For Years Canada has Outsourced Our Foreign Policy to the U.S. Why Not Let Germany Have a Turn?

If you want to know who is steering Canada's foreign policy look no further than Canada's voting record in the U.N. General Assembly whenever a resolution concerns Israel.

Under our fundamentalist prime minister, Harper, it was no surprise that Canada was blindly loyal to Israel against all comers. Less expected, however, was that the current prime minister would continue on in lockstep with his predecessor.

You don't hear about these votes. They don't make the news. The government doesn't go out of its way to get the word out either. It seems it's not something they want to share with the Canadian public. Fortunately our friend, Alison, at Creekside periodically updates Canada's voting record. It's always the same. The rest of the world versus the U.S., Canada, and a gaggle of "bought and paid for" votes from small island states of the central and south Pacific. Clear away the island state clutter and it's Canada and the country to which we've outsourced our foreign policy, the United States, versus the world.

Maybe it's time we tried something new, something better. Maybe it's time we showed the slightest hint of integrity. Why not outsource our foreign policy to another country, one less Trumpian? Why not Germany?

In the post-war years Germany became a staunch supporter of Israel. Sure, guilt, had a big role in that but it was a relationship that flourished. Recently, however, the Germans seem to have had enough.

The cabinets of both countries traditionally hold a joint meeting once a year, alternating annually between Berlin and Jerusalem. The next German-Israeli intergovernmental consultation had been planned for May, but the Chancellery announced suddenly a few weeks ago that the meeting would be "delayed." The reason provided was the "many international meetings in the scope of the German G-20 presidency."

But that wasn't the real reason. The cancellation was Berlin's way of protesting against Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to legalize illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. That was the first diplomatic affront. A much more significant one took place Tuesday when German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel traveled to Jerusalem, where he planned to meet with the prime minister. Netanyahu , though, cancelled their planned meeting at the last minute.

It's not unlike two friends who have drifted apart over the years. Irritation comes first, but neither has the courage to say so openly. When the conflict does finally erupt, however, it is correspondingly more vitriolic. That's the situation in which Jerusalem and Berlin currently find themselves, and Foreign Minister Gabriel isn't the only one getting increasingly resentful. So too is Chancellor Angela Merkel, who, in a 2008 before the Knesset, declared that solidarity with Israel is an integral part of Germany's raison d'état.

It has long been one of the fundamental convictions of German foreign policy that, given the crimes committed by the Nazis in World War II, the country should hold back in its criticism of Israel. But this axiom no longer holds. One reason is Netanyahu's construction of an increasing number of new settlements in the West Bank, thus imperiling the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. Another is the disquiet in both the Chancellery and the Foreign Ministry over the right-wing Israeli government's harrassment of opposition groups. In addition to fears about the failure of the two-state solution, fears are also mounting about Israel's own democratic culture.

If Germany has slowly, reluctantly reached this point, what's Canada's excuse for still looking the other way?

Could Syria Become the 21st Century Sarajevo?

There were plenty of proxy wars during the Cold War only back then the principals had enough sense to avoid direct clashes. That was then, this is Syria where today we find the rival superpowers circling each other inside the same phone booth.

You could search the world over and never find one place where so many players are gathered as Syria.

First up is the Alawite government of Bashar Assad.

Then there's the original rebels, Syrian Sunnis.

Then we have the Sunni Islamists - the 'moderate' al Nusra, an affiliate of al Qaeda, and the far nastier Islamic State, ISIS.

The United States and its minions have been waging a bombing campaign against ISIS, first in Iraq and later also in Syria. It's been the standard, ineffective "whack a mole" stuff.

Turkey finally got off the fence and began its own air campaign only they're less concerned about ISIS than they are at bombing Syrian Kurds.

The United States was supporting the Syrian rebels with equipment and training until it discovered the rebels were surrendering all that gear to al Nusra and al Qaeda. Can't be having that. So the United States is now supporting Syria's Kurds which is really pissing off Turkey's Erdogan.

