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Europe

Germany: Foreign Minister wants commandos out of Afghanistan

2008-10-04

German Foreign Minister Steinmeier said in an interview he wants to scrap the Afghanistan mandate for German commandos, thus ending Germany's contribution to the US-led force fighting terrorism in the region. In an interview with news magazine Der Spiegel, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the hundred elite German soldiers stationed in Afghanistan since 2001 have not been deployed "a single time." Interesting. That's disappointing but not surprising. The Germans simply haven't been willing to carry their weight. The troops are part of the US-led "Operation Enduring Freedom" charged with fighting terrorism. The force is deeply controversial because of mounting civilian casualties in its fight against the Taliban. Considering that increased enemy activity is causing the "mounting" civilian casualties, this "argument" is a ridiculous bit of sophistry. The minister said he was in favour of removing the elite forces when the parliament debates in November whether to extend the mandate of Germany's participation in "Operation Enduring Freedom." Instead, Steinmeier said, the "clear focus" for Berlin was to extend the number of German soldiers in Afghanistan under the NATO-led multinational International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF). On Tuesday, the German parliament, in a special session, is to debate raising German troop levels by 1,000 to 4,500 soldiers. We can't "constantly raise our contribution without critically assessing existing commitments," Steinmeier told the magazine. Makes sense in a way: if you won't let the commandos fight then why have them there? If the job of the German solider is to be security guard and social worker, put the commandos somewhere else. How 'bout Somalia? Or Darfur? Steinmeier joins a growing chorus of German politician calling for a rethink of Germany's involvement in Afghanistan. WHAT involvement? Their ROEs are so restrictive they're barely useful other than as a symbol, IIUC. Or have those ROEs changed recently? And are they trained and equipped to contribute to real combat? Or is this another case of Germany wanting credit when things are going well and disavowing participation when there's real work to be done? On Saturday, The Christian Social (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Party, went further, urging the chancellor to come up with an exit strategy for the German army in Afghanistan. Perhaps John McCain ought to bring this up at a debate? The chairman of the CSU's parliamentary group, Peter Ramsauer said that was the only way the extension of Germany's Afghanistan mandate for another year could be justified and would get "some support" from citizens. Ramsauer added he hoped experts weren't right in predicting that the mission in Afghanistan would last for 10 to 15 years. "It will become all the more shorter if we begin to understand that the problems in Afghanistan can never be solved militarily alone," he said.

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Europe

US Official: Germany not Keen on Release of Guantanamo Inmate

2007-03-02

Contradicting statements made by German Foreign Minister Steinmeier, a high-ranking former US official has said that German government officials did not try to get German-born Murat Kurnaz released from Guantanamo. In an interview with German TV program "Monitor," Pierre-Richard Prosper, the US government's former ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues until Oct 2005, said that German officials never contacted him about releasing Kurnaz from the detention camp. "During my entire time in office, Germany never showed any interest and I was the person to contact within the US government," said Prosper, who was responsible for returning Guantanamo inmates to their home countries from 2002 to 2005. Kurnaz was arrested in Pakistan in late 2001 on suspicion of being a terrorist and spent more than four years in detention before being released without charge from Guantanamo in 2006. He says he was tortured and abused at the camp. German government officials have denied delaying the release of Kurnaz, who has Turkish citizenship, but grew up in Germany. The case is now under investigation by a parliamentary committee. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's chief-of-staff, has come under fire for his role. Steinmeier has said that the Schröder government repeatedly talked to US officials about the Kurnaz case and lobbied for his release. But Prosper, who left public service to work as an attorney at the beginning of the year, said he didn't know of any such conversations. "If the German government would have said: 'We want Kurnaz,' we would have immediately sat down to come to an agreement," Prosper said, according to German translations of the interview. Prosper added that it was "not a secret" that Kurnaz had been "considered for release" since 2002.

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