Joschka Fischer, former German foreign minister, now with Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, lectures the U.S. on the evils of unilateralism. If only the U.S. would subordinate to the superior teachings of European diplomacy...
...by Atlantic Review on National Review Online's comparisons of Joschka Fischer to Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Joerg finds the magazine's sarcastic remarks over-the-top and unfair. Naturally, Davids Medienkritik is in the midst of the controversy. We are linked in the "ITEMS" section by author Denis Boyles (of sidebar testimonial fame) right before the Goebbels remark. (Denis, you misspelled our blog's name!)
Be sure to check out Joerg's response and weigh-in with your comments. For your reference, here is the article we posted earlier on Joschka.
(Posted by Ray Drake)
(By Ray D.)
Zarqawi eats two 500 pound bombs. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are bleeding profusely. Iraq just put together its elected government. The US Senate rejects a cut and run proposal 93-6. So tell us Joschka, do you still think America lacks the political will to stay the course in Iraq and the Middle East? Keep listening to the doom and gloom, out of touch, indoctrination media that refuses to acknowledge any positive progress and is busily reporting the daily casualty count. Reality may dawn eventually...
UPDATE: Another crushing loss for the cut-and-run, defeat-and-retreat crowd in a vote held by the US House of Representatives. In the meantime, the Taliban continues to suffer mass casualties. The German media and the Joschka's of the world had better not count on defeat for the US just yet...
(By Ray D.)
Many German opponents of the Iraq war believe they were right in 2003 and that they are right now, albeit for somewhat different reasons and the benefit of hindsight. To them, Iraq is a disaster-debacle-quagmire and anyone who disagrees must be either a warmonger or wearing a thick pair of rose-colored glasses. They can't seem to imagine a viewpoint between total doom and total optimism. That lack of nuance is striking for a group of people who pride themselves on the ability to discern the many shades of gray in the world.
No one represents this view more eloquently than Joschka Fischer, Germany's former Foreign Minister. In an essay published by SPIEGEL ONLINE entitled "Tehran's Secret Helper," Fischer lashes at US involvement in Iraq and claims that the reality on the ground is far worse than expected. In so doing, he assumes that offense is the best defense and that those who opposed the war will no longer be required to justify their own positions. Unfortunately for Joschka, there is the ugly question, a counterfactual if you will, of how Iraq and the wider Middle East would have looked today and in the future had Saddam Hussein and his sons remained in power. The moral implications of that potential outcome are something that the ex-minister and his fellow travelers would rather we not think about. He writes:
"After all, since the administration of George W. Bush decided to remove Saddam Hussein from power by war, just about everything went wrong that possibly could have. What is more, the reality in Iraq and the surrounding region far surpassed all negative expectations and fears, and it continues to do so today." (emphasis ours)
It would be ridiculous to claim that all is well in Iraq. But it is equally ridiculous for Mr. Fischer to claim that the reality in Iraq and the surrounding region has "surpassed all negative expectations and fears." How could one interpret Libya's recent surrender of its weapons programs or Syria's retreat from Lebanon as confirmation of our darkest fears for the Middle East? How could one interpret the elections and the formation of an Iraqi government as such? How could one interpret the systematic training and expansion of Iraqi security forces as such?
And whose expectations and fears, exactly, is Mr. Fischer talking about? Let's go back and examine, for a moment, what members of his very own Socialist-Green government predicted before the war:
Claudia Roth (Greens) predicted that an attack on Iraq would unleash a firestorm in the wider Middle East, implying that the entire region could be thrown into a state of war.
Olaf Scholz, Secretary General of the SPD (Schroeder's Social Democratic Party): The war will "likely result in the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people."
Heidi Wieczorek-Zeul (SPD), Minister of Development Aid: She expected "hundreds of thousands of innocent people, civilians, children, women" to become war victims, and she expected two to three million refugees. Like Roth, Zeul also said that the Iraq war would "unleash an unimaginable firestorm" in the region.
