November 21, 2009
Published: 2 Nov 09 18:42 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/opinion/20091102-22983.html
Angela Merkel’s speech to the US Congress on Tuesday is an honour for both the chancellor and Berlin. But her trip to Washington comes at a price, believes Dr. Josef Braml from the German Council on Foreign Relations.
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Your comments about this article:
Frankly, a head of state should fulfill the expectations of its own citizens, and not of some bully.
Anyway, who exactly would sideline Germany? Is this supposed some sort of resurrection of Rumsfeld´s "Old Europe" spiel? That worked so well for the US, didn't it?
¦quot;Americans international commitments¦quot; - as the author disingenuously calls US bellicose foreign policy- unfortunately under Obama have not been altered since the reign of George W Stupid.
The new US Obama administration have not reacted in an objective manner in the middle east as they said they would, and have recently been forced yet again by another extremist right-wing Israel government to back down from promises to play as a neutral broker with the Palestinians. They have not had any dialogue with Iran, which they said they would begin, only made more threats. They have not done their home work on Afghanistan and seem to want to continue with the mindless Nato presence which has not built one school or one hospital and continues to support a corrupt government.
And the author is asking Germany to support this or face being ostracized by the US? Better to be ¦quot;side-lined¦quot; than line up with yet another loser-going no-where US foreign policy.
You can not hold all germans, their children and the children of their children, responsible for what happened in the early 20th century forever. As for the US, yes, they helped, and the germans are grateful, why shouldn´t they. Things happended were horrible for all humanity, these abominable deeds this one german wack job did.
But i think what kim proffitt is trying to say is that you always have to look on both sides of the story. Going into war always means making profit. Why do you think the US spents 547 billion! every year in the military. Now, you don´t want to know how much is spent on education, believe me.
They got used to it and so they try to keep up war. At all costs, and this has been going on throughout the last century.
Furthermore, the germans are making themselves a target the longer they stick their nose in business not of their own, but just out of pure reciprocation. Things aren´t just black or white.
Profit making in war, what a concept. Well, again, Germany is the world's third largest exporter of arms. O.K., when those export led jobs are given up, those employed in the arms export business laid off/terminated, and those profits taken from the German economy, along with the associated tax revenues, I will concede to your point. Kim's comments are one sided, as if the U.S. is the only culprit in the international arms/war industry.
In my opinion sustaining jobs by all means, even if that means by producing weapons for half the world, export or whatever other reasons, is no solution. It´s like sayin´ ¦quot;well, slavery is inhuman, but hey, at least they have a job, somewhere to sleep and to eat, don´t they¦quot; ..
I just want to emphasize that as long as expenses for military are higher than for education, science, etc., something is going horribly wrong, in any country.
I also don´t approve any process of decision-making if it´s based on reciprocation. The idea of the NATO is certainly good. But what if, and this is not far-fetched, someone starts a war on an assumption, just for the own profit, should the other member states blindly follow, because of a signed treaty, even if common sense tells you it´s totally wrong?