two other members of the defense department have already resigned.
The Bundestag (German Parliament) is looking at withdrawing their troops more seriously now than they had before. Guttenberg recently gave a speech to the Bundestag saying that they needed to start “thinking the Afghanistan mission from its end,” and insisting that “there is a need for more clarity on how, and under which circumstances, the mission can end.”
This all comes at a time when President Obama is looking to step up the war in Afghanistan and is asking our allies to do the same. In fact, the general secretary of NATO was in Germany at the time attempting to get more support.
We need to do our best to convince Germany of the importance of the Afghanistan war. The Taliban is a breeder of terrorists, who want to destroy Western civilization, whether American, British, German, French, Swiss, Italian, or any other nation. These psychopaths want to instate a global empire ruled in their extremist, totally hypocritical and corrupted form of Islam. I strongly recommend that everyone go read “Held by the Taliban,” an article written by New York Times reporter David Rohde who was kidnapped by the Taliban for close to a year. This intimate view shows us what we are up against, and how important it is that we do not let these people gain an entire country to control.
The Bundeswehr forces in Afghanistan are largely involved in reconstruction rather than combat, though this example shows quite clearly that they are not exempt from danger. It is imperative that we can convince the Germans (along with our other wavering allies) that they should stay, and that we must not fail in preventing these extremists from establishing a stranglehold in the region.
Another recent Times article discussed the history of the Taliban in Pakistan and the Pakistani military’s response, basically concluding it is debatable whether they can stop the Taliban from taking over the country. With Pakistan wavering and the ability of their army to prevent the Taliban from conquering the country uncertain, the last thing we need is for them to have a reliable base from which to train terrorists and attack their neighbors. Many Americans don’t even seem to realize Pakistan is teetering on the brink of collapse and has only recently gotten semi-serious about its own defense. We really should care though. Pakistan has a small nuclear arsenal.
This war isn’t like the war in Iraq (which I have opposed since the beginning). The threat is much more serious, much more real, and has huge implications not only for the region, but the entire globe. We and our allies must remain resolute and steadfast in this time. It isn’t easy, and there has been great sacrifice by so many already, but if we leave now, and a few years later, using Afghanistan as a base, the Taliban destabilizes Pakistan and acquires their nukes, it will all have been for nothing.
*“Defence” is the proper spelling in Germany.
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