An old photo from World War I shows a company of German soldiers getting on the train on their way to the front. On the wall of the car somebody had scribbled “viel Feind, viel Ehr” (“The more enemies, the more honor.”) In those days, at the very start of what was to be the …
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BERLIN — The decision by the German government to deliver 200 state-of-the-art armored tanks to Saudi Arabia, despite the Wahhabi monarchy’s human rights record and its recent violent intervention in Bahrain to repress the popular rebellion against the local ruling family there, illustrates the rhetorical nature of Western support to the so-called Arab democratic spring. …
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BERLIN, Dec 2 (IPS) – Government officials in Germany are being accused of manipulating threats of terrorism to induce public hysteria, even while warning against such reactions. The self-contradictory approach has prompted German citizens to call the terror warnings "farcical" and "negligent." In mid-November, three separate instances of supposed terrorist threats were made public, only …
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Updated at 5:59 p.m. EST, April, 4, 2010
The worst attack so far this year took place in Baghdad leaving hundreds dead or wounded. At least 55 Iraqis were killed and 320 more were wounded there and across the country. Some of the casualties from the Baghdad blasts may have been foreign personnel, but reports suggests otherwise. Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari was quick to tentatively blame al-Qaeda. Meanwhile, casualty figures climbed in March due to the national elections, but if attacks continue, April figures could be even higher.
Remember the 100 hours of combat that made up the first Gulf War, the mere weeks it took for Kabul to fall in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, or the "shock and awe" wave of air attacks that led off the 2003 invasion of Iraq, followed by the 20-day blitzkrieg-like campaign that left American troops …
Continue reading “American Blitzkrieg: Loving the German War Machine to Death”
A short historical quiz: Which state: Arose after a holocaust in which a third of its people were destroyed? Drew from that holocaust the conclusion that only superior military forces could ensure its survival? Accorded the army a central role in its life, making it "an army that had a state, rather than a state …
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Conn Hallinan: was the bombing in Kunduz an election ploy?
On Sept. 4, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force conducted an air strike on a fuel tank hijacked by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan. The attack killed dozens of people, including civilians, according to NATO sources. However, the German minister of defense, Franz Josef Jung, has stubbornly denied that the attack harmed civilians, insisting instead that …
Continue reading “German Peace Movement Demands Withdrawal From Afghanistan”
On Sept. 1, 1939, 70 years ago, the German Army crossed the Polish frontier. On Sept. 3, Britain declared war. Six years later, 50 million Christians and Jews had perished. Britain was broken and bankrupt, Germany a smoldering ruin. Europe had served as the site of the most murderous combat known to man, and civilians …
Continue reading “Did World War II Have To Happen?”
Edouard Husson asks if Germans will assert their will