Strongbow said:
I thought you might try to answer it this way. Forget about the initial reasons for invading Afghanistan in 2001 which your country apparently supported, as well as the invasion of Iraq. Its 2008, and you have two countries that need foreign help in developing their government, economy, and military after the overthrow of two dictatorships.
In an unsecure environment, soldiers are needed to help deliver and provide humanitarian aid. Germany supported the invasion and bombing of Iraq in 1991 as well as the invasion and bombing of Afghanistan in 2001. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Germany has voted against the UN approved occupation in Iraq which comes up for a vote every summer. So again, I ask, why does Afghanistan deserve 2,000 German troops but Iraq does not deserve any?
You are ignoring some aspects of our political process:
To send troops anywhere the Bundestag (our Congress, so to speak) would have to hold a vote, and this vote wouldn't have any chance to result in a majority of delegates opting for sending troops into Iraq.
It would aslo dramatically ignore the wishes of the German public they are to represent.
And except for some members of the CDU and maybe a few of the FDP there is hardly anyone who would be in support of military actions over there.
To get the support for any military action is extremely difficult, which you could have observed with the Libanon and the Afghanistan operations, the question whether to send troops to the south of Afghanistan and the sending of Tornado jets. Every year when there is a vote whether to extend the stay in Afghanistan is extensively discussed and basically just secured by the majority of the CDU and the SPD.
Our Bundeswehr is lacking equipment and experience for such an adventure. It would be suicide. Additionally, we don't have enough troops available to get sent there as we are already in Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, at the shore of the Libanon and Afghanistan as well as some other countries.
Being a draftee armee, not a professional army, it's not that easy to send soldiers in such a dangerous area.
And again, the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war might have similarities, but still are not the same and in the perception of the German public they are fundamentally different.
And as you previously so vehemently argued for, most parts of Iraq are safe according to your assessment, so I really don't get why you are now arguing for the need of German troops bringing safety to Iraq, and why it shouldn't be sufficient the way we are helping over there. And quite frankly, it's ridiculous how you imply with sentences like that:
Its 2008, and you have two countries that need foreign help in developing their government, economy, and military after the overthrow of two dictatorships.
that we are doing nohing for Iraq. We are doing our share of the support, for example with our rather symbolic approval through the UN, providing Iraqis with all kinds of equipment and training Iraqis in Kuweit and here in Germany how to service the equipment as well as other training and support measures.
You also shouldn't forget that we allowed you to use your US bases here in Germany, you've got overflight permission and we even protected those bases during the war and to this day. We additionally allowed German troops and civilians to stay in AWACS planes over Turkey and our NBC reconnaissance vehicle were used to determine whether rockets fired into Kuweit contained any chemicals.
As I said, the approval through the UN is rather symbolic than an actual support of the occupation. One reason for our approval is, that the German diplomats were, and still are, lacking the guts to vote against it to not further offend Bush, and because they fear the consequences if the US and their partners were to occupy a nation without approval by the UN. It doesn't resemble our support of the Iraq war, but unfortunately goes to show how far away the UN still is to being an effective multilateral institution in the world.
The invasion of Iraq was premature and the pre-emptive attack was, according to common interpretation of Article 51 of the UN charta, way too pre-emptive. Hence, we won't actively support any military occupation, but neither let the Iraqi people down, as you try to implicate.
The Federal Administrative Court of Germany re-emphasized in a decision in 2006, that the Iraq war is according to the UN Charta and public internation law criteria questionable and in their interpretation a break of the law of nations, hence the passive support we gave is in effect a break of law, but it won't be pursued legally and is thusly without consequences for the Schroeder government. But sending in German military forces sure would result in legal consequences nationally and also not backed by the German Grundgesetz, our constitution.
You may see the invasion of Iraq as being a necessity, and even see the ongoing occupation as being justified, but we don't, and we won't do so in future. Hence, you won't see our soldiers dying in Iraq.
Why not?
The reasons why we joined you in Afghanistan, and still see it as being worth fighting for, are so intensely different to the Iraq war, and any of those committments is a stretch of our Constitution, that forbids any attacks on other nations, but allows only for defense of Germany or one of our partners.
