USA demand: “The Germans to the front”* – now in Syria

cc. The US Special Representative for Syria and the anti-IS coalition, James Jeffrey, has “asked” Germany to provide ground troops for the war in Syria. The fact that on 8 July, the German government rejected the US government’s “request” for the time being is no reason to sound the all-clear. Willy Wimmer, former State Secretary in the German Ministry of Defence, commented this course of action as follows:

The empire is calling for German soldiers. This time they are to be deployed as ground troops in Syria. It is obviously immaterial that Syria is a sovereign country. That nobody can claim to have received an invitation from the legitimate Syrian government to deploy the German Bundeswehr. The Charter of the United Nations also plays no role, although there would be the only legitimation apart from a call for help in self-defence. That is not just anything.
The Charter of the United Nations is the only legitimation for the use of military force still valid for wars, as it were, after the Second World War. The devastation caused by this war was too great to allow people, after its end, to just return to the agenda and to continue with their old habits and practices of warfare. In this respect, the Charter of the United Nations represents a gain in terms of civilisation in the interest of all mankind. With and since the war against Yugoslavia in 1999, the United States has systematically tattered the backbone of the United Nations Charter. The containment of war is no longer the goal. The task is now warfare in the interest of the United States; and since its own potential is either to be spared or no longer sufficient, the Bundeswehr now has to go to the front.
It is essential to – in the truest sense of the word – savour the American President’s security policy guidelines in this context: According to these, war is subject to being waged in the American interest. In this context, the Charter of the United Nations is neither here nor there; it is not specified as a key element. By putting American interests into practice and renouncing the civilisational gain of the United Nations Charter, we have thus returned to the point where the German war against Poland began, on 1 September 1939.
The forthcoming days of remembrance will provide ample opportunity for an exchange of views on all the considerations in this context. It has come to this because of the American action leading to the renunciation of the restrictions imposed by the Charter of the United Nations. The whole dimension of remembrances, however, will in future – unlike in the past decades – be determined by the fact that the “key memory of Versailles” has been cowardly put aside by the perpetrators in the West, for reasons which have by now become very transparent. It was and is about two or three considerations among our “friends”: either the use of the German potential in their own interest, or the destruction of Germany if this should not succeed. Already in the First World War, Germany was to find its purpose in the annihilation of Russia. Today it is no different – it is all about Russia ... or about Iran or the struggle against China.
According to press reports from the French side, the current chairwoman of the CDU (Christian Democrats), Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, before her trip to Israel already held out the prospect of waiving the parliamentary reservation on the deployment of the Bundeswehr for their “colonial wars” by means of the EU. This is the signal to Washington to settle it for NATO and thus American interests at the same time. Then we will finally be where we have been desired to be for decades. We will then have to find out from the newspapers where our soldiers are deployed. That also became clear when the CDU leader began her journey. Something was again declared a German raison d’être, in spite of the fact that we do have a constitution. At the same time, according to press reports, a former Mossad leader said at an international conference that for domestic political reasons his country had no interest in peace.    •

*    The saying “The Germans to the front” was attributed to the British admiral Sir Edward Hobart Seymour (1840-1929) in the summer of 1900. In June 1900 Seymour had tried to advance from Tianjin to Beijing to free the besieged legations, but had to break off this advance and return to Tianjin. Thereupon he is said to have sent German soldiers to the front – with the request: “The Germans to the front!” (Editor’s note)

(Translation Current Concerns)