Recently three more places have been set at the table of mass mayhem. Here sit Russia, Hezbollah and now Iranian forces all supporting Bashar Assad.  Latest word has it that Iran has not only sent in units of the Revolutionary Guard but also a contingent of warplanes. They seem to be focused mainly on the moderate Syrian rebels but they also take on the Sunni Islamists every now and then.

It's hard to keep track of how many nations are waging air wars in Syria.  There's the Syrian air force, naturally, its strength replenished by replacement aircraft from Russia. There's the US Air Force and the League of Vassals, America's aerial Foreign Legion that, naturally, includes a Canadian contingent plus strike fighters from France, Britain, Australia and other European states plus Jordan and a half-hearted effort from a few Gulf States.

We want to battle ISIS. The other side seems intent mainly on attacking Syrian opposition rebels. The Turks prefer to bomb Syrian Kurds, the very group the US is still supporting. Nobody is bombing Assad, the guy who sparked the original fighting, and, with the Russians riding shotgun, it's hard to imagine the Western coalition going after him any time soon.

Syria, which is almost the same size as the state of Washington (just over twice the size of New Brunswick), suddenly has an awful lot of warplanes buzzing overhead at cross purposes.  The Russians have also introduced their highly lethal  S-300 surface to air missile batteries. Turkey, meanwhile, is clamoring for the US and Germany to reactivate their Patriot missile batteries in support of their NATO partner. Eventually someone may fire one of those things.

The Americans have been snookered by Putin and this is bound to have geopolitical ramifications throughout the Middle East. Will the Saudis and the Egyptians tolerate Shiite Iran's military presence in Syria? Will they pile on?

Could Syria become the Sarajevo of the 21st century, the place where a proxy war becomes a shooting war between the West and Russia? Those expert in these matters warn these eyeball to eyeball confrontations are the sort of situations in which rival powers can back into direct conflicts neither one of them truly wants to initiate.

The Germans Get It. When Will We?

Sixty per cent of Germans believe that capitalism is the cause of poverty and hunger and that real democracy can't be realized under that economic system.  It seems they're not fond of market fundamentalism and neoliberalism.  In fact, they see straight through it.

You might have thought that Germans who live in Europe's economic powerhouse would be true free market capitalists.  You would be wrong.

The survey found that more than 60 percent of Germans believe there is no genuine democracy in their country because industry has too much political influence and that the voice of the voters plays only a subordinate role.

Gee, does any of that sound familiar?

How Germany Made a Killing on the Euro-Crisis

Europe's fiscal crisis has hammered much of the E.U. from Ireland to Britain, Spain, Portugal, France and Greece.  Germany, however, has made out like a bandit.

The collapse of every nation around it made German debt much, much more attractive to investors looking for security.  So much more attractive that Germany saved 41-billion Euros in interest charges.  Sure, Germany put a lot of money into bailouts for countries like Greece but that totalled 599-million Euros to date.

0.6 billion they put out, 41-billion they saved.  That sounds pretty good, doesn't it? 

Europe Remains "A Question of War and Peace"

Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl warns today's crop of European leaders not to forget the lessons of Europe's bloody past.

"The current discussion in Europe and the crisis in Greece mustn't lead us to lose sight of or even question or retreat from the goal of a united Europe," Kohl wrote in a guest commentary published in Germany's best-selling daily, Bild, on Tuesday. 

Kohl repeated his mantra that the euro was about nothing less than preventing war. That view, he argued, still applied despite the decades of peace Europe has enjoyed.
 
"The evil spirits of the past have by no means been banished, they can always return. That means: Europe remains a question of war and peace and the desire for peace remains the driving force behind European integration," wrote Kohl.

He made a swipe at the new generation of European leaders who, unlike him, were born after World War II.

"For those who didn't live through this themselves and who especially now in the crisis are asking what benefits Europe's unity brings, the answer despite the unprecedented European period of peace lasting more than 65 years and despite the problems and difficulties we must still overcome is: peace."

