Berlin begs Ottawa to stay past 2009
With its public increasingly unnerved about terrorism and war, Germany implores Canada to stay the course for the greater good
DOUG SAUNDERS
From Friday's Globe and Mail
BERLIN — Stung by a thwarted terrorist attack and facing their own ugly parliamentary debate over the war, German leaders are begging Canada to avoid withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in early 2009 as scheduled.
"I want to say how much we appreciate what Canada is doing. We know that, for instance, about 100,000 Canadian soldiers lie in the European soil, [soldiers] that fought in two world wars begun by Germany. And it was never a question for Canada to defend our common values where it was needed," Eckart von Klaeden, Chancellor Angela Merkel's foreign-policy spokesman, said in an interview yesterday.
"Canada is a really important country as a role model for others. It would have consequences for the whole alliance and for the whole Western world if Canada would leave Afghanistan."
In both Canada and Germany, the Afghan mission faces intense pressure from the public and from opposition parties supporting shaky governments. Germany, like Canada, is in the midst of a debate over the nature of its commitment. But both parties in the German coalition government, the left-wing Social Democrats and the conservative Christian Democrats, have declared that troops should stay for at least 10 years, and the Social Democrats are arguing that the number of troops should be increased.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said recently that Canada's 2,500 troops would not stay beyond the current February, 2009, deadline unless there is a parliamentary mandate, which would probably be impossible in the current minority government.
NATO leaders, meeting in Ottawa yesterday and facing withdrawals from the 37-nation Afghanistan mission by Canada, the Netherlands and several other nations, urged Canada to "stay the course."
In the war-plagued south, the loss of Canada and the Netherlands would leave only Britain and the United States, and NATO would be forced to press other nations, which have so far refused to enter this more intense battle, to send their troops into the line of fire.
This has created an air of crisis in Germany, whose 3,500 troops are mostly engaged in non-combat work securing the relatively peaceful north of Afghanistan.
Christian Schmidt, the German secretary of state for defence, said in an interview that Germany would not consider sending its troops south, beyond 100 special-forces soldiers and a fleet of Tornado aircraft that are supporting the U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom mission there, and suggested that Canada is damaging the solidarity of the NATO mission.
"The ideal should be, you go in together, you go out together, mission accomplished and we're leaving. ... I think it would be the best to go out together, but I appreciate very much and I estimate very highly the commitment of Canada as it is today."
Germany on Wednesday arrested three men and is seeking about a dozen other suspects after breaking up an alleged Islamist terrorist plot that sought to explode huge bombs outside U.S.-linked military installations near Frankfurt. Such strikes could become prevalent if the NATO coalition was seen to be weak and divided, German officials said.
"I think we are only successful if we stand together, and if the terrorists would identify Germany as the weakest link in NATO's chain, I think this would increase the probability of such attacks. So standing together is really very, very important," Mr. von Klaeden said.
The German parliament will vote during the next three months on a series of bills that would extend the country's military commitment in Afghanistan, which expires before the end of this year. While both the conservative and left-wing parties in the coalition government are likely to support an extension of the NATO mission in northern Afghanistan, they are deeply divided over the country's other commitments and the details of the arrangement.
The debate in Berlin is strikingly similar to the one unfolding in Ottawa. The German public is generally opposed to the mission, with 65 per cent of voters supporting an immediate withdrawal.
And the left-leaning Social Democrats may be poised to vote against Germany's contribution to the U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom mission, which is largely indistinguishable from the NATO operation but is more active in the south. They will hold a party convention later this month to decide their position. The party has been losing voters to the Left Party, made of former East German Communists and far-left former Social Democrats, because it is the only party backing a complete withdrawal.
Rainer Arnold, the Social Democrat defence spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that his party would back a troop increase if the generals wanted it, and that they are largely supporting the German non-combat role in the north, but that it may need to be examined.
"I think our main responsibility is to find a better understanding of why it is that Germany has decided to maintain its strong position in the north," he said. "It's the same question I was confronted with recently in Kabul from the Canadian generals, asking why we can't send a strong army to the south."
Mr. Arnold said that Germany would likely be considering an immediate withdrawal if it were facing the number of deaths that Canada has been enduring. Since the war's outset in 2001, 21 German soldiers and three policemen have died, compared with 70 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat.
"It's a very difficult position the Canadians are in, especially given the smallness of their army and the very difficult situation in the south and the high number of victims," Mr. Arnold said. "If we had these kind of figures in Germany, I don't know if the German population and politicians would support the mandate."
The military's role
The role of the German military has been severely restricted since the adoption of a new constitution in 1949 after its Second World War defeat.
Under Germany's constitution, known as its Basic Law, the military's role is strictly defensive. Constitutional court rulings in the 1990s, however, expanded the definition of "defensive" beyond protecting Germany's borders to include guarding the security of Germany anywhere in the world. Before that change, the German military mostly helped out in times of natural disaster.
Around the same time that the military role was changed, the courts also made it clear that a specific resolution of parliament, which describes the details of the mission and limits its term, is required to send German troops outside the territory of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