Jürgen Trittin (The Greens), Minister for the Environment: "The Ministry of the Environment has several studies, among them UN documents. According to these 40.000 to 200.000 victims of military actions can be expected. (...) We are afraid, that up to 200.000 more people might die from the consequences of a war."
Wolfgang Thierse, President of the German Parliament (SPD): "I think of the millions of people in Baghdad, who will be victims of bombs and rockets."
Not only haven't those expectations been surpassed, they were totally off the mark. There has not been a wider war. There was not and has not been an exodus of millions of refugees. Hundreds-of-thousands or millions have not died. Iraq is on a slow and admittedly painful path to self-rule and democracy. Wouldn't it be nice if Mr. Fischer had the moral courage to admit that members of his own party and government were wrong instead of perpetuating the ridiculous lie that all negative expectations have been surpassed? It seems that our ex-Foreign Minister has a highly selective memory. He continues:
"The question is whether the majority of US citizens were ever really prepared to pay the very high military, political, economic, and moral cost for such an imperial enterprise, and to pay for it over a long period of time. We know today that the answer is "No." But such a negative answer was already to be expected in 2002 and 2003, and would have been the starting point if the actual reason for the war had been placed at the center of the domestic debate in the US. That's why other reasons for going to war were invoked - weapons of mass destruction and international terror - reasons that have quite obviously not held up to reality."
It is interesting to note that Mr. Fischer, who now basks in the glow of hindsight, belonged to a government that itself believed that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD and was dangerously close to building an atomic bomb as late as 2001. Additionally, while Saddam Hussein may not have been closely linked to Al-Qaeda, he did support international terror by awarding the families of Palestinian suicide bombers $25,000. He also ran a government that terrorized, murdered, raped and tortured its own people on a mass scale and invaded two neighbors.
Furthermore, how can Mr. Fischer claim that the American people are unwilling to pay the cost in Iraq? Obviously, many in America have grown dissatisfied with the war and its progress. Many now see the war as a mistake. Perhaps even a majority. But most Americans also believe that it would be wrong to cut and run in Iraq before the country is stabilized. The ups and downs in the polls to which Mr. Fischer refers are very different from the overall willingness of the American people to get the job done and pay the necessary price in Iraq in the long-term. Put another way: Mr. Fischer underestimates the will of the American people to succeed in Iraq at his own peril.
Finally, Mr. Fischer speaks of terrorism:
"And it is here that we encounter a fourth question, that concerning the role of terrorism in Iraq and in the region. The battle against terrorism was one of the main arguments for the war in Iraq, but this argument has transformed into its opposite. If the al-Qaida terror network was on the defensive after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the war in Afghanistan, this situation has been reversed since the war in Iraq. For international jihad terrorism, Iraq has historically taken on the same mobilizing function that the Islamic and national resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan had in the 1980s. Then, it was Pakistan that became the main beneficiary of the Afghan power vacuum; in today's Iraq, that role falls to Iran."
The comparison of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan to the US occupation of Iraq is a striking indicator of Mr. Fischer's finely tuned moral relativism. While the Soviets brought oppression and Communism to Afghanistan, the United States has brought the hope of self-rule and democracy to Iraq and the wider region. The obvious difference seems lost on the former Foreign Minister. Mr. Fischer's claim that Al-Qaeda terrorists have been strengthened by the Iraq conflict is simply not borne out by the facts. Ambushes, car bombings and hit and run attacks are hardly the weapons of an offensive force. Recent reports hardly support the view that Al-Qaeda is growing in strength in Iraq, despite the fact that attacks are up in recent months. Iraqi security forces continue to grow in strength and capability, threatening the very long-term existence of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Additionally, Al-Qaeda has been most active in Afghanistan of late. Does Mr. Fischer also see German involvement there as a recruiting tool for Al-Qaeda? Is it time to pull the Western troops out of Afghanistan to avoid "attracting" more Taliban fighters? Would such a move serve to stabilize the region? Canadians no longer support the mission...couldn't we have foreseen this?
