Germany debates the role of the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan

In her year-end sermon, the head of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), Bishop Margot Kässmann publicly expressed a concern shared by many Germans when she said that weapons "obviously do not facilitate peace." She also asserted that the war in Afghanistan "cannot be justified." Senior figures in the CDU, Chancellor Angela Merkel's party, dismissed her comments as populism, arguing that "plain pacifism" would not make the world more peaceful.

Seventy-one percent of Germans favor a speedy withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan, according to a recent survey. That number has been growing ever since a US airstrike on Sept. 4, 2009, targeting two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban. The trucks had become stuck in a sandbank while trying to cross the Kunduz River. Colonel Georg Klein, the commander of the German Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Kunduz province, had called in an airstrike by US warplanes. The number of victims remains unknown, though it could be as many as 142. Among them were reportedly four wanted Taliban leaders and dozens of other militants. But civilians were also killed. The political aftershock of the explosions is still reverberating in Berlin.

At issue is the strategy pursued by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) - in particular the problems German politicians and the public have had with their troops' presence in Afghanistan. German Defense Minister Karl Theo­dor zu Guttenberg has described the Bundeswehr deployment as a "war-like situation," a description his predecessor avoided for years.

The civilian casualties caused by the Kunduz bombing led the ISAF commander, US General Stanley McChrystal to sharply criticize his German colleagues. Several ministers among Germany's European allies also jumped into the fray. Franz Josef Jung, defense minister in Berlin at the time, steadfastly claimed that only Taliban had been killed in the strike. On Nov. 27, he resigned his post as labor minister in the new government following the leak of confidential reports which showed that he either must have known about civilian casualties or lacked appropriate oversight of his ministry.

Shortly afterward, Jung's successor Guttenberg fired the chief of staff of the German military, General Wolfgang Schneiderhan, and Peter Wichert, a state secretary in the defense ministry. Guttenberg let it be known that the two officials had withheld reports on the Kunduz bombing from him after he took office in early November. But they dispute Guttenberg's version of events. A parliamentary committee is investigating the matter.

At the root of the political controversy over the air strike lies a deep unease in German society over the role of the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan. Polls show that a majority of Germans do not want their military to be in Afghanistan at all.

But according to German media sources, Klein stated in his report on the bombing: "I decided to deploy air forces to destroy two...hijacked tanker trucks as well as insurgents in the vicinity of the vehicles." The clear implication that the strike involved the targeted killing of militants led opposition parties to ask whether the government was reinterpreting the Bundeswehr's mandate in Afghanistan without consulting parliament.

The worsening threat situation in northern Afghanistan has in fact led to a change in the military rules of engagement for German soldiers. Bundeswehr forces are now permitted to take action to prevent possible attacks and actively pursue their attackers: Before, they were constrained to wait until they were actually under attack before they could use military force; hot pursuit was forbidden. The new rules are still covered by both the UN and the Bundestag mandate for Afghanistan.

The majority of Germans, however, are as deeply concerned as Bishop Kässmann about the latest developments. To avoid getting lost in the fog of war, in which it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between insurgents and civilians, the public wants targeted killings to cease. "War-like" situations and military action provoke uncomfortable feelings in Germans, awakening bad memories of another war.

- Lutz Lichtenberger