September 25, 2002
From the desk of Jane Galt:Group Captain Mandrake has the
Group Captain Mandrake has the German point of view on our current tiff from an ardent SDP supporter.
Which brings up some of the emails I've gotten.
People have accused me of hypocritical moralism about the German elections. Listen, if they think the war in Iraq is immoral, and they can't support it, well then, they shouldn't support it. They're a sovereign nation.
But that's not what my interlocutors, particularly the German ones, really want. What they really want is for there to be no costs for refusing to support it.
Allies support each other unconditionally. At the very least, they do what Canada has done and shut up. They do not announce to the public, without consulting or even notifying their allies, that they will block assets to allied military assets in their country. They particularly do not do this for the purposes of grandstanding, when no one has requested the use of those assets.
They do not allow their ministers to compare the heads of allied states to Hitler.
We now know that we cannot trust Germany the way you trust a real ally. They made their choice; they don't want to be part of an American (Anglosphere?) bloc. That's their perfect right. But then you don't get the goodies that come from being part of the American bloc. If Germany wants to be an independant military power, it has to actually do so. We are not going to continuing paying for them to dress up and pretend.
We can argue about who made the split necessary, but ultimately it's irrelevant. The split is now there. Den Beste casts it in terms of honor, but I think of it in terms of trust. We don't trust Germany any more. Her leaders violated our trust. We can't go back to feeling the way we did before, even if we wanted to. The Germans have sent emails saying they feel the same way -- well, I'm sorry about that. But if that's really the case, you shouldn't want to be allied with us.
The funniest letters came from a slightly nutty French guy screaming that I couldn't want Germany to re-arm. The same thing applies. You felt big and powerful when you kicked the US out of the bases in your country. You wanted to stand on your own two feet, without the burden of supporting the US. Well, when push comes to shove, is the US going to protect you from a re-armed Germany? Maybe. Maybe not. Independance has costs as well as benefits.
(Not that I think Germany re-armed is Hitler III. But judging from my email, a lot of French people do.)
The world changed on September 11th for us. Germans who are saying that they're only reacting as they must should remember that we are too. I'm deeply saddened to see our relationship hurt, and I'm worried by what's happening to the world. But I can't turn back the clock, and I won't feel guilty about it. Nor do I want Germans to feel guilty about it. But I don't have much sympathy when they complain that it's really all our fault either.
Posted by Jane Galt at September 25, 2002 12:53 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links"); ?>