Kohl served as German Chancellor for 16 years, the longest term since Otto von Bismark.   He presided through the end of the Cold War and the reunification of East and West Germany.  Kohl lost a brother in WWII.  He was drafted in the final weeks of the war.

Still Not Sure The World Has Gone Mad?

Well then how 'bout this?   Investors paying a premium to lend money to Germany.  That's right, negative interest.

The auction of six-month German government bills on Monday produced a negative interest rate. Even the Federal Finance Agency, which manages Germany's debt, was astonished. "That has never happened before," said a spokesman.

The average rate amounted to minus 0.01 percent. The auction generated €3.9 billion ($4.9 billion). Demand for the securities was so high that the sale was 1.8 times oversubscribed.

In December, Germany had managed to place paper at a tiny interest rate of 0.001 percent in an auction that was 3.8 times oversubscribed. Germany isn't the first country to receive a premium from investors. Denmark too was recently able to auction bonds for which the government will have to pay back less than it borrowed. 

Now, at minus 0.01%, you still have to hold on to that borrowed money a long, long time before you have to pay nothing back but in any circumstances you'll be paying back less than you borrowed.

Angela Merkel's Fossil Fuel Fondness

In the immediate wake of the Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown, German Chancellor Angela Merkel sprung into action, rescinding her decision to extend the operation of her own country's nuclear power plants and moving to have them out of operation as quickly as possible.   So just how does the Chancellor plan to ensure her country's energy security?   You guessed it - fossil fuels.

Germany needs to build twice the number of new fossil-fuel power plants than the government previously had earmarked in order to secure energy security while exiting nuclear power, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday, while sticking to ambitious emission-reduction goals.


"If we want to exit nuclear energy and enter renewable energy, for the transition time we need fossil power plants, " Ms. Merkel said in a parliamentary declaration on her government's decision to phase out nuclear power.  "At least 10, more likely 20 gigawatts [of fossil capacity] need to be built in the coming 10 years. " 

That is more than the generation capacity of Belgium, which in 2009 had capacity to generate more than 17.3 gigawatts, according to the Union of the Electricity Industry, a Europe-wide sector group.

...Michael Mueller, from the German Federation for Nature, said the climate targets can't be achieved if the additional fossil-fuel capacity were to be built, pointing to the energy industry's emissions calculations.


The switch-off of the first seven of Germany's 17 nuclear power stations will add some 25 million metric tons a year to the country's carbon-dioxide emissions, the International Energy Agency said in May.

And there you have it, kids.   Even the Iron Chancellor can't have her cake and eat it too.  CO2 it is.   In fairness, however, Germany has had its own nuclear accident - in 1986 when a fuel pebble jammed that resulted in a minor leak of radiation detectable two miles from the plant.   Zowee.

Deutschland Uber Amerika

Why is Germany steamrollering ahead, even despite the woes of the E.U., while America languishes, showing many signs of entering a great decline?   For ordinary Germans and ordinary Americans the differences are as night and day.

Earlier this week I found this fascinating article on AlterNet, Why Germany Has It So Good - and Why America Is Going Down the Drain.   It's an interview with progressive American labour lawyer Thomas Geoghegan, author of Were You Born on the Wrong Continent.  In his book, Geoghegan makes the case that blue and white collar America have a lot to learn from European social democracies, particularly Germany.

According to Geoghegan, "Since 2003, it's not China but Germany, that colossus of European socialism, that has either led the world in export sales or at least been tied for first. Even as we in the United States fall more deeply into the clutches of our foreign creditors -- China foremost among them -- Germany has somehow managed to create a high-wage, unionized economy without shipping all its jobs abroad or creating a massive trade deficit, or any trade deficit at all. And even as the Germans outsell the United States, they manage to take six weeks of vacation every year. They're beating us with one hand tied behind their back."
It's a great interview and well worth a read.   As I was going through it I couldn't help but recall our own Furious Leader, Stephen Harper, who used to denounce Canada as a "northern European welfare state."   Compared to his empty vision of Canada, a northern European model doesn't sound all that bad, not at all.

