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24 February 2003: "The German government"

Man, I would hate to have to try to defend the Schroeder government's position right about now. The German government will not support military action against Iraq, it says, regardless of the outcome of a second UNSC resolution. Schroeder & Fischer are pretending to have principles, and what's worse, enough of the German electorate believed them.

Now, last time I looked, the German constitution forbade the deployment of German troops abroad for the purposes of fighting a war, unless Germany was called upon to do so under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. So the German government couldn't send troops into Iraq, even if it wanted to; this is what kept them out of the 1991 Gulf War.
But in the 1991 Gulf War, Germany picked a fair chunk of the bill; well hey, it was their oil supply being secured too. But since the introduction of the Euro, Germany has to take into account that there is a limit on its budget deficit. Since this has landed Schroeder in enough trouble already, he'd prefer to avoid having to make a financial contribution to any military action as well.

So the German government's opposition to military action against Iraq is merely a matter of expediency; principle has nothing to do with it. But for some reason, enough German voters bought into the lie.
In the meantime, the German government has said it will ignore the opinion of the Security Council. Well, that's at least against the spirit of the UN Charter; certainly, a government which has said it will ignore the UNSC's opinion has no business being represented on the UNSC, let alone chairing it. If any moral principle were involved, Germany would step down from the Council.

But as I pointed out, moral principle has nothing to do with the policies of the current German government.

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