As far as Iran goes, it is true that the Islamic republic is now supporting unrest and insurgent activity in Iraq. But does Mr. Fischer honestly believe that Iran prefers American troops at its doorstep in both Iraq and Afghanistan? Secondly, Iran will only receive long-term benefits from the US presence in Iraq if the US and its allies decide to abandon the country before it has the capacity to defend itself from threats foreign and domestic. This may be what Joschka's friends are hoping for deep down, but no one in American politics with any influence is suggesting such a course of action. Mr. Fischer's opinion of America's conduct of the war seems based entirely on week-to-week opinion polls that show lagging support for the war. This brand of political decision making, based on the ebb and flow of popular sentiment and poll numbers, may be what drove Mr. Fischer politically, but it is not what drives America politically. Not entirely at least.
In closing, Mr. Fischer's all-out paint-it-black offensive seems to be part of a disingenuous political game of "see I told you so." He apparently hopes to exploit waning support of the Iraq war to take back the moral high ground through a campaign of exaggerated negativity and denial of reality. Unfortunately for Mr. Fischer, not everyone has forgotten that his policies would have left Saddam Hussein and his sadistic sons in power for decades to come with little or no hope of democratic change in the region. Not everyone has forgotten that the German government believed that Iraq had WMD and was close to building a nuclear weapon. If anything, Mr. Fischer was Saddam's secret helper, and for that he should be held accountable. The point is not that the current situation in Iraq is all roses. It obviously isn't. The United States and its government have made a number of mistakes and the insurgency continues. The war in Iraq will be a tough slog and people are dying every day. But to say that everything is totally hopeless is just as ridiculous as to say that all is well. It is entirely possible to support the effort to democratize and stabilize Iraq while honestly acknowledging the many problems and mistakes along the way. Of that Mr. Fischer seems completely incapable.
UPDATE: Two 500 pound bombs put an end to al-Zarqawi in Iraq after apparent tips from local Iraqis. Is Al-Qaeda still on the offensive in Iraq now Joschka?
UPDATE #2: The US Senate rejects a cut and run proposal 93-6. Tell me again Joschka how America lacks the political will...say what?
John Rosenthal points to an interesting fact: Tom Koenigs, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative for Afghanistan is a former left wing street fighter from the entourage of Joschka Fischer, ex-foreign minister of Germany.
BTW, Germany's foreign ministry is still home of Joscha Schmierer, another Fischer friend, who in the seventies was leader of one of West Germany's worst communist groups (KBW = Kommunistischer Bund Westdeutschland). Schmierer at the time even had some nice things to say about Cambodian communist leader Pol Pot.
His anti-American rhetoric has mellowed considerably since his KBW days, of course (his analysis of American-European relations even has some clearly pro-American connotations), but, of course again, in his job at Germany's foreign ministry he opposed the U.S. decision to go to war with Saddam's Iraq.
After all, there are some things that will never change...
Hey, this is almost too good to be true:
German spies helped U.S. in Iraq war
German spies in Baghdad helped U.S. warplanes strike at least one target during the 2003 Iraq war despite Berlin's statements it was not involved in the conflict, German media reported on Thursday.
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and NDR television said two agents of Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency remained in Iraq throughout the war, supplying U.S. counterparts with information.
"They gave us direct support. They gave us information for targeting," NDR quoted a former U.S. military official as saying in a preview of a programme to be broadcast later on Thursday. (German report) (For pre-strike and post-strike pics of Mansur on April 7, 2003, check here)
Of course, it is quite unlikely that chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and foreign minister Joschka Fischer didn't know of the BND support for the U.S. Will we now see "Schroeder lied" or "Fischer lied" campaigns in the German media?
Anyway - good job, Gerhard and Joschka!