Germany Throws in the Towel on Climate Change

Germany has given up hope of ever achieving a global consensus to arrest climate change. Yes, you heard right, Angela Merkel has thrown in the towel. From Spiegel Online:

As recently as last December [Chancellor Merkel] said: "If we don't succeed in limiting global warming to 2 degrees, then the costs of the resulting damages will be many times higher than what we now, with a change in our lifestyle, can achieve."

Now it's a different story: Merkel will no longer endeavor to contractually implement the 2-degree target -- in other words, to reach a legally binding agreement with specific reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. She doesn't want to be snubbed again because she has realized that important countries won't lend their support the next time around either. This was confirmed two weeks ago at the nuclear summit in Washington by Chinese President Hu Jintao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Germany now has to acknowledge the limits of its influence. The country's climate policy was an attempt to play a leadership role on the grand stage. But the others didn't follow suit. On paper they praise the objective, but they are not prepared to do more than make vague promises. The only way forward, it seems, is by taking side roads. But even there the Chinese and the Indians won't simply trot along behind the Germans.

On the domestic front, this threatens to bring down the great symbol of Germany's efforts to remodel society in line with a climate-friendly lifestyle and mode of production. If Merkel is no longer fighting on the international stage to achieve the 2-degree target, how does she intend to convince her fellow Germans that they have to change anything? A domestic temperature target would be absurd.

The article suggests that Merkel has given up hope of reaching a binding, global agreement and will instead focus on side deals with individual countries on a variety of approaches. Unfortunately you can't solve a global problem without a global solution. That much we learned when the world got together to tackle CFCs to protect the ozone layer.

Canada Won't Scuttle NATO But America Might

A report in The Times indicates that tempers are flaring among some NATO members in response to angry demands by US defense secretary Robert Gates for them to contribute soldiers to the combat zone of southern Afghanistan.

"An unusually stern letter from Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, to his German counterpart about the role of Germany’s troops in Afghanistan caused anger not just in Berlin but elsewhere in the alliance.

Washington has taken the lead in putting pressure on Nato with a warning that the credibility of the alliance is at stake. But Mr Gates’s latest intervention seems likely to cause more division.

His letter to Franz Josef Jung, the German Defence Minister, went to the heart of the problem that has faced Nato since its mission expanded throughout Afghanistan, and in particular to the southern provinces where the Taleban are concentrated.

German diplomatic sources said the letter from Mr Gates had been harsh, although they would not divulge the contents. Mr Jung replied in similar mode with a “direct and stern” letter to Mr Gates, according to Suddeutsche Zeitung, a German newspaper.

The whole question of burden-sharing in Afghanistan — in particular sharing the burden of combat — is due to come up at Nato’s next summit in Bucharest in April. One Nato diplomat said: “I think Mr Gates’s intervention is more about domestic politics than anything else but sometimes I wonder whether the US realises the negative impact these spats have outside America.”

The Guardian reports that the dispute has gotten so bad that Condoleeza Rice has been dispatched to Europe, "to tackle an escalating row over Nato troop reinforcements for Afghanistan, amid worries that the entire international stabilisation strategy is in danger of failing."

"Conservative MPs are starting to question the wisdom of continuing to support the president [Karzai]. Ministers are braced for another critical report from the Commons international development select committee amid concern that popular support for the war will start to wane, especially as Karzai adopts an increasingly independent view."

NATO is ill-suited to the role in Afghanistan now foisted on it by Washington. It was never intended to be America's Foreign Legion and the grousing of its member states isn't helped at all by the incompetence of the White House and Pentagon leadership. This is a particularly bad time to be asking countries like Germany to make commitments that could serve as obligational precedents when a presidential election looms that could see the United States take a sharply different course in both Iraq and Afghanistan.