-Caveat Lector- : From wsws.org : : : WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : Germany : : Red-Green militarism : : The German government and the war against Serbia : : By Ulrich Rippert : 2 April, 1999 : : The ease with which the German SPD-Green coalition government agreed to the : NATO war of aggression against Serbia has surprised and angered many. Of : all governments, it has been a coalition of social democrats and Greens : which has for the first time since the World War II dispatched German : troops into war. How often have the functionaries of both governing parties : repeated the standpoint shared by all German parties during the last 50 : years: "No more war!"? How often have they called upon their members to : take part in peace demonstrations and denounced the tradition of German : militarism? : : And what now? : : As the German airforce, together with NATO bombers, began its first : offensive over the Balkans SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schr�der declared in a : televised speech: "We had no other choice." First of all, that is not true. : No one has forced the German government to participate in brutal military : aggression against a small country with less than 10 million inhabitants. : Secondly such a statement is a declaration of political bankruptcy. What is : one to think of a government which itself creates compelling conditions, : and then maintains that these very conditions restrict its room for : manoeuvre. It is evident that this government is incapable, and therefore : capable of absolutely anything. Its opportunism and lack of principles are : almost boundless. : : In the same television message Schr�der announced that the parliamentary : decision for war was "in agreement with the will of the vast majority of : the German people." This is also false! The vast majority of the people : were never asked their opinion about this war. If, prior to the national : elections half a year ago, Schr�der had even mentioned that his government : was prepared to take part in a war of aggression, ignoring international : law and the German constitution, the result of the election would have been : very different. : : "The German government did not make its decision easily," said Schr�der. In : fact the government did not think through any of the aspects arising from : its actions and has behaved in a completely irresponsible manner. The first : night of bombing was sufficient to refute the main argument for the war. : Rather than diminishing the humanitarian catastrophe, the bombing attacks : only made the situation much worse. : : The incredible cynicism of this government is clearest when one looks at : the position of the Greens. Barely voted into government, this party has : moved with record speed to carry out policies diametrically opposed to what : it had promised in the past. All previous declarations and party decisions : have been thrown overboard within the space of a few months. And this from : an organisation which at the time of its foundation, 20 years ago, accused : all other parties of lacking credibility. The very word "credibility" is a : mockery when used with respect to the Greens today. : : On the second day of bombing the conservative newspaper Frankfurter : Allgemeine Zeitung purred with satisfaction: "The great majority of those : in the Green party who are responsible for foreign policy and security : questions have, to a certain extent, made their peace with war." Later on : the paper wrote: "When Joseph Fischer as foreign minister and : vice-chancellor of one of the biggest NATO countries supports the present : offensive, then he does not have to worry about any opposition from a : significant part of the Bundestag fraction." With the Greens one has to : delineate "between programmatic positions and practical politics. If : Foreign Minister Fischer supports German fighter planes in the attack on : the republic of Yugoslavia, then his position is in crass contradiction to : the program of his party." : : Absolutely true! : : According to their current Magdeburg Programme, agreed upon less than 12 : month ago, "The Greens will not support military interventions or any : military operations to impose peace". Just a few weeks ago, on March : 7--i.e., after the Rambouillet conference--the thirteenth regular : conference of the Greens in Erfurt passed a resolution which read: "The : Greens fundamentally oppose an exclusive NATO mandate for military : operations, thereby insuring that the monopoly of force is retained by UNO : ". In future--if there is a future for this party--the Greens should, when : voting on such resolutions, also vote on their expiry date. : : Just a few hours after the attack on Serbia, as the German government : discussed the issue, the Green fraction, with one exception, stood solidly : behind the government. Christian Str�bele was the only Green deputy to call : things by their real name, and in a heated contribution accused the : government of carrying out a war of aggression--only to be greeted with : incomprehension and stern opposition on the part of his own fraction. : : The defence speaker for the Greens, Angelika Beer, describing herself as a : "moderate left", repeated the arguments of the chancellor and Green foreign : minister and maintained there was no other way. She said she had great : difficulty herself coming to this decision, as if to demand respect for the : fact that as a genuine opportunist she did not break easily with her : principles. : : This is the end of the Greens! The NATO bombs have hit home in the heart of : their party headquarters and done more damage there than anywhere else. : What is the use of a party with its origins in the peace movement which : declares at its first big test: "There is no alternative to war!"