Posted on 02/10/2005 6:22:14 PM PST by Cornpone
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Luxembourg on the last day of her current tour, but German commentators continue to argue about just what her visit has meant. On Thursday, they seem to agree that nothing much has changed. Also, one paper provides 10 rules for mainstream parties to help fuel the popularity of Germany's far right. And just what, exactly, happened in Dresden 60 years ago?
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday. United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Europe has already spurred German commentators to spill great lakes of ink. But that doesn't stop them from taking one more longing look at trans-Atlantic relations on Thursday. Besides, aside from the traditional Ash Wednesday speeches made by leading German politicians -- most of which turned out to be relatively ho-hum -- there isn't much else for editorialists to turn to on Thursday.
And one of Germany's most influential papers, the weekly heavy-weight Die Zeit hasn't yet had a chance to chime in on the state of European-US relations. A wide-ranging, front-page editorial on Thursday, however, does just that. The paper takes as a starting point the assumption that, despite recent attempts on both sides to thaw the frosty air, the trans-ocean Cold War partnership is completely dead. "There is no way back to the Cold War unity born out of fate....The old enemy doesn't exist anymore and the (Cold) War generation has almost completely disappeared from political life. The remaining reflex -- the instinct of trust -- disappeared, at the latest, during the Iraq War." The result, writes the paper, is that the current rapprochement is based much more on realpolitik necessity than a deep-seated sense of partnership.
The problem, though, as the paper points out, is that there are a number of crises around the world whose solutions require Western unity. Solutions, "however, require not just smiles and handshakes, but diplomatic virtues like a sense for the correct tone and empathy for the position of the other side -- and a real readiness for compromise. The desire to heed these virtues is the test as to whether...the new partnership will last."
The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is likewise skeptical as to whether Rice's whirlwind European trip will actually change a thing. Despite Washington's current "politics of smiles," there is no indication that either side has changed foreign policy courses. Indeed, the current improved trans-Atlantic climate appears based on vague agreements to work more closely together in the future. But: "To base a new chapter on that may change the style of the (recent relationship) a bit. But it is only interesting because one doesn't yet know if that was already the end (of the improvement.)"
Similar arguments are to be found in both the left-leaning Die Tageszeitung -- "Politically, Rice hasn't moved one inch from those positions that led to the gulf between Europe and the United States in the first place" -- and the financial daily Handelsblatt: "The words (of Rice) now have to be filled with content. The USA must prove that it in fact take Europe seriously. The EU must show that the new costume as 'Global Players' really fits. Until now it has seemed a bit oversized."
Turning away from the rocky road being traveled by Europe and the US, the center-left daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung takes a look on Thursday at the bumbling attempts German politicians have been making lately to deal with the growing political presence of the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). The piece sarcastically posits that there are ten simple rules that mainstream politicians must adhere to in order to help the far right-wing gain legitimacy -- all of which German politicians have recently been following. The highlights:
1. One has to call as often as possible for a ban of the party. 2. One has to avoid addressing the state of democratic culture in schools, in local politics and on the streets. 3. The middle-of-the-road parties have to accuse each other of being responsible for the electoral successes of the right wing. 4. In discussing Middle East politics, one should compare the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as often as possible with the treatment of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis. 5. One should badmouth Germany as much as possible and leave the task of expressing a vision for the country to the far right.
Finally, the conservative paper Die Welt anticipates the flurry of coverage Sunday's 60th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden is likely to receive. A two-page spread by the historian Joerg Friedrich, entitled "The Mongol Storm from the West," looks at the Dresden bombing and the bombing of Hiroshima as the beginnings of the Cold War standoff between two powers possessed of incredible powers of destruction. Friedrich follows his usual line of argumentation concerning Dresden, presenting the bombing as a massacre of innocent civilians with no military rationale whatsoever. The problem with his thesis? Most historians recognize that at the time of the Dresden bombing on Feb. 13, 1945, the city was an important transportation hub for the German army trying desperately to resist the advances of the Soviet army from the East and played host to a number of factories important to the last-ditch military effort. As historian Frederick Taylor, author of the recently published book "Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945," told SPIEGEL INTERNATIONAL, Friedrich's book on the bombing is "not generally admired by professional historians for anything other than its literary style."
If you didn't get it the first time, rerun season's coming up.
Five of the ten "simple rules" are listed. What happebed to the other five "simple rules"? What this piece "cut and paste" and some left out? It's seems chopped up.
Just curious about the other five simple rules. I really was reading it and was interested.
They just weren't in the article....sorry.
Pompous Nazi bastards. It's time to send them all on the Dachau tour again.
As for Dresden, I like to think of it as a non-nuclear demonstration to Uncle Joe Stalin and the Red Army of what strategic bombing could do to them if the need arose.
(One should badmouth Germany as much as possible and leave the task of expressing a vision for the country to the far right. )
Do leftist citizens ever love their own country?
I'm beginning to suspect that the chattering classes in Europe have bloviated so much about some theoretical appreciation of power, i.e. multilateralism, "soft" power, the "third way," etc, etc, that they don't recognized the real thing when it is standing before them in a modest black suit and a string of pearls. One hopes their statesmen are smarter.
If the far right, nationalists, that is, express hope, energy, enthusiams and a way out of trouble for GERMANY, then I can understandy why GERMANS listen to the party of the right. "Right" and "far right" doesn't mean Hitler, Nazis and Fascism," though we Americans have been long inculcated to hate the Germans for those 13 years of its entire existence/hitory as a country and people. We have been indoctrinated to hate and mistrust them both backwards and forwards in all of time.
When the choice is left, center or right, the Germans will never be correct. This country, its media, Hollywood and everyone in between will bash Germany. It can't win with us. So, in the end, Germany has to do what is best for Germany. You watch the responses to what I say here. Lol. Watch how Germany is bashed, mistrusted and so on. WWII started 66 years ago, but for Americans it was yesterday, ONLY regarding the Germans, of course, NOT regarding the Japanese, Italians or USSR.
Also, it's my read that it seems as if being leftist is subscribing to an extremely negative point of view about government, religion, economics....just everything.
Karl Marx's theory was illogical even to me when I was a young liberal know-it-all of twenty. As I grew older I saw how little of reality and knowledge of human nature is involved with the entire idea of communism. It's an idiot's way to think and live and doesn't have anything to do with reality.
The leftist Democrats of today seemed to have turned away from the enthusiam, energy and optimism of the JFK brand of Democratism. The GOP seems to energize the country with enthusiasm, energy and hope.
Truth is, Gingrich's Contract with America turned things around and has become GOP policy (transcending the personal...the true test of its value). Those tenets were so good that even Clinton and the Dems adopted them.
With good things happening to us, we can indulge in old fashioned energy, enthusiasm, pride-in-America and hope.
There is nothing wrong with standing tall in the world. It's SO WUNNERFUL to be able to do that.
With foreign naysayers, and I have met NONE so far, I would say one or two of my favorite Zell Miller lines:
1. "George W. Bush may not be a slick talker but he's a straight shooter."
2. And, "He's the same man on Saturday night that he is on Sunday morning."
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