(German president defends military action) and gets criticized for it

[D-Mack]

German president defends military action


BERLIN (Reuters) - Remarks by Germany's president justifying military action to back the country's commercial interests have sparked accusations of "gunboat diplomacy," putting the government on the defensive.


Germany's defense minister on Friday distanced himself from the comments by President Horst Koehler, a former head of the International Monetary Fund, who was asked in a weekend radio interview how he viewed the country's deployment in Afghanistan.

A country like Germany with a heavy reliance on foreign trade, Koehler said, must know that "in emergencies military intervention is necessary to uphold our interests, like for example free trade routes, for example to prevent regional instabilities which could have a negative impact on our chances in terms of trade, jobs and income."
Koehler's office said the comments to Deutschlandradio Kultur referred to deployments like the current European anti-piracy mission to secure shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden, but the interviewer clearly referred to Afghanistan.
..

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64R3OO20100528

I wonder if Obama talked like that, or is it still about spreading democracy?


Jim Rickards recently complained about GS attacking Europe containing NATO members with naked CDS, Kyrgystan I II is also not going so well it seems.....

[D-Mack]

Re: (German president defends military action) and gets criticized for it

There you have it...

German President Horst Köhler Steps Down


BERLIN—German President Horst Köhler said Monday he is stepping down with immediate effect following criticism about remarks he made on German military deployments abroad.
Mr. Köhler's surprise announcement came only a year into his second term as the largely ceremonial head of state.


In recent day's Mr. Köhler, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party and former head of the International Monetary Fund, had come under pressure for comments on Germany's deployment in Afghanistan. Following a recent visit to troops, he said in a radio interview that, in case of an emergency "military action [might become necessary] ... to safeguard our interests, for instance free trade routes..."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...516510890.html

I wonder if during the 19th and early 20th century remarks like these were nothing unusual.

A New Era of Imperialism
2010/04/30

BERLIN
(Own report) - The leading German foreign policy magazine is predicting "a new era of imperialism". The "struggle for energy, raw materials and water" is going to dominate global policy in the 21 century, declared a former prominent foreign policy maker of the ruling Christian Democratic Party (CDU) in the magazine "Internationale Politik". "19th Century nationalism, colonialism and imperialism are returning", he writes in his article. Twenty years after the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe, the author is proclaiming the end of a "transition period" in world history and the beginning of a new epoch that will not exclude future "energy wars". The author, who has a profound knowledge of the transatlantic establishment, considers the USA and the People's Republic of China to be the main rivals. The EU must therefore make great efforts, if it does not want to be pushed to the sidelines of global policy. This article is published at a time, when Berlin is using the Greek crisis to demand extensive intervention possibilities into the primary sovereign rights of EU member states. The demand for a more aggressive EU foreign policy is accompanied by dictates on member states to reinforce the EU.

http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/56338

[Shakespear]

Re: (German president defends military action) and gets criticized for it

He is not supposed to say things like that in Public, the sheep are listening

[FrankL]

Re: (German president defends military action) and gets criticized for it

Resigned for telling the truth!

didn't anybody tell him the only way to stay in power and get your way is to be a hypocrite and a pretend-to-be moralist?