“The Germans have to learn to kill”

In the September 5, 2005 edition of this report I wrote about the decades-long effort by the United States to wean Japan away from its post-WW2 pacifist constitution and foreign policy and set it back on the righteous path to again being a military power, acting in coordination with US foreign policy needs.

For some years, the United States has of course had the same goal in mind for its other major WW2 foe. But recent circumstances indicate that Washington may be losing patience with the rate of Germany's submission to the empire's embrace. Germany declined to send troops to Iraq and sent only non-combat forces to Afghanistan, not quite good enough for the Pentagon war lovers and their NATO allies. Germany's leading news magazine, Der Spiegel, recently reported the following:

At a meeting in Washington, Bush administration officials, speaking in the context of Afghanistan, berated Karsten Voigt, German government representative for German-American relations: "You concentrate on rebuilding and peacekeeping, but the unpleasant things you leave to us." ... "The Germans have to learn to kill."

A German officer at NATO headquarters was told by a British officer: "Every weekend we send home two metal coffins, while you Germans distribute crayons and woollen blankets."

A NATO colleague from Canada remarked that it was about time that "the Germans left their sleeping quarters and learned how to kill the Taliban."

Bruce George, the head of the British Defence Committee, said "some drink tea and beer and others risk their lives."

And in Quebec, a Canadian official told a German official: "We have the dead, you drink beer."[3]

Yet, in many other contexts since the end of the war the Germans have been unable to disassociate themselves from the image of Nazi murderers and monsters.

Will there come a day when the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents will be mocked by "the Free World" for living in peace?