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AmSpecBlog
Worse than Useless: Germans in Afghanistan
Remember those times someone has offered to "help" and you've said no thanks. It's about gotten to that point with the German military in Afghanistan. My friend Josh Foust offers an unsparing critique of what the largest European member of NATO brings to the security table:
On November 6, 2007, a group of Afghan militants exploded a bomb at a sugar factory in Baghlan Province while visiting members of the Afghan parliament and a local school were on a tour. Nearly eighty people died, including dozens of children and six parliamentarians, making it one of the deadliest insurgent attacks of the war. Five months later, in March of 2008, the German KSK had located the man they believed responsible for the attack. As they closed in to capture him, his security forces spotted them and the man escaped. While the KSK could have shot and killed the militant commander, they did not-Germany's rules of engagement did not permit them to do so.
The incident in Baghlan, and Germany's inability to manage its aftermath, is part of a years-long pattern of mismanagement and confusing command decisions by the German Army in Northern Afghanistan. Responsible for nine provinces, the German Army has faced growing criticism of its refusal to participate in combat over the last few years, and its latest action-calling in an air strike in Kunduz that is reported to have killed dozens or more civilians siphoning fuel from a hijacked truck-has drawn sharp condemnation from the international community.
Some of these incidents boggle the mind. In 2005, for example, a local German unit refused for hours to assist an Alternative Livelihoods crew that had been struck by an IED in Badakhstan Province. Even though some of the men were bleeding out onto the road, it was dusk and therefore deemed too dangerous to mount a rescue operation. After much hectoring from the UN and the U.S. they eventually reached the stricken men.
If NATO can't act as an effective back-up to the U.S. in Afghanistan, it isn't clear what value the organization has for America. The alliance certainly doesn't advance U.S. interests in Europe, where Americans get to defend Europeans, who prefer to fund their welfare states than their militaries, against largely phantom threats.
Comments
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Kevin, Meath| 9.9.09 @ 5:33AM
Spent a pleasant hour this summer in Menorca this summer sharing a pint with an ex-sapper, he was minus an arm with a huge scar across his bald head, souvenier from Afganistan. It appears that some members of Nato are supporting the USA and paying the 'butchers bill'.
Tim| 9.9.09 @ 8:23AM
The Germans are good and brave soldiers but they have a government that has lost its will to fight and their performance as an organization reflects that.
I worked with Germans in the Balkans and they are take-no-shit aggressive patrollers when the leash is off.
So the point about NATO is very valid but German soldiers are quite valiant and professional and they take real risks to carry out missions.
Ammo Guy| 9.9.09 @ 11:00AM
I have a friend who was dragooned into the Wehrmacht in 1945 at the age of 16 and, whenever I see him, he asks how the German soldiers are doing in the field. I don’t have the heart to tell a man in his 80s the truth so I mumble something to the effect that they’re doing just fine when I know they are hobbled by considerations back in das deutsche Vaterland. I wonder what Rommel or Guderian or Manstein or Heinrici or Manteuffel would think.
Reinhard| 9.9.09 @ 1:54PM
Stunning lack of appreciation from two keyboard generals. In fact, Mr. Bandow seems confused as to who is to blame. He cites the Germans in the beginning and blames NATO as a whole as the conclusion. As usual, “analysis” such as this drivel, ignores the fact that German military operations are severely restricted by their constitution and the 4+2 treaty:
"Article 26 [Ban on preparations for war of aggression]
(1) Acts tending to and undertaken with intent to disturb the peaceful relations between nations, especially to prepare for a war of aggression, shall be unconstitutional. They shall be made a criminal offense...."
"ARTICLE 2
The Governments of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic reaffirm their declarations that only peace will emanate from German soil. According to the constitution of the united Germany, acts tending to and undertaken with the intent to disturb the peaceful relations between nations, especially to prepare for aggressive war, are unconstitutional and a punishable offence...."
Restrictions required by the allies as an attempt to eliminate the possibility of the Germans ever again posing a military threat. That is, unless it’s suddenly inconvenient for either NATO or the U.S. as the article implies.
The German military is in a lose-lose situation. If they conform to their limited role they are criticized by nonsense like this article. If their operations become more aggressive they are suddenly bunglers and civilian murderers. No doubt comparisons to WWII are forthcoming.
Finally, the German military presence is not autonomous. Their operations are subject to a layered chain of command comprised of NATO and U.S. leadership. My point is if you use a tool ineffectively, do you blame the tool?
Ammo Guy| 9.9.09 @ 4:07PM
And a dull tool is inherently more dangerous than a sharp one. It’s not a lack of appreciation, but a sorrow that soldiers of any sort are put into a difficult situation with ROEs that are guaranteed to a lead to a “lose-lose” decision point eventually. To see what was once the finest army in the world hamstrung to such a degree is sad and I say that as someone who has worked with the Bundeswehr for almost 30 years – great soldiers, solid feldwebels, and some of the oldest, most seasoned Hauptmanns I’ve ever encountered. C’est la guerre, I suppose.
Fritz| 9.12.09 @ 11:11PM
What a horrible article, the author didn't do ANY research of what the German military is currently doing in Afghanistan: The ROE's have been changed, the Bundeswehr has been in numeros big operations against the Taliban and has inflicted heavy casualites among them.
This article is a load of shit.
Thomas| 9.21.09 @ 7:16PM
At the main German base in Mazar-e-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan, there is a purpose-built nightclub known as the Beach Club Bar where hundreds of camp-bound troops party every Thursday. In a leaked report, German officers branded their troops there “useless cake-eaters,” before a parliamentary report revealed that 3,500 troops had consumed about 1.7 million pints of beer and 90,000 bottles of wine in a year.
In December their reputation suffered another blow when they were branded too fat to fight: a report claimed that 40 per cent of the troops aged 18-29 were overweight, compared with 35 per cent of the civilian population.
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