I suggest a heartfelt "thank you" from President Bush for German chancellor Merkel during her visit this week for the German guidance of American precision bombs in Iraq...
Good old German war qualities are always in demand!
(Hat tip Kevin)
Update: More on the topic...
According to a report by Stern magazine, former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer considers a position as Professor at an American university. Princeton and Harvard are in the running.
Fischer has been a focus point of this blog from it's very start.
I guess they will offer him a chair at the "Joschka Fischer School of Politics"...
Former German Chancellor Schroeder and Foreign Minister Fischer almost completely disappeared from the political radar just a couple of days after Angela Merkel and the Grand coalition of conservatives and social democrats took over the government.
The red-green coalition, which started in 1998 with the promise to change matters for good in Germany, all but failed in every respect.
Schroeder’s failure to lift Germany’s sluggish economic growth to at least average European levels weighs as much as the worsening unemployment figures. Not that a government can do much good for economic growth and job creation in a free market environment– but wasn’t it Schroeder-Fischer’s stated philosophy of close cooperation between government, unions and employer associations that was supposed to create job growth and economic fortunes for the German masses?
Well, it didn’t happen. The much touted fiscal stability, always promised for the very next year by Schroeder’s Finance Minister Eichel, never materialized. It wasn’t until after Schroeder’s retirement that the finance experts of the new government discovered an additional budget deficit to the tune of tens of billions of Euros.
Much ado was made in 1998 about a new era in environmental policies. After all, this – over two decades – was the cornerstone of the green party’s political platform. I guess one could easily agree even with proponents of Environmental Minister Trittin that the major impact of the red-green environmental policy lies in the gradual decline of nuclear energy in Germany and the massive subsidizing of energy from wind mills and solar technology. Why this would benefit the German economy and the German consumer, however, is open to discussion. While other European (and non-European) countries increasingly rely on cheap nuclear energy, Germany under Schroeder has decided to turn to expensive “alternative” energy sources – and to Russian gas. Also, as a result of the green party’s mullah-like opposition to genetic research, Germany now is probably the last place one would consider to start a bio-tech business.
Ray and I created this blog as a reaction to the unfortunate increase of anti-Americanism in the German media. This was paralleled and to a certain extent caused by the anti-American philosophies of Schroeder. During his entire career, Schroeder had turned a cold shoulder to American politics and to American politicians. Pre-1990, as Minister President of the state of Lower Saxony, Schroeder focused on warm relations with communist East Germany. No bad words to be heard from him on the many human rights abuses of the East German “government”. On the contrary, he actively tried to hinder investigations of refugee killings by East German border troops. As Chancellor, Schroeder pushed for a Franco-Allemand alliance to dominate the European Union – in a rather ridiculous attempt to counter American influence on world policy matters.
It is quite telling that Schroeder now wants “to learn English” as one of his post-Chancellor activities. Maybe as a lawyer looking for clients he may develop an interest in the American point of view.
Transatlantic Intelligencer features Matthias Kuentzel's lucid analysis of Germany's Israel-Palestinian policy under the helm of Joschka Fischer.
Excerpts:
...none of the 56 Middle East press releases published by the German Foreign Office between January 2001 and November 2003 contains a single reference to Hamas, Islamic Jihad or Hizbollah. (...)
Astonishingly, the German government has persistently chosen to ignore an element that is all too familiar from Germany's own past: namely, rabid anti-Semitism, such as that which gets continuously expressed by Hamas. It is symptomatic, for instance, that the Hamas Charter has yet to be translated into German. (...)
German foreign policy under the direction of Joschka Fischer has not merely refused to join the battle. It has deliberately turned a blind eye, proceeding as if hating Jews were a normal feature of the Oriental world – like hookahs or mosques. Consequently, the “red-green” government has not treated the militants of Hamas and Islamic Jihad as combatants waging war on Israel. Islamist suicide terror
Continue reading "Germany's Foreign Office: No Mention of Hamas" »
(By Ray Drake)
Germany's most widely read political weekly magazine is "stern," which ranks ahead of both Der Spiegel and Focus with a circulation of around 8 million. That's right, we are talking about the same "stern" that ran the following two covers about "How America Lied to the World" and another depicting a boot draped in an American flag crushing German workers:
Earlier "stern" covers on the United States
It's also the same "stern" that recently ran an incredibly degrading gallery of American stereotypes and published another article on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day comparing Condoleezza Rice to Barney the Dog while labeling her the "voice of her master." It's the same "stern" that called American soldiers involved in the tragic shooting of an Italian agent murderers with absolutely no proof and then quickly back peddled when we at Medienkritik called them on it.
Now stern is doing its part for the Schroeder-Fischer government by publishing propaganda that Michael Moore would be proud of. The subject is Joschka Fischer. The online magazine currently features an interview with the Foreign Minister in which Fischer is practically encouraged to criticize the opposition and is asked totally uncritical questions about his campaign and exercise regimen. We at Medienkritik have never seen this many softball questions in such a short interview, and we have seen a lot of interviews.
But that's not all! Stern is also running another one of its famous photo galleries entitled "Foreign Minister: Now Again for Loving." As you might have guessed, the pictures all depict Fischer in a highly positive, even heroic light.
Stern's Heroic Fischer: The US Media Pro-Government? What About the German Media?
The icing on the cake is yet another article which displays Fischer in heroic pose and begins as follows (emphasis original):
"With a bus tour through the country, the Ober-Green Joschka Fischer wants to turn things around. He fights for Red-Green, for Schroeder and for himself. Within just a few months he has re-invented himself. A report from Fischer's bus.
Fischer is fit. (...) Fischer attacks, but he doesn't injure, he has bite, but he spares himself the malice. He is different from just a few months back. That's how the people like him. That is how he catches them, the person-Fischer. (...)
Since May 22 Fischer is once again Joschka - and Joschka wants to test himself once again. Red-Green without a chance? Fischer is the leading candidate of the Greens, he is their workhorse, everything is built around him, everything depends on him. And he wants to show everyone. With a bus, with a journey, with countless speeches, talks, interviews. "Summer journey" is what the Greens call it. Fischer wants to travel the nation for five and a half weeks. Without a break. Just the length of the journey is a message in itself. This is Fischer's campaign, so they say. He, Joschka, is fighting until election day for government, for his office and for respect. For the Greens, for the SPD for himself and for Gerhard Schroeder. The last upright man at the Red-Green round table."
Gag...choke...cough.
This sort of propaganda sounds like it was written by the former East
German propaganda masters about Comrade Honecker and all of his great
deeds and tireless efforts.
And this campaign is only starting to get hot. Media like stern and SPIEGEL have been lambasting the conservative CDU/CSU and the FDP at every opportunity. Instead of talking about real issues like the economy and Germany's massive unemployment, the left-wing media has been reporting on armpit sweat, Edmund Stoiber's frustration with "the frustrated" in eastern Germany and Guido Westerwelle's campaign bus from 2002, the "Guidomobil". They run photo after photo of infighting, sneering conservatives while portraying Schroeder and Fischer as cool professionals on the comeback trail.
This is all about bias folks, don't be fooled. If the media wanted to find infighting, embarrassing gaffes and problems in Schroeder's camp and blow them out of proportion, they could easily do so. But they won't. They could talk about the years of economic failure of the Schroeder-Fischer government and the misery of Germany's millions of unemployed or about the numerous blatant inconsistencies in recent Schroeder statements on Iran. But they won't.
And it is going to get a lot uglier. Count on it. Many in the German media badly want to help Fischer and Schroeder stay in power and will do so at all costs, even if it means ignoring all journalistic standards and further denigrating the already low standard of German media.
This is all about ideology ladies and gentlemen. Make no mistake...the fun has just begun, so stay tuned until election day...
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