On September 4 a US warplane, operating under the orders of a German military colonel, attacked a pair of fuel tankers near a village in Kunduz Province. The ensuing fireball killed over 140 people, mostly civilians.
The strike was not major news in the US, which is after all no stranger to killing enormous numbers of Afghan civilians in an air strike. The report took the nation of Germany by surprise though, as the public had been repeatedly told the military wasn’t really fighting a war in Afghanistan.
The German government attempted to defend the killings, and the increasingly unpopular war, by lying about what really happened, insisting that few if any civilians were killed. The truth eventually came out, however, and last month the chief of the army and Labor Minister (former Defense Minister) Franz Josef Jung both resigned in disgrace.
Now the head of the current Defense Minister, Karl-Theodur zu Guttenberg, may be on the chopping block. Though it was initially assumed that Guttenberg, who didn’t hold a military position at the time of the attack, was as much in the dark as anybody else, it has later come out that Guttenberg knew full well that other officials were lying, and declared the killings “militarily appropriate” even though he knew the evidence showed otherwise.
Though Minister Guttenberg insists he will remain in power, but so did his predecessor Minister Jung. The pressure to resign seems likely to continue mounting, however, particularly as evidence of involvement in the killings and coverup by the KSK, the nation’s secretive commando organization.
A parliamentary system of government makes a big difference. Who in America resigned after the 9/11 failure to shoot down the planes? Who resigned after no WMD were found in Iraq?
1. Please take into consideration that in Northrhine Westfalia there will be an important election that can influence the politics of Germany because of the "Bundesrat"; The "Bundesrat" ist the second parliament for the leaders of the national political regions and they have to confirm common laws given by the Government. The election is important because the "weight" of Northrhine Westfalia in the "Bundesrat" is huge!
2. I should say at first: "Obama: Stop that war in Afghanistan. No more troupes there! In our days we should know, that war never will meet a goal!", written http://www.deutschland-debatte.de/2009/12/15/irak… . The picture on your article of Guttemberg is not his normal way to behave in public.
Ridiculous. Germany has to figure another way to atone for this without sacking people not involved in the mess.
That said, Guttenberg should have been smarter and not accept this position, given Merkel's neo-con tendencies. Nothing good can come out of it and Guttenberg has a great political future. He should have taken some other ministry.