? The : Frankfurter Rundschau, in its edition of last Tuesday, reports that the : regional and national headquarters of the Greens have been bombarded with : letters and e-mails from members and sympathisers expressing their anger : and disgust, some of the messages beginning with the words: "Never again : Green!". : : With every new wave of NATO attacks the wave of members resigning from the : Green party is growing as well. Anja Kofbinger, a leading member of the : Berlin organisation, declared that she has spent the last days persuading : depressed members to stay in the party. And the regional organisation in : North Rhine-Westphalia urgently called upon the national office to : establish a "hot line for wavering members and voters". What's the point, : however, of such a mechanism when one has nothing else to say than to : repeat the propaganda of the war ministry? : : The rapid political decline of the Greens is a repulsive and disgusting : spectacle, but at the same time an important political experience. There : has been a fundamental change in social relations since the late 70s and : beginning of the 80s, which often witnessed anti-war demonstrations and : peace marches by hundreds of thousands. In many countries the employers : have dispensed with a policy of social consensus and workers have taken : painful blows. Social-democratic parties have participated in the : destruction of social gains and the trade unions have agreed to wage cuts. : The high point of this development took place 10 years ago when the : Stalinist regimes took the road of capitalist restoration. : : The Greens concluded from this development that any sort of resistance to : the existing social order was doomed to failure and began to adapt and : subordinate their policies in line with the interests of the market. As : long as they were in opposition they were able to disguise this process : behind a few radical phrases. Upon coming into government, however, the : advanced state of decay of this organisation has become clearer from day to : day. : : War accelerates all political developments. It deepens the gulf between the : political parties and the political establishment, who are rapidly moving : to the right, and the growing discontent of a large part of the population. : On the first day of the war, when television teams conducted interviews on : the street, treating it as a sort of football match, a number of reporters : were themselves astonished at the reaction. Elderly men and women spoke, as : if it were yesterday, of the horrors of the Second World War, the loss of : relatives and their lives as widowers, widows and orphans. Young people : also declared themselves to be concerned and deeply worried by the war. : : Up until a short time ago many of them had regarded such a military : operation by the German army to be out of the question. Following the : bitter experiences of two world wars there exist profound reservations : against any form of militarism. The re-establishment of the German army in : the 50s was accompanied by mass demonstrations and protests, and many can : still remember the resistance to the stationing of nuclear equipped : missiles on German territory 20 years ago. : : For these reasons, the indifference and superficiality with which the : Red-Green government has addressed all serious questions and has blundered : into war has shocked and angered many. Another facet of the government has : also been demonstrated in this respect. Gerhard Schr�der, Joschka Fischer, : Defence Minister Rudolf Scharping and Co. are part of a generation of : politicians which has assumed power without an apparent political strategy : and frequently conducts policy without the least political conviction. They : act on the basis of immediate considerations and their future strategy : extends, at best, to the next press conference or talk show. : : Chancellor Schr�der has elevated this type of political improvisation and : dilettantism to the level of programme, when he declared that what was : important was not political content but presentation. A similar lack of any : sort of political imagination is visible in other countries. The latest : development--war in the Balkans--is patent proof of the dangerous : consequences arising from such a policy. : : See Also: : : NATO attack on Serbia has repercussions for Europe as a whole : [31 March 1999] : War dominates the European Union summit in Berlin : [27 March 1999] : : : : Top of page : : : Readers: The WSWS invites your